Get more opinions before deciding one way or the other. I trim a huge Saddlebred/Clydesdale cross with severe articular and nonarticular ringbone - his pasterns look like they’re full of golf balls. This big guy is totally sound for moderate trail riding as long as he gets joint injections. He is barefoot and has been barefoot most of his life. He’s also on oral joint supplements and gets a gram of bute here or there on a sore day.
A safe horse you can TRUST to not kill you on a trail is worth a LOT. Even the cost of joint injections, in my opinion. But then I own, and have owned, horses with medical issues and it just doesn’t bother me. Any horse is going to have SOMETHING. I’d rather it be something that is medically manageable than something mental/behavioral.
And seriously - a vet who diagnoses a horse as “won’t stay sound” due to “low ringbone” without the benefit of radiographs? That’s absurd. That vet has no way to know what kind of damage there is without radiographs. Low ringbone is ossification within the DIP joint. That cannot be seen without radiographs.
How the heck did this vet manage to diagnose this when the horse is sound and obviously doesn’t have disfigured pasterns or you would have noticed it??? Get another opinion. Seriously.
The draft cross I trim has the scariest radiographs I’ve personally seen but you sure wouldn’t know it as he and his owner are galloping across a field. No, he cannot be stalled, and no he cannot do tight turns. Big deal!
And I wouldn’t let thin soles scare you away either. There are plenty of options. And while Drafts due tend to have a flatter, thinner sole (in my experience), you can use things like Durasole and Sole Guard in lieu of shoes, or in combination with it. Very easy, and affordable. And not all Drafts have gargantuan sized feet, so depending on the size, you may be able to buy hoof boots to fit him so you don’t have to keep him shod.
If it were me, and I really really liked this horse, I’d use this as a major negotiating tool with the owner, and I’d go for it. But that’s just one opinion.
Just yesterday I was at a dressage show and was introduced to a lovely 25 yr old mare with hind pasterns and fetlocks that look like they were run over by a mac truck. They’re 3x their normal size, and full of lumps and growths. The joints are mostly fused, and the horse’s ligament and tendon tissue has mostly calcified. This horse does First level dressage, and even won her division yesterday! She’s on 24/7 turnout and she does fine for the work her owner wants her to do.
