Hey Pix, I must have missed this thread. Did the horse ever work out for you? I waded through the thread but never found the conclusion. I had a Tennessee Walker named General Lee when I was in my 20's. Beautiful horse.
When I was a kid, we used to ride our bikes by a house where a guy had two donkeys. One day I went by and there was a "Donkeys For Sale" sign out front. With all my 13 years of wisdom behind me, I ran home, grabbed my savings and walked my new prize home. Her name was Cass. I was all into hiking at that time and my parents farm is about 10 miles from the appalachian trail. My idea was to train her to be a pack animal and go hiking together. Lets just say she had other ideas of just being a pet.

Strangest thing. We went to bed one night with her in perfect health and woke up the next morning and she was dead.