What would a soundness guarantee even look like though? All a PPE says is either 1) the horse is sound enough at the time of the PPE for the job the buyer is looking for, or 2) no, the horse is not sound enough at the time of the PPE for the job the buyer is looking for. I’m genuinely curious how you would word a soundness guarantee as a seller if you wouldn’t mind sharing - what vet findings would you as a seller be comfortable putting a soundness guarantee on, and for how long or under what conditions?
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The reality is that most people flipping OTTBs are buying “used” horses sight unseen for $1-3k and trying to sell them within a month or so for $6-8k. It’s a competitive business with thin margins and people are going to be picky with board going up and resale on their minds. And 10% of any group of people are just nuts. If you can’t stay emotionally detached you’ll likely burn out and stop caring about good sales tactics. I’d last 15 or 16 minutes in that business before losing my mind, tops.
No-one I know with a string of true upper level horses is doing that stuff. If they need all that, they need to step down and most riders will do that as early as possible.
The reality is that bad riding, poor fitness and badly fitting tack is what causes most “wear and tear”. If the majority of the work your horse does is well within their fitness level, correct, under a weight appropriate rider in a properly fitted saddle? They’ll get stronger with work so no crazy regimen is needed. A good percentage of the same horses would not have stayed sound at an “easier” job because they are ridden under-muscled and hollow in the back and propping their outside front leg in every corner.
Now chips and other actual injuries are a different story- you can’t ride that to soundness, that’s always a gamble. Even if you do surgery you never know how it’ll come out. Those are “I own my own farm” or “this horse is already a super star, it’s worth the risk” only and that’s going to be a small pool of people.
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I didn’t actually mean to suggest sellers offer a guarantee (some sale barns do, they let you trade in for any reason for another horse for a period of time). I was pointing that out as a rhetorical point that it’s very easy to say “bad vettings don’t predict future unsoundness” when you’re the one washing your hands of the risk of the horse becoming lame.
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@Tha_Ridge I believe did this for a vetting issue she was very certain would not be a problem. Basically if the specific issue caused a soundness problem within however many years, she would refund their money less a prorated lease fee, I think it was? Tagging her.
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Thanks for the clarification - after reading the posted Facebook post, I didn’t come away from it thinking that she was talking about “bad” PPEs and wanting to wash her hands of those findings. I thought she was talking about PPEs with results less than perfect, but still concluding that the horse is in good health to do the job the buyer is looking for, but the buyer declines anyway because they are looking for a “perfect” PPE.
I have never been and never will be in the horse selling business, but I get what she is saying - many buyers today are completely unrealistic when it comes to what they are capable of riding and what the PPE findings should look like.
I did a $$ the whole shebang PPE on a warmblood about 20 years ago and he passed with flying colors. The whole time I owned him he had two pasture injuries (the first of which was two months after I bought him) that required lots of stall rest and up to a year to bring him back into regular work, and also EPM where treatment worked initially but not in the long run.
I have since bought two horses, one an OTTB and one a Quarter Horse; I skipped the PPE in both cases because they were both sound and in work at the time I bought them, and I have not regretted saving that PPE money at all. I’m not suggesting that anyone should forego a PPE, but pointing out that it is a personal decision that could go equally wrong either way because these are horses we are dealing with. But I get why experienced sellers might be frustrated with naive buyers who think a perfect PPE is the be all end all of horse shopping.
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The last two whiny vaguebook posts I’ve seen sellers make have been in response to: 3 year old horse with 90 days under saddle had 3 legs needing OCD surgery per top sports medicine vet who had additional concerns about coffin joints for the age, and one horse that was so bilaterally lame the vet refused to even X-ray anything and said it was just not worth pursuing. Both sellers took to the internet about the unrealistic expectations of buyers and how many upper level horses don’t vet.
She also notes in the comments that most horses have kissing spine and she feels uncomfortable with that being a hard dealbreaker for someone which I get but also I’ve seen so many people struggle to rehab that, who can blame them for not wanting to take on that risk?
Again, I know people who have worked with her who love her and she has a great eye for a horse and lives in a very specific market niche. My personal experience has been that sellers who want to criticize buyers for having unrealistic vetting expectations also themselves have unrealistic expectations about how much risk the average one horse amateur who boards in a high cost of living area is willing or able to take on.
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They were doing all of that and more ten years ago when I was a working student for an UL/BNT eventer in the States. Unless things have changed significantly since I left the care side of the industry, this is still a norm. Adequan/pentosan/Legend and PEMF are some of the most innocuous, noninvasive therapies out there. There’s also other modalities like MagnaWave, chiropracting, reiki/taping, and routine injections. These are not necessarily a sign a horse needs to step down. Eventers are athletes, and being an athlete is hard work on the body. These modalities help.
I’m not sure that is really what other posters are referring to as maintenance to keep a horse sound, though. That’s basic maintenance to me. I think posters are referring more to things that cause arthritic changes or secondary injuries - things like chips and bone spurs, side bone, or old major injuries that will require extensive reinjection or maintenance to keep them comfortably sound.
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I’m guessing she’s talking about kissing spines which she’s decided isn’t a big deal… but that’s easy to say when you’re flipping horses off the track and not stuck holding the bag down the line when they’re in work and the kissing spines DO become a problem. It’s easy to say it’s not an issue when you don’t hold onto horses long enough to ever have it become a problem. Doesn’t mean it isn’t a problem for people down the line.
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I was replying more to the joint injections, special supplements and the general idea that all upper level horses needed constant medical intervention and pain management. That has not been my experience at the half dozen true upper level places I’ve been involved in and imho that IS a sign the horse should step down.
There are upper level riders out there who burn horses up instead of making them up for sure. Everyone hates to sell a horse to those people and it’s pretty easy to know who they are if you’re around for a while.
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People have been saying that like it’s news since I started riding over 40 years ago. Every post on this thread is almost word for word the arguments made during the navicular scare of the 1980s or the OCD panic of the 1990s. There were articles in every magazine about how WBs xrays just looked like that and people needed to get over themselves and buy the damn horse.
The bottom line is that most people are buying a horse to ride it, they can’t afford more than one and it’s their money.
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Absolutely, buyers should schedule PPEs for whatever they are comfortable with, and sellers have to understand that buyers are 100% entitled to schedule whatever PPE they want to schedule and are 100% within their rights to make any decision based on the results of that PPE.
I have no experience with kissing spine but I completely understand that being a huge deal breaker for lots of buyers.
The bottom line is that horses totally suck in a lot of ways for both buyers and sellers, but neither can exist without the other, so some kind of relationship has to exist among them. How that relationship happens in any given transaction is between that particular buyer and seller. If this particular seller is off-putting for any particular buyers, they can go buy elsewhere.
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YES
We don’t fully understand the impact or methods of maintaining (for example) kissing spines yet. We don’t know how it all connects to ECVM all the other “new” spinal column related issues. I have a KS horse - he’s not currently sound and may take TONS of maintenance to get to flatwork sound if anything. I don’t blame buyers for being cautious, just like I wouldn’t have blamed them for being cautious about OCD and navicular especially before we knew more about those issues.
Anyways, I think as with anything there’s a middle ground. However, I also think that it’s all fine and dandy to extol the potential of your horses with less than perfect vettings when you don’t have to pay for their keep for 20 years, but it doesn’t endear your program to me.
Edited for spelling
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Not to mention - as @beowulf mentioned, there’s “serviceably sound”. There’s also tightness coming off the track that needs to be dealt with.
When you’re showing a video of a horse and describe it as “sound” but the horse is visibly off, that triggers the biggest eye roll in me. Especially when the seller is experienced enough to KNOW that horse is not sound. Makes me question everything else in the ad.
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YEP. I passed on two for this reason alone recently. One had “100% SOUND!!1!1!!” on a clearly off in front horse (probably bilateral and probably just poor hoof care but still). The other was “sound” but clearly tight and fussy enough up front (while being held in a cranked “frame” straight off the track) to make me think the weirdness behind wasn’t just my eye.
That’s worse to me than being honest that the horse is tracky and you can’t keep a shoe on him because his feet are shelly but you’re doing XYZ to work on that.
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You can’t keep a shoe on him because his feet are shelly
My description has always been it’s like trying to nail into shredded wheat.
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THIS RIGHT HERE is what bothers me MOST about the sellers that b*tch on social media. In my area, which is a high cost of living area, board + shoes + 2x annual vaccinations & teeth will run $15,000 to $20,000 per year if you full board 1 horse plus 1 lesson per week. That is a huge amount of disposable income for most people. Huge.
If you are a one horse ammy owner, all your eggs are in one basket. If the horse you choose ends up having any type of chronic, limiting condition, you are spending so much more in vet bills while also kissing all your dreams and aspirations aside. It is soul crushing. Ask me how I know!
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Just my experience again: UL eventers are held together with duct tape and zip ties. Literally and figuratively. The whole kitchen sink of (legal) therapies is thrown at them. I don’t think it’s nefarious - there’s very few horses capable of galloping a 5*, it’s a physically demanding road to the ULs, and when you get one to that level, you do everything you can to keep them from falling apart – which is almost a physical necessity by the herculean effort the ULs ask of these horses.
It’s just like racing. It’s so physically demanding that if you aren’t upping your therapy game, you’ll be behind the curve and without a horse. I love hearing that in your part of the world the horses don’t need that, but I don’t think that’s the industry standard.
Going back to the reason the thread was bumped - I don’t wonder if Jessica (and other sellers) makes these posts for the algorithm. Negativity breeds engagement and a polarizing, almost-rude rant about a broad base of people is going to draw in a lot of comments, engagement, and visibility.
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The other consideration when buying a horse with a dicey vetting is your prospect of selling if you need to, which is especially important if the horse is very green and you’re not sure what it will be like to ride or whether it will be suitable for your goals.
The horse I bought from Jessica had some major racing-related arthritic changes and she even said she was surprised I went forward with the purchase because the vet was so discouraging. (She also said that that practice is notorious for tough PPEs and practically never recommending purchase.) When it became clear it wasn’t a good match, I was screwed because good luck selling or even giving away a randomly explosive pro ride who has potentially major future soundness limitations and is unmarketable due to bad X-rays…
It’s sort of a vicious cycle because as long as other buyers prioritize clean X-rays, there’s a big risk in taking on a horse with questionable X-rays, unless you’re sure you’ll never have to or want to sell. With my most recent purchase (Hanoverian imported 2 years ago from Germany) I felt comfortable buying off video because he vetted well and was reasonably priced enough that I could almost certainly have resold at a profit if we weren’t a good match.
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I feel this way too.
Look, maybe buyers are being short sighted and missing out on great horses. But it’s their money and their future at stake and it irks me that sellers can’t see that. If the horse is so great and this buyer is being dumb, someone else will snatch the horse up ASAP, right? So as a seller, what are you complaining about? If you’re right and you have this amazing horse then it’ll sell.
I don’t really think that’s where these seller complaints are coming from. I think the real root cause is that sellers have their own financial interest as a priority (fair enough) and they therefore cannot or will not empathize with the buyer. Some people who sell on volume just can’t or won’t grapple with the reality of what it’s like to be someone who only has the finances or the wherewithal to have one horse at a time and/or someone who is emotionally attached to his/her horse.
To a flipper, if it doesn’t work out it’s like “oh well, on to the next.” To many buyers, if it’s doesn’t work out its financially or emotionally devastating.
Why isn’t it reasonable for a buyer to be risk averse? That’s all we’re talking about here. Rick aversion. How much risk is reasonable. Maybe buyers are erring on the side of being cautious but why shouldn’t they be? They’re the ones with so much more at stake here.
I have a KS horse. I was lucky enough that the ligament snipping surgery worked. I love him and wouldn’t trade him for the world. I am lucky to have him. I bought him before KS was widely diagnosed (he’s aged) and as a 3 year old. I didn’t x-ray his back as part of the PPE. In a way, it’s lucky I didn’t. He’s a GEM.
But what’s wrong with me if I don’t want to buy another horse with x-rays showing close spinal processes (even if the horse is sound and pain free at the time of the PPE). I’m the one who has to hold my breath wondering if it’s going to become an issue. I am the one who has to pay to treat if it does. I am the one whose riding, training, and showing plans get derailed. I am the one who has to retire or euthanize if I can’t get the horse sound. The minute I sign on the dotted line I buy ALL THE RISK, and with the PPE showing the KS it’s going to be excluded from insurance.
Yes, maybe the KS never ripens into anything and I passed on a suitable horse. But I don’t know that in the moment when I am making a buying decision. I’m sure I have passed on suitable horses for other reasons before. That’s life.
In the case of fresh OTTBs, these aren’t made show horses with a track record of being ridden and staying sound. Largely they’re young horses with limited riding and we don’t know whether those x-rays are a nothingburger or whether the horse will develop back pain in work. We just don’t know. Buying a green off the track TB is a risky proposition in any set of events but adding onto that bad films that at best limit resale ability if the horse doesn’t work out for some unrelated reason OR that at worst turn out to be prognosticators of an actual problem makes it a SUPER risky proposition for the average buyer. Buying a made show horse with iffy films is a completely different proposition than buying a dime a dozen young TB off the track with those same films.
If a seller really understands the market, that seller has to understand where buyers are coming from,. That means understanding why it’s not crazy or buyers being overly sensitive to walk away from a clinical x-ray finding of a pretty devastating possible veterinary issues that is not well understood and that is difficult to treat. A lot of buyers would be IRRESPONSIBLE to buy this, given their abilities and resources.
I know it’s hard to lose a sale, but the lack of empathy really gets me. Unless you’re going to put your money where your mouth is and indemnify my risk, you don’t get to tell me how much risk is or is not unreasonable for me to take.
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She is now long since retired but I did know a woman who flipped OTTBs on a smallish level. She’d get 3-4 at a time, if they sold immediately at a minor markup-- super. If not she’d train and compete them a little and then sell them for more. When a couple sold she’d get a couple more so she always had a few in the mix at different levels of experience.
She only bought big and pretty. Period. She would buy “not so talented” but never small or funny looking. Because she knew big and pretty sold. She was an eventer but would buy one that seemed like it could do hunters or dressage too, because she had local shows close enough to dabble in that too.
She probably sold 15-20ish per year like that.
If something really bad, totally unexpected, and very hard to predict the outcome of the finding came up in a PPE, she would let the seller bring the horse back at any time in the future if it didn’t remain sound. They wouldn’t get a refund or another horse, but she would take back and retire one that came through her and had an expectedly bad PPE. She didn’t do that for one with a little arthritis or something very immediate and fixable-- but if there was a huge huge question mark finding, she would let the buyer know the horse could always come back.
I always respected that.
People didn’t take her up on it that often. In the 4-5 years we were in touch it happened twice, I think? The first time the horse was a deal quiet doobie and she placed it as a therapy horse. The second time was a super talented but pretty challenging horse and she just kept and retired him.
That’s someone who empathizes with buyers. Not a smart business plan, frankly, but she understood what it was like to have limited resources and get emotionally invested.
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