ETA: I just feel really bad for this horse.
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No, you do not necessarily have more control and honestly things can go wrong much more quickly and much worse when you have two lines and a large open space where the horse can get away from you if they haven’t been introduced correctly to the concept of double lungeing/long lining. Done as shown in the video, it’s a good way to make an already powerful horse prone to explosive behavior more explosive, because he feels trapped and has nowhere to go, with an adult waterskiing on his mouth.
Are you saying that your trainer never lunged the horse on a single line because she felt she didn’t have enough control? What about in a round pen? If so, was he similarly explosive?
I understand you’re angry, and feel like you were screwed over. It’s unlikely anyone will convince you otherwise, and fair enough.
But I implore you, for the sake of what looks like a very sweet horse, to find a different professional to help you with him in his rehab. One familiar with TBs and rehabbing KS horses. Give him a fighting chance.
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The seller sure holds herself out to be an expert on KS, going on long unsolicited public lectures about it without being asked outside the context of individual horse sales.
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I didn’t take a position either way. I was only commenting generally about an agent’s duty. If Jessica took this horse on consignment, she was likely acting as an agent. If she personally purchased the horse to resell, she likely was not. I don’t know which was true and it’s sort of irrelevant to my comment because I was only responding to the general legal statement being made and not as to whether Jessica was or was not an agent in this specific sale.
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While I agree that some of your horse’s reaction in that video was pain-related, I’d wager that any non-KS horse with half a brain would give about 80% of the same reaction due to your “trainer’s” technique.
There’s nothing wrong with double-lining, but there is something very wrong with double-lining your horse in that manner.
Amos, I think at this point this thread has diverged far from the reaction you wanted or hoped for (unanimous pitchforks for Jess, I’m guessing) and it’s heightening your frustration.
How about an update on your horse? What’s he doing at the moment? What’s his day-to-day look like?
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There are a lot of passionate arguments on your post that are only tangentially related to you and your specific horse. Many people are picking sides and getting personal. You’re in a sad situation and don’t deserve a pile on. You happened to purchase your horse from someone who inspires these sorts of arguments. A lot of these replies aren’t even about you…things went left.
Leaving the seller out of this, that lunging video is objectively not fair. Leaning back for leverage the way the trainer is doing is a dirty move. Granted, she didn’t know his medical diagnosis at that point -but even if his back were pristine, that’s an ugly thing to do. Maybe it was initially an instinctive reaction, but she continued he session. She doubled down?
Those methods might get her discipline from a different type of horse, but they just aren’t going to fly with a sensitive, subtly communicative, extra good boy of a thoroughbred. Even if he were pain free.
It’s also not fair to introduce the horse to lunging that way, especially in a big open ring/arena. A horse does not magically understand the goal there. He’s not given any hints about what to do or any reward for doing the right thing here…just pressure or more pressure. He doesn’t come equipped with knowledge about that whip pushing him out and all the ropes yanking on his face. That’s not teaching or training.
You’re horse is trying SO HARD to be kind despite his pain, and his efforts (from his perspective) are being punished.
All you have at this point is his beautiful, eager to please temperament. That’s a treasure. Treating him that way is putting him in a position to be forced to be more…demonstrative. It is putting his temperament at risk.
I understand that you must be exhausted. This trainer was your soft place to land, so the last thing you want to hear in the midst of the avalanche of criticism in this thread is that the trainer isn’t the right fit. Sorry. Get this horse into the right hands for rehab. You can revisit his current trainer later on if you want.
Rehabbing KS is specific work. Anyone kind of qualified to do that would have been waiving KS on those videos. They’d certainly recognize it in person before hopping on. Ideally, a trainer has the humility to say “I’m not the best trainer for this horse right now. I’ll help you find the person who is and bring him or her in, or send you there.”
I appreciate that you’ve been willing to share here. It really is a cautionary tale that could save some people.
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A new thread about him would be fabulous! And @Amos, I’m sure you’ll find such a thread much less… contentious. And very educational for everyone (as long as the poor horse isn’t used as a ski-boat)! It’s not often we get to follow a horse going through KS surgery, and those rads are unique in their severity.
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And yet, you bought him.
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Probably because in one case the horse was getting better day to day because it was being worked in a way that addressed the issues, and in the other case being worked in a way that escalated them.
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I reread this thread to make sure I fully understood the situation; and I wanted to check my reading comprehension:
The buyer bought the horse off of the internet based on the horse’s videos, without ever seeing or riding the horse in person. Buyer’s interaction with the seller was entirely through phone, text and email. Seller cautioned buyer the horse was a pro ride. Buyer was working with a trainer, who agreed to train the horse that she bought, but the trainer didn’t see the horse or watch the videos. So the trainer wasn’t actually consulting on the purchase or helping her find a horse, she had just agreed to train what showed up? The vetting was conducted without the buyer or trainer there. It’s not clear if the horse was even ridden in front of the vet for the PPE? Perhaps it was more of a general physical exam rather than a true PPE?
When the horse arrives at his new home, it becomes abundantly clear that the horse is way more than the buyer or the trainer are capable of dealing with.
Having not being able to recognize pain related behavior in the sale videos, buyer and trainer become aware of pain related behavior once the horse is in their possession.
Do I have all those details correct?
Of all the people culpable in this miserable situation, some posters are still not just placing blame, but ascribing malice and intent to the seller???
What a mess! I would have a lot more sympathy for the buyer, who truly is in a terrible situation, if she hadn’t insisted on taking to social media to demonize the seller.
I have zero sympathy for the trainer after seeing the double lunging.
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Thanks for the catch, I’ll edit.
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Mistakes were made. It’s okay. Crap happens.
Show me a horseman who has never made a mistake and I’ll show you a liar.
I’m not sure why we have to go 1000 rounds over who is more in the wrong when no one was willfully ignorant or deliberately at fault.
The seller got a green horse with what she assumed to be behavioral issues, which seemed plausible given how they improved in a series of videos. The seller sold a horse out of state to a buyer working with a trainer, which she does all the time.
The buyer took a chance on a green TB. She tried to do the right thing and do her due diligence. She found a trainer, she got a PPE, she bought through a “reputable” reseller of OTTBs.
The perfect storm of things went wrong. The horse has physical issues that were missed. The trainer may or may not be the best equipped to handle this.
At the end of the day, the horse has a caring owner invested in treating the physical issues. It sucks for her that her purchase did not work out how she hoped… but unfortunately, that’s horses. This stuff happens to the best of us.
It doesn’t do any good to point fingers or place blame. Learn from it and move on.
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What am I missing? I’ve searched FB, Google and Instagram for where JR has purported to be an expert on KS. This is what I’ve come up with:
I’d hardly call these posts unsolicited public lectures or even a stance as an expert on KS.
Maybe I’ve missed something entirely but I believe there still has to be some accountability on the person who is seeking an expert opinion to find an actual expert opinion. A veterinary technician takes and therefore, sees, hundreds if not thousands of radiographs - no one ever calls them a radiologist or an expert to consult on the radiographs. That is left for the DVM who has the expertise and education. It should be common sense when seeking an expert opinion to seek the person with the credentials and education to be an expert on the matter.
As others have said, the frustration with the buyer should be with the vet who didn’t advise her well. I would still argue that the buyer had a responsibility to push for rads of the back or find a second vet who would approach the horse’s PPE with more thoroughness. You know to do these things when you are experienced enough as a buyer but the buyer chose to buy this horse without guidance. The buyer assumed they were knowledgeable enough to prevent a situation like this. They were wrong.
What is frustrating to me about this is Amos is attempting to damage JR’s hard earned reputation and business over a transaction where the buyer failed to do a thorough PPE. If the buyer did not want to commit to buying a horse with severe spine abnormalities, they should have done radiographs on the back to screen for those things. The buyer did not, therefore, they now own a horse with KS. That is no one’s fault but the buyers and it’s not fair to attempt to tar and feather the seller because the buyer didn’t do their due diligence.
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There are a number of those around here too, and I don’t feel like it’s the same at all. I believe Jessica works mostly with a few trainers and has some idea of their programs. The whaddayagotforsale types can be buying from anywhere.
Poppycock.
She has an OPINION on KS. Lots of people have them. Like elbows, opinions are rampant.
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I’m trying hard to be clear in my statements and not leave anything to implication in this thread, so please continue to ask wherever you’d like clarification. For clarification, my statement is that the lunging technique in that video would have made just about any horse I know very uncomfortable, both physically and mentally, regardless of whether or not they have pre-existing pathology.
There are some areas where we agree completely. For instance:
You are right about all of this. The radiographs are bad, the horse is not comfortable in the videos from Benchmark and we know now why, and two professionals came to different conclusions when witnessing this discomfort. There are no side reins in use in the video of your trainer.
However, we do disagree on some key points as well. Such as:
Having seen the radiographs as well as the Benchmark videos, I don’t believe this horse would present comfortably regardless of the lunging technique. However, I can tell you that 75% of the (currently comfortable in work) horses in my barn would respond similarly to that lunging technique. His presentation in the Benchmark videos, we now know, is due to his pathology. His presentation in the lunging video, to be frank, I believe would be more or less the same at his current stage of education and training regardless of the condition of his back.
She is not. That horse was running around with his chin nearly touching his chest with no slack in the lines. He is not educated enough at this stage in his career to understand that she (presumably) wanted him to push into the contact to stretch his neck. This is not an appropriate way to work that horse at this time - not for training, and certainly not for any form of lameness assessment. Using this style of lunging in this way would make any horse uncomfortable, both physically and mentally, and what we see in that video is not the execution of someone who is well versed in this training method.
He is. There is no slack in those lines. For proof, please refer to the many screenshots above. You do not need side reins to crank a horse up. The horse is trapped by the lines and has no idea how to move forward given his current position.
I suppose, but an educated trainer would never have put this horse, or herself, in the position where “17.3 hands of pure power” is “running from pain and leaping in the air and bucking”. I understand this video was shot to show you the lameness concerns. Frankly, those lameness concerns could have been pointed out to you based on existing Benchmark video alone. Once you saw the radiographs, I doubt you needed to see him bucking to believe they were a problem. Once this trainer had identified she was dealing with pain behaviors, management practices of this horse needed to change. Chief amongst those changes would be not taking him into a large, unrestricted area, compressing his already-painful spine into an unnatural shape, and chasing him until he was reactive enough to “prove” something.
You do have more control with this technique, but used incorrectly (as here) it comes at the expense of the horse. You could also have more control, without resorting to this technique, by choosing to work in a smaller area. You could also have more control by not asking a horse you know is in pain to do it at all.
My understanding is that this video was shot to prove to you that the horse could be explosive, but I could “prove” that using the same techniques with any number of sound horses. This technique takes a prey animal, restricts their movement considerably, and adds pressure. Many, many horses will explode, and it’s not because they have underlying pathology. (To be crystal clear: I am not disagreeing that this horse does have significant pathology. I don’t think anyone is disagreeing about that at this point.)
On a personal note, a friend of mine in another state lost her gelding because a trainer was long-lining him incorrectly. He was sensitive to pressure, reared, flipped, cracked his skull, and died. I’m not saying that long-lining is a sin, because I’ve seen it used to create some beautiful, relaxed work with several horses including my own, but used incorrectly the damage can be extreme. You are doing so much already to protect this lovely horse. This is another area where you are needed.
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“More control” for a fractious horse on the lunge is an overcheck with a bridle or a lunging cavesson. Not putting two lines on and nailing his chin on his chest.
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@Amos, I want to share with you that I, an adult ammy that has been riding every bit of 30 years, accidentally bought a TB, off videos, that was NOT the horse I thought I had bought. At the time, this was my 4th OTTB. When she arrived, my eyes basically got huge and I realized fairly quickly that I had made a mistake. I had an event trainer and a dressage trainer lined up to help me work with her. The event trainer I was working with at the time was right in her prime, and had run multiple horses to the 4* & 5* level - so one would think more than capable of handling a young OTTB mare.
The mare displayed some really dangerous and explosive behavior and frankly I am very lucky that myself, or barn workers, or the trainer, did not get hurt on or around her. I was frankly scared of her, and I knew it was a really bad spot to be in. I also do right by my horses and just felt totally cornered about what to do with her. The event trainer was not terribly helpful and did not seem to know what to do next.
I called on an old trainer I’d worked with who had moved away; who is known for his ability to produce young TBs. He’d competed in several of the OTTB re-training competitions, and had won one of them (can’t remember specific details but this was probably 10+ years ago) I called him and asked if I could send her there. He took her for many months, started for weeks with only ground work / lunging (and I can assure you the lunging did not include long lining- the only equipment he used at the beginning was a rope halter, a lunge line, a helmet and gloves.)
It took several months but he and I were able to ride her safely. I ultimately sold her to a young professional because she was always going to be too much horse and a bit too reactive for me to have fun with.
Obviously your horse has some severe physical issues that my horse thankfully did not. You are trying SO hard to do right by him, and that is beyond commendable- it makes you a literal saint in my book.
While obviously he displays high anxiety and explosive behavior probably primarily from his pain, I suspect he’s not going to be an easy horse to bring back from his surgery. He’ll probably buck and be all manner of a monster. I highly recommend that you find someone who is well-versed in OTTB retraining to continue on as he rehabs from his surgery. My experience taught me that OTTBs really are a breed of their own, and someone who doesn’t have explicit experience with young, high anxiety and explosive OTTBs is not going to do you or your horse any favors. Quite the opposite in fact. This horse doesn’t need straps attached to him at this point in his career, he needs someone that can communicate with him via body language and in a fair (in his mind) and consistent manner. Someone that can get him to relax on a long line; someone that is an expert in ground work.
I would reach out the The Retired Racehorse Project, they may be able to help find a resource near you that is capable of handling him safely.
ETA: I also want you to know that I closely follow Benchmark and I have considered purchasing several of the horses she’s listed over the years. I clearly remember when your horse was listed and drooling over him. I have held off on buying from her simply because her editing and marketing is so over the top I’m hesitant to really trust what I see. Your story has all but sealed the deal that I would not buy from her unless I am able to fly up and see the horse. Thank you for sharing - sorry you are being crucified by some that apparently are so much better at buying horses than others.
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THIS ALL DAY LONG! Hoping this boy gets better and in a good program.
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Pain memory is SUCH a factor. He may indeed be a chill, relaxed horse at his core, but he’s spent a lot of time being asked to work through pain and having to resort to SCREAMING for someone to hear him. Now that someone is finally listening, it’s going to take tact and ice in the veins of his rider to teach him that things aren’t going to hurt. Assuming, of course, that the surgery and rehab successfully rids him of pain (not always the case with KS and related issues).
Unfortunately, I’ve found that once a horse learns to buck/rear/explode, those tools are always in the toolbox. They may not be the first thing the horse goes to, but they will always be there. Especially at the beginning, especially with the sort of pain that spinal and nerve issues cause - sudden “zingers” for no discernible (to the horse) reason.
A good rehab program is going to be ESSENTIAL to this horse. He is large and athletic, which is actually going to work against him for a while, and the rider who could successfully rehab this kind of horse is rather rare.
Kudos to Amos for doing so much to try to get this guy comfortable! I hope it works out. I think the horse is a saint and deserves as much as can be done, the fact that he didn’t turn nasty and try to actively kill someone shows just how generous he is!
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