Oh, Onyx, be noice! We're also sensitive...
None of our horses have shoes - I took shoes off my boy years ago, when he was still in competition training. There's a few websites around, and if you google barefoot trimmer you'll come across Carola's website - she's in Sth Gipp, but travels everywhere, and just her site alone has heaps of info
DP has been learning to trim using the tools here at home.
Don't allow a vet or farrier to do your horse's teeth - there are dental specialists out there who train specifically in this field, not as a sideline. Teeth are too important to mess around with - it's all they have between their gut and starvation!
Yep, $5k IS a reasonable price to pay for a pony that's well bred and been there, done that. That was beyond our reach, so we went with the cheaper option that I've had some experience in, which won't be the path you can take. That's why I mentioned that if you go with something greener, it will be cheaper to buy and then cost you for training...making the horse about the same cost as a BTDT horse that you can just go on with.
One thing I won't admit to DP (but he already knows!) is that the cheapest part of horses is buying them