This horse seemed awfully familiar to me - is this the horse from this post?
If it is, it would seem odd to purchase this horse after this long of a hiatus but I can understand why the lameness may have been overlooked. Probably not a home I would have placed this horse in (coming from bad green horse, green rider situations myself) but perhaps not all of the information was disclosed to the seller. I do feel empathetic for both sides and hope for a positive recovery for the horse.
Vet passed the horse. Seller does not veto vet opinion.
Comparing the two, it sure looks like the same horse to me. The context of these previous posts just add another layer of WTF.
Sure looks like the same horse, especially as it came from Benchmark.
Well, if the photos from that post suddenly disappear due to edits we’ll know for sure won’t we? Sure looks like the same horse and the timeframe lines up.
Wow, great memory! Totally appears to be the same horse (17.3 TB, right time frame). An identical face, despite being rather plain.
Yeah I’m not sure who comes out looking worse for that situation - just that there is context that may have been omitted and we may not have the full story on either end. I think there are missteps and regrets on both sides of the transaction. I remember wanting to follow this horse and hoping he had a good outcome. No doubt the buyer and seller felt the same. I’m sad for all.
I think that’s true, even if it is a different horse.
He’s young yet, so hopefully his very attentive new owner has caught the core problem early (it really seems like they are doing everything possible for him!). My experience with KS has been that it is not the only issue 90% of the time - but I found the spinal issues much later than Amos did.
Agreed; I think a lot would depend on knowing how much was divulged to Jess by the new owner re: first horse after a 10 year hiatus, relationship or lackthereof with a trainer, etc. I know there were a lot of dressage folks drooling over this horse when Jess had him and can see how someone would think they were getting a WB mover without the price tag.
Ultimately there were a number of errors in judgment made in this situation and I, too, am sad for all. Jingling hard that he does well after surgery and has a riding career that lives up to his new owner’s hopes.
I have a dressage background myself 
I didn’t say they were right to drool nor did I specify how many of them were so-called “serious” dressage riders.
I know quite a few self-identified dressage riders who don’t necessarily know what they’re looking at and can’t see past what looks like a fancy toe-flinging trot. People who aren’t necessarily educated enough to see the red flags and think they’re getting a fancy mover on a budget.
Even dressage riders aren’t a monolith and they don’t all come with a great eye for biomechanics 
Not that this horse was right off the track but he did seem to move like many of the ones that have huge trots and everyone gets excited about, except that most of them are very tight in their backs so (it seems to me) they just don’t want to canter. I forgive that in a horse right off the track, but a huge stabby trot from a horse that has been OTT for a while isn’t great.
There is a big difference between a horse with a nice, swingy trot that shows a true push from behind over the back, and one that is tight, dropped in the back, and shows the horse just flinging its legs out. It’s a level trot, not one that goes up and over from behind. I don’t think a lot of people’s eyes are trained to see it, though. Loose backs produce really good trots, and this is one reason why the trot can be improved with training and time. No horse coming off the track can be expected to have a loose back, or even the strength to work over its back in the first place- the way they run gives them the opposite sort of muscle development. So, when there is a tight-backed horse with this huge movement that comes from the legs and not the back, I think people see a fancy shape but not the actual mechanics.
Kind of telling with all the interest he gathered on the internet and as long as the seller had him, the person who actually bought him was the one with no professional guidance coming back from a long time away during which KS “became a thing.” I don’t think Jess is a bad person, I think she is in denial and this is a bad look. If she didn’t know he had a history of periodically explosive behavior and didn’t publicly share that she didn’t believe in kissing spines as a reason for said explosive behavior, it would be a different situation.
To go back to my house analogy, it would be a lot like an agent who loudly shares that they don’t believe that termites actually cause houses to fall down selling a house where it was later discovered that there was extensive termite damage. Not great that someone would buy it without a thorough inspection, but also hard to take the word of someone that there were no signs of this problem and thus they disclosed what was appropriate when they share they don’t believe the problem is real.
Can you x-ray in the field (farm) for kissing spine or do you need to ship-in to clinic? TIA
You can X-ray in the field. It’s not the gold standard, and you can’t see far into the lower lumbar or the neck. Sometimes horses can have “close” processes due to posture or lack of fitness that go away when new views are taken. However, extensive kissing spines with remodeling or overlapping processes usually show up in the field, so it’s not a waste of money for someone doing a PPE.
As always, people have to decide their risk tolerance. I don’t care about narrowing or close processes as much, especially on a young or unfit horse. However, I’ll pass immediately on overlapping processes or rads that show demineralization or remodeling - that’s where my line in the sand is.
I am appreciative of this educational thread. I have learned so much.
I’ll assume we aren’t going to hear any more from fourlegs/Amos on this topic.
This would have made me go …hmmm…then why didn’t you?
If wishes were sound horses, beggars would ride and not have astronomical vet bills!
What a bizarre thing for a PPE vet to say. Even if it was the soundest horse he’d ever come across.
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