Benchmark Sporthorses?

[AmmyHour926]

Messy situation on all fronts. At the end of the day Amos is an adult who made a decision, albeit a misguided decision. We can argue as an AA re-rider she shouldn’t have purchased that horse, but she’s did. If there was law that said you can’t buy a horse that’s not a good fit for you….well we would have lots of law breakers. Benchmark imho also didn’t do right by the horse either. She’s savvy enough to know he was a ticking time bomb and going to be tricky to place. Horses like him, the longer you have them the more problems you uncover and the higher your liability. That’s why so much of her business model revolves around moving the horses quickly. The best business dealing of the century, definitely not. The worst business dealing, not that either.

Either way I hope the horse can make some sort of recovery. Statistically with that level of remodeling at that age, even with surgery he is likely to have so many other compounding issue that it might never render him comfortable.

[Djones]

And you shouldn’t be coming off the couch after years away from horses and buying a horse from several states away without better guidance.

[vxf111]

The fact that she didn’t somehow notice this horse is pretty plainly in pain suggests that her opinion might not be nearly as informed as she thinks it is. I would expect a professional who sees hundreds of horses a year to watch this horse and notice it’s got a serious problem. If she can’t see that, maybe her eye isn’t so great and she should revisit her conclusion that KS is a nothing burger because she rarely sees horses lame because of it. Because this one was RIGHT there and if we’re giving her the benefit of the doubt, she somehow entirely missed this one. The way this horse goes isn’t a red flag. It’s a whole dumpster full of flags set on fire.

[Djones]

@vxf111

The fact that she didn’t somehow notice this horse is pretty plainly in pain suggests that her opinion might not be nearly as informed as she thinks it is.

I don’t disagree.

Caveat emptor.

[Warmblood1]

If the buyer didn’t want a horse with KS, the buyer should have done rads on the back to eliminate the possibility of KS. It doesn’t matter if the seller believes KS to be problematic or not - it often is and often isn’t. Regardless, the seller is not known to be an expert on KS. They simply sell a lot of horses. This all ultimately falls on the buyer.

[Amos]

For clarification, is your implication that the lunging technique caused the reaction? The radiographs show G4 KS in a very young horse. His presentation was DUE TO HIS PATHOLOGY, not due to any lunging technique used. This is exactly what I am attempting to educate people on. The behavior in Ms. Redman’s videos and the one I posted are NOT DUE TO TRAINING OR TECHNIQUE. This is pain. See it, memorize it, learn from it.

My trainer is very well versed in long lining/double lunging, whatever your preference for terminology. The ENTIRE POINT is that he is NOT cranked up. There are no cinched up side reins. This is HOW HE GOES because he is IN PAIN. Head up like a giraffe, back hollowed, tail like a saddlebred, literally running through the pain. It’s on video under saddle in the sale ads. And hell yes, you are going to brace when you have 17.3 hands of pure power running from pain and leaping all hooves 4-6 ft in the air and bucking well above that. I am not an expert in long lining but I would assume you have more control with this technique than with a single line and this would be optimal when you are lunging an explosive, large, powerful horse.

Within a similar timeframe at their respective barns, Ms. Redman noted (on her own sale ads) and ignored explosive pain. My trainer noted it, informed me, and called the vet out. It is confusing to me that you are criticizing my trainer’s lunging technique but come to Ms Redman’s defense. They are both professionals, both witnessed the same behavior, yet they came to very different conclusions. Only one was correct. Yet the person that came to the correct conclusion is the target of your criticism.

[Amos]

For clarification, Jessica Redman was not acting as an agent. The sale was directly with her.

[KellyS]

ETA: I just feel really bad for this horse.

[barnesthenoble]

@Amos

I am not an expert in long lining but I would assume you have more control with this technique than with a single line and this would be optimal when you are lunging an explosive, large, powerful horse.

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.

[vxf111]

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.

[vxf111]

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.

[Tha_Ridge]

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?

[anonevent]

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.

[fivestrideline]

@Tha_Ridge

How about an update on your horse? What’s he doing at the moment? What’s his day-to-day look like?

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.

[2bayboys]

@Amos

This is HOW HE GOES because he is IN PAIN. Head up like a giraffe, back hollowed, tail like a saddlebred, literally running through the pain. It’s on video under saddle in the sale ads.

And yet, you bought him.

[CBoylen]

@Amos

Within a similar timeframe at their respective barns, Ms. Redman noted (on her own sale ads) and ignored explosive pain. My trainer noted it, informed me, and called the vet out. It is confusing to me that you are criticizing my trainer’s lunging technique but come to Ms Redman’s defense. They are both professionals, both witnessed the same behavior, yet they came to very different conclusions.

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.

[McGurk]

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.

[McGurk]

Thanks for the catch, I’ll edit.

[Texarkana]

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.

[Warmblood1]

@vxf111

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.

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.