I’m vetting a lovely horse tomorrow, he’s a 13 year old bigger jumper, and I’m looking to do the 1.20/30 with him. What would you look for in a vetting at this age? Horse seems great without any obvious red flags.
I would take a bunch of xrays and looks for changes specifically in hocks and front feet (and take pictures of anything that doesn’t flex well), since you need one for take off and one for landing. I’d be looking for anything in there that is severe or you vet thinks won’t respond well to standard management like polyg, adequan or injections.
If the horse is currently doing the job you expect of him (1.20/1.30s) your vetting should be a thorough assesment of management needs for your (hopefully) new guy, rather than an older fashioned “pass/fail” approach.
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Tangent - I read the title and thought ‘you can buy a teenager? Why would anyone want to buy one, they are so difficult? I suppose they are good for mowing the lawn and such.’
My brain jumped to human teens, not horse teens.
On the topic at hand I agree with @fourfillies above. Talk to the vet. A good set of X-rays is never a bad thing though. It will give you a baseline for future stuff.
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I agree with fourfillies and trubandloki. If the horse is currently sound and performing at or above the level you are planning to use him for, the PPE should focus on existing issues and how to maintain (as opposed to looking for potential soundness issues).
Some things will inevitably come up with an older horse who has been in work. Arthritis is common, as are navicular changes (my most detested of PPE notes since I think it’s a largely if not completely irrelevant “finding,” especially without older/baseline films to compare to). I’ve sold several horses in the 8-12yo range, and every one of them was a horse that I’d had for a long while and that I would rate as “very sound” on any sort of a soundness scale. All had minor arthritic changes (hocks, fetlocks) and all had “navicular changes.” A couple of them had old bone chips that had gone unnoticed prior to that point that were also flagged in the PPEs.
I have a great PPE vet, however, who is very matter of fact and is great at putting “issues” like those into context. His comments to the buyers was that in the context of a sound horse performing at the intended level, they were things that were good to note and good to have baseline x-rays of, but in his opinion irrelevant to the horse’s soundness and future soundness. In all cases the horses sold and every one of them has remained in full work and sound for the long haul.
I did get an interesting report from one of the buyer’s vets, though. The horse in question was a 9yo holsteiner gelding who was competing successfully in the AO hunters (and had shown through the 1.20). The buyer wanted a horse to carry her around the 3’ hunters (eventually). I had owned the horse since he was 11 months old and he had never taken a lame step (except for one abscess years prior). The PPE findings included minor arthritis in his front fetlocks, an old bone chip in a hind fetlock, and navicular changes. The PPE vet dismissed all as non-issues and that he would “pass” the horse with flying colors. Her vet looked through the x-rays and wrote up a report that said that “it wasn’t a matter of IF the horse would succumb to the PPE findings, but a matter of when.” He went on to add, “you might get 2 months out of the horse before he catastrophically goes lame, or you might get 2 years, or you might get 20 years.”
It was the biggest pile of CYA BS I have ever seen in a vet report. To be fair, I don’t envy the position of a vet where you might be seen as “guaranteeing” the soundness of an animal hell bent on self-destruction. But what he wrote was way over the top.
Fortunately the buyer was reasonable and was working with a great trainer who agreed with the PPE vet that none of the findings were major, and in the context of a sound horse performing at a higher level with a long history of soundness, easily dismissed. As noted above, that was several years ago and the horse has gone on to many wins at WEF and other big shows with a continuation of the same level of soundness as he always displayed here.
My long, rambling point is that things are often noted about older horses. Just remember to put it into the context of the horse’s record of performance. My expectation with an older horse is not a “perfect” PPE, but more of an informational “how do we continue to maintain this horse to the best of our abilities” snapshot.
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I’d add that in a horse that age, doing that job, I would expect to find things in both flexion and xrays…so, for me, it would become a question of degree of wear and tear and balancing that against my hopes for his future job.
Make sure you understand what maintenance he gets, on what schedule, and when the last one was. You’ll need to evaluate how well his current plan is working for him relative to whatever point in his cycle he is. Were his hocks just done 2 weeks ago, or has it been 8 months and he’s “due” at 9?
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Pull blood (and preferably don’t tell them ahead of time you plan to). You want to be sure the horse is performing within USEF drug rules. This advice is for any vetting but since no one mentioned it in this thread, thought it was worth mentioning!
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Thanks for all of the advice guys! Unfortunately passed on the horse because he wasn’t sound in the basic movement exam but I’ll keep all of this in mind. Maybe the next one will also be a teenager! 
I know you passed on this guy, but I also suggest adding neck xrays to the mix. They’re not common to do, but they can tell you A LOT. I wish I had known this before purchasing my teenager!
Me too! LOL. With horses I use the term “aged” not “teenager.”
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Neck AND BACK. For ANY AGE.
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For next time…the single most important thing is has the horse been doing the 1.3m regularly and recently while staying sound on legal meds or no meds. Thats going to answer questions on a middle aged horse while a PPE will only reveal those questions. Current performance. Not " used to" or " was but we don’t have time now" or “he was last fall when kid went to college”. You need them to be doing it now. Obviously this one isn’t and probably hasn’t been doing it recently if your vet stopped at basic movement.
Many older horses are marketed at shows and that’s an excellent place to see several to compare. Neutral Vets are right there too.
Its unlikely an older horse is jumping 1.2 or 3m without some legal meds and supplements and if they aren’t now they will need some in the near future. Always ask what the maintainance regime is and be prepared to carry on with it. Older horses are great and typically well priced in the 11-14 age group.
YES! 100% - it’s on my PPE list for any horse moving forward.
Count me in as well. I’m picturing the mopey adolescent absorbed with her phone. 
Why would you want to purchase one? Teenager to me sounds human, not horse. I guess I just usually say a horse in his teens. Or a 13-year-old gelding, or whatnot. OP glad you found out sooner rather than later about this horse. Good luck in your search.
