This! Horses are individuals. Just like humans, they are not perfect creatures straight out of womb. I, too, hate the term pass/fail—the best vets take everything into account: purchase price, the job the horse will be asked to do, and the client’s risk-tolerance.
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Buyer: Totally not a red flag. In a normal market 6 months isn’t atypical. Between COVID and a super hot market, I know several people who have been looking for upwards of a year. I also know several serious buyers who have passed on multiple horses after PPE. Some horses really do fail a PPE. Examples that comes to mind: advanced navicular changes, suspected soft tissue injury, neurological symptoms, flexing more than 1/5 on a joint that wasn’t a ‘known problem’ and disclosed up front. All of those fall in the “seller needs to invest more into diagnostics” category. Maybe the right buyer is still interested but to say there’s no such thing as a fail is silly to me. A horse advertised as a prelim packer who flexes 2/5 in multiple joints has failed a PPE. Sure, there are some overly picky types and difficult buyers, but if the only “red flag” is a long search, I don’t think it is a red flag.
Seller: I’ll give latitude for a long sales timeframe for quirky, disclosed issues, specific parameters around the sale, or a difficult seller personality. If the seller is lovely, super communicative, and is advertising a straightforward, anyone can ride type that “hasn’t sold for some reason”, I’m suspicious. If I found the ad, so did hundreds of other people looking for a straightforward sound horse. Right now a lot of horses are selling within hours or days of listing so if you can’t sell an “easy, sound, ready to show” horse right now, I think you should be prepared to have skeptical prospective buyers.
I’ve passed on a few PPEs where I later heard through the grapevine that the seller labeled me as picky or “not serious”. Sometimes buyers are “picky” because they don’t want to buy obvious issues. Two horses I passed on ended up with career altering or career ending issues for the exact reason my vet suggested I pass. I’d say that makes me discerning, not picky.
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I’d say given my recent 7 month search, any horse in my area who is for sale over a month has something wrong with it. And as a result of this white hot market, any buyer who can buy in less than a few months has pretty low standards, enough cash to absorb a failure, or got really lucky!
I think 6 months could be a minimum for a buyer with a realistic budget. I had a healthy budget, plenty of experience, no ridiculous requirements pertaining to horse color or very narrow age/height range, and the stats from my recent search were as follows:
113 horses seriously inquired about/seen/test ridden/PPE’d (that’s averaging 4 per week for 7 months)
Of those, one half were written off due to seller issues, such as:
- No reply to inquiry
- Seller phone number not working
- Seller had a bad reputation
- Already sold or no longer for sale
- Seller disappeared after initial contact or sold horse without telling me after I test rode.
- Price not listed - ended up being too high
- Horse out on trial with someone else
The other half were written off due to horse issues:
- Too young/short/poor gaits or poor jump seen on video/in person
- Horse w lots of jumping faults in competition.
- Too heavy/too slow for eventing
- Rearer, stopper, spooky or other training issues seen on video/test ride
- Physical issues or lame in video or on test ride
- Failed vet assessment of videos or previous rads before PPE
- Failed actual PPE
In the end I PPE’d 5 horses, and only one had issues small enough that I could ignore them. I bought her sight unseen right away and had her shipped from the east coast - she’s great.
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Exactly. The horses who I passed on at PPE were a) obviously lame on PPE day b) had kissing spines c) cervical arthritis d) bilateral stifle malformation. Aside from A I suppose I could have taken a gamble on the other three but two of them were showing issues that could already be attributable to pain. If that makes me too picky, let me tell you how much I enjoyed spending over $11,000 on vettings and gas over 7 months.
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I dont care how long a horse has been for sale or how long a buyer has been looking. And I dont want to listen to a lengthy personal saga from either side at an initial sales appointment. Thats why I started using a known and trusted agent, sift thru most of that nonsense and drama.
There are many circumstances that might have a horse advertised for a long tine, professional barns might have everything on a sales list, breeders have to sell, sometimes seller never updates websites. It happens. Sometimes horse sells but comes back, maybe doesnt work out, maybe buyer is forced to sell it back due to job loss or similar, maybe buyer never finished paying it it was a repo. Doesnt really automatically mean anything.
Likewise with buyers but in their case reasons might be personal and nobodys business. None of my business, really, As was said upthread, who keeps track of every buyer /sellers activity over a year or more?
But the more elaborate and detailed the tale of woe either buyer or seller voluntarily spins, without being asked? The more skeptical and less interested in dealing with them I get.
Long time Salespeople of everything from cars, boats, airplanes to real estate will say “Buyers are liars” and my own experience has taught me the only bigger liars then buyers are sellers. Be warned time frame has nothing to do with this axiom.
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Wow that is quite a breakdown! I couldn’t imagine keeping up the energy for that long on that extensive of a search, you are tenacious!
You should see the spreadsheet. But what was the alternative? Give up? 
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Then there are other circumstances — I’ve had a very nice young warmblood I advertised before being started at 3. Started in fall and all stellar. However, my numerous health issues and the damage our farm suffered from some violent storms with straight line winds put a real crimp in my ability to continue riding her consistently. So after months of seeing doctors and finally getting things straightened out - with one more to go - and the weather improving (I can’t handle the cold) - I should finally get an under saddle video in the next few weeks. I’ve had many inquiries as she’s a lovely girl, but without u/s video, it doesn’t progress. So it’s a no-one’s fault really, just the way things are. So there you are –
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<<<I’m just leery of everyone and everything that wants to take my money!!
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