I suspect that, whatever the trainer’s original plan for this horse, when the horse actually arrived she decided to give it at least a quick try at home and see what she had.
Whatever she saw, she may have realized right away that she had a damaged item that could not be returned to the seller.
If she is truly an experienced veteran of the horse world, it would make sense that she would immediately pivot to Plan B.
If the hypothesis is correct that she knew early on about serious problems, she may have decided that she wasn’t spending anything on diagnostics. Just trusting to her own experience and instinct
I don’t know if it is customary for buyers of European imports have some sort of clause to protect them in the case of such an eventuality on arrival. Or if it is the case that once the horse is in transport, the sale is completed and the buyer has no more recourse. It would be hard to contest a European seller’s insistence that the horse was healthy when it left.
Whatever the case for this particular transaction, we seem to know at least part of what she did once she realized that the Horse had a serious problem – of course hypothesizing that she knew.
Because what she did makes absolutely no sense in any other context. There is no point for an experienced trainer to ruin the record of a genuine show jumper. That could’ve been sold in the high-fives, at least, with better riding and a better US record
USEF horse showing is expensive. I don’t know if she or the rider was paying for the shows, but my guess is that it was the rider on some sort of lease. If trainer keeps saying that problems are the rider’s bad riding, then that could lead to endless training sessions to fix – something. But bad riding should be fixable by a good trainer/ instructor.
Eventually the US show rider may have said ‘enough’. Horse is repurposed into the ride for the new ammy in the barn.
And here we are.
All speculation and Hypotheticals, of course.