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[RC] Horse Buying - 'Trust Me' - Roger RittenhouseLet me see if I follow this Angie. I am to buy a horse without a vet exam under the assumption there is nothing wrong because he has done a few rides? No matter the price? Buy a pig in a poke? Then if something is found later on that prevents the horse from competing I am to suck it up take my losses and get another horse. Or spend lots of money keeping him going with vet bills and joint injections etc.. I am not to protect my investment , to preclude 'marking' a horse that is shown to have problems. Dont quite get this one. I guess then I have 'marked' a few horses over the past 3 years.. but if a horse trots off lame with a flexion test and x-rays show DJD, WHY would I want it? Would you take it? The horse in MT did just that. Then you would never sell a horse to a rider who actually wanted to do a pre-purchase exam? Just take your word for it - 'there is nothing wrong with this horse" - yeah sure going to do that .. Need not worry about that - I would NEVER buy a horse from you or anyone who would NOT agree to a vet exam.. including x-rays. I sort of like my horses to be at least sound?? Maybe that is the problem buying a horse local or from someone you know? So according to your logic I am to keep this horse not say anything about the exam. Just to not 'mark' a horse or offend a rider? BULLSHIT.. you want to pay for him and let me ride him? Or better yet you buy him and ride him to prove that I was wrong..? Not a risk I want to take Lot more money involved here then I can afford to loose. I am sure this horse can do a number of rides .. but how many for how many years.? I do not care to find out. Nor is it fair to the horse to use him with known issues.. at least I would not.. one thing to not know of issues.. but when I have evidence, I choose not to use the horse. I even asked what course of corrective action would help. I wanted to try and fix the problem. No corrective action was recommended. This is one good horse - I am really broken up over this loss to me and the owner, but its the way it is .. I not going to invest major money in a horse that has problems I do not want to live with and cannot correct and hope it does not affect his longevity. That is a major issue. Some problems like shoeing and way of going can be worked with and lived with. . some you cant. So how should I have handled this? Just take him home and not say anything? Riders asked 'how is the new horse'? He went home. Why?.. not suppose to say he failed the PP VC? Not much I can do about it and your suggestions that I took the wrong action with a PP vet exam is bullshit... your comments below are typical... -- Roger mailto:roger@xxxxxxxxxxx From: rides2far@xxxxxxxx Subject: [RC] Horse Buying Here's my problem with vet exams. Look at that owner. They had a horse and were doing just fine, so fine that somebody wanted it. They agreed to sell, and horse "failed" exam. Horse is now "marked". I took Kaboot to probably the same vet Roger uses, (who I think a *lot* of) and he pointed out to me that "this horse is not built to hold up in endurance" and made a comment about his knees. Heck, I'd never noticed anything about his knees. I said, "He's got 800 miles and just did a 100" and he said, "Nevermind". He ended up with 3000 and no knee problems ever. I know Val said if she'd ever seen Jedi's x-rays *before* she bought him she wouldn't have touched him. That would have cost her the win in the WEC which was the "biggest equestrian event in history" I sold a mare once that was about 5 and the vet at UT said she had the beginnings of arthritis in her rear ankles so the lady returned her. Of course, then she was "marked". I sold her as a pleasure horse for less money. 5 years later I bought her back and at age 10 she did the Tennessee 50 miler and as far as I know never had a problem in her life with rear ankles. Equus did a study once where they took x-rays of horses to look for navicular wear. Then they followed the horses careers to see which ones actually showed lameness later. They found there was NO correlation between which ones they'd diagnosed as having "navicular problems" and which ones eventually showed lameness. The horse I found for Bekki Crippen I suppose "failed" his prepurchase exam. He had very limited flexation in the front fetlocks but did not trot off lame from the flex. Heck, one of the winningest horses around carrying a heavyweight a few years ago had limited flexation in the fetlocks and we're going to go a lot easier than that on him. His stifles were "loose" but he was very underweight and the muscles were wasted away. If he lasts 5 years he was worth $10,000 as far as I'm concerned. Rode with him yesterday and he's a slick beauty with no stifle problem and just powers up the hills, ears up and happy. I can understand not wanting to buy a horse once a vet points out a problem, but I'm kinda careful about what problems I let them point out to me. If it were an ex race horse I'd like the coffin bone x-rayed, and I like flex tests, but I do not want a vet to tell me what this horse is "predisposed to" etc. etc. Too many "Ifs". If I had a horse for sale, I'd be very hesitant to tell someone about it who I knew was really in to extremely thorough vet checks because I wouldn't want my horse "labeled". Luckily, the horse doesn't hear the results and usually continues to compete and complete oblivious to the label. :-) Angie =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Ridecamp is a service of Endurance Net, http://www.endurance.net. Information, Policy, Disclaimer: http://www.endurance.net/Ridecamp Subscribe/Unsubscribe http://www.endurance.net/ridecamp/logon.asp Ride Long and Ride Safe!! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
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