Figured I’d help by posting something here.
Call Patrick Seaton with any info
12 year old 17hd Black ISH Gelding
Last seen in September at showpark before traveling from LA to New York.
415 797 0186 - patrick seaton
More to the story…
From Facebook and Horseshowspy…
Ok…here goes, try to follow…On Sept 8th 2008, Patrick Seaton, using Ali as his agent and go-between, sent his grand prix mount Good Guinness to Frank Madden to sell. Frank had seen all the footage, and agreed to take the horse ‘on the cuff’ to sell. Patrick decided to send him after winning three CA prixs in ‘08, and he beleived he could sell Good Guinness on the East Coast for a good price as a high jr/ao horse. Ali assured him and encouraged him…So in good faith he loaded his horse on Earl Jaque’s van and he headed to NY. Mixed reviews followed, dissapointing offers, and the fact the horse was being shown in the childrens jumpers was a bit discouraging, but still Patrick trusted the horse was in good hands…Last week Patrick visited WEF to try horses and made a visit to Frank’s barn to discuss sending Good Guinness back to CA. Patrick asked the grooms where Guinness was and they directed Patrick to his stall. THE HORSE BEING SHOWN AS GOOD GUINNESS, IN THE STALL, WITH GUINNESS’S PAPERS/HALTER…WAS/IS NOT GOOD GUINNESS! … Patrick in shock asked where his horse was, and the grooms said that was him, it is not him. Frank said in fact this was the horse that was delivered to him-even though he had told Patrick he had watched all the videos from CA, and this horse is obviously not Good Guinness. Well, now we are on day 3 after the discovery, the police have been notified and the owner of Good Guinness, a prominent attorney, has called the FBI…this is huge…The imposter horse could use Good Guinness’ passport as on paper their markings are similiar…All of us are hoping for a ‘mistake’ . The imposter horse is dark brown unbranded warmblood with a small star and is missing it’s front teeth and has a scar on it’s right hind leg. GOOD GUINNESS is a dark brown Irish horse, unbranded, with a star that has roaney edges, he has a super hind end and can be a bit strong, very careful… if you have any information please post it here anonymously if needed to protect yourself, or contact Patrick Seaton 415-797-0186…
On top of that you wonder who the cute little dark horse belongs too… the “imposter horse”.
sounds to me that Earl Jaque’s would be a good place to start since he had the horse on his van/rig
Always hoping for a good ending.
Is it at all possible that there was another horse on the van, and that GG was offloaded by mistake at another stop along the way or that the person reloading the horse after a possible stop mixed up the halters when reloading for the next leg of the trip?
Can you imagine getting your new horse, only to discover that he jumps much better then the video? Or the flip side, I thought this horse could jump better? What a mess.
That is terrible! i would never even think about making sure the horse you put on the van is the actual horse that arrives at destination. but yeah i guess you have to worry about that. and yeah could you imagine if you bought a nice horse and said wow! this horse jumped way better than when i tried him! yippee!!!
I’m confused.
If Frank knew this horse ‘obviously’ wasn’t GG why didn’t he say something earlier? Like when the horse arrived??
I would check with border authorities…
And see if that trailer made a detour to Mexico before going to the East Coast. I had a friend that a some people attempted to steal his GP appaloosa, got a new passport and everything, to take it to Mexico…
Is there anyway to check with the Mexico equestrian federation or even further SOUTH, see if anyone has recently recorded a NEW GP horse, or has a mediocre horse that is SUDDENLY winning in GP’s?
Also immediately notify the FEI, a horse of that calabre will be noticed by someone. Do air shippers keep photos of the horses being flown? Might even look there for horses leaving the US that match his markings…
The imposter is missing his front teeth??? How the heck did that happen?
[QUOTE=Dispatcher;3936809]
The imposter is missing his front teeth??? How the heck did that happen?[/QUOTE]
:lol:
My 6 year old is missing a front tooth. It just never grew in. We had a school horse missing both fronts when I was a kid that the same thing happened to, didn’t seem to affect him much.
For some reason, I took it to mean all of his front teeth! You would think that would have prompted questions to the agent of any special feeding needs.
And this is why either microchipping or tattooing/branding is so very important. Any paper documents can be reused or forged, and when you are talking about animals as expensive as GG should have been, there is a lot of incentive for bad things to happen. The cross country distance makes the scam/fraud even harder to track back and prosecute.
From the email that I received today, this horse left Patrick’s hands in September 2008. That was 6 months ago and he’s just asking about him now???
Well, that sorta makes sense to me - the horse was sent as a sales horse to the other side of the country and received at the other end in good order, wasn’t till the sales weren’t happening and Patrick Seaton happened to be where the horse was and decided he needed to make a decision that he actually went over and looked. I can sorta see that a brown unbranded horse with a small star might look alike if all you had ever seen was video footage. Granted the teeth might be a giveaway, but still.
Tattoos and microchips and DNA are good, but only if someone checks them. Hope the horse is eventually found and in good health.
[QUOTE=ReSomething;3937168]
Well, that sorta makes sense to me - the horse was sent as a sales horse to the other side of the country and received at the other end in good order, wasn’t till the sales weren’t happening and Patrick Seaton happened to be where the horse was and decided he needed to make a decision that he actually went over and looked. I can sorta see that a brown unbranded horse with a small star might look alike if all you had ever seen was video footage. Granted the teeth might be a giveaway, but still.
Tattoos and microchips and DNA are good, but only if someone checks them. Hope the horse is eventually found and in good health.[/QUOTE]
What I find hardest to believe is that Frank would take ANY horse for 6 MONTHS on the cuff especially since this horse was actively showing. If he’s willing to do that I’ve got a few I could send him :lol:. Seems like there would have been some communication after just a week or two about how the horse wasn’t performing as expected, etc.
just trying to follow…
who is Patrick Seaton in this story ? He’s not the owner I take it, as the story says “owner of Good Guinness, a prominent attorney, has called the FBI…”
And the character named “Ali” is Ali Nilforushian ?
According to results a horse under the GG name has been showing.
It is not uncommon for a trainer to take a horse from another trainer with no fees attached for a higher % commission. Plus if the horse has been showing, I would bet that someone is paying to lease him, at least covering his costs.
As for the video not matching the horse that arrived in ability. How many of us have looked at a video and then went to see the horse, only to find it was NOTHING like in the video? That is easy. Would seem Frank thought he could market him a bit differently and still get him sold.
[QUOTE=LovesHorses;3936201]
From Facebook and Horseshowspy…
Ok…here goes, try to follow…On Sept 8th 2008, Patrick Seaton, using Ali as his agent and go-between, sent his grand prix mount Good Guinness to Frank Madden to sell. Frank had seen all the footage, and agreed to take the horse ‘on the cuff’ to sell. Patrick decided to send him after winning three CA prixs in ‘08, and he beleived he could sell Good Guinness on the East Coast for a good price as a high jr/ao horse. Ali assured him and encouraged him…So in good faith he loaded his horse on Earl Jaque’s van and he headed to NY. Mixed reviews followed, dissapointing offers, and the fact the horse was being shown in the childrens jumpers was a bit discouraging, but still Patrick trusted the horse was in good hands…Last week Patrick visited WEF to try horses and made a visit to Frank’s barn to discuss sending Good Guinness back to CA. Patrick asked the grooms where Guinness was and they directed Patrick to his stall. THE HORSE BEING SHOWN AS GOOD GUINNESS, IN THE STALL, WITH GUINNESS’S PAPERS/HALTER…WAS/IS NOT GOOD GUINNESS! … Patrick in shock asked where his horse was, and the grooms said that was him, it is not him. Frank said in fact this was the horse that was delivered to him-even though he had told Patrick he had watched all the videos from CA, and this horse is obviously not Good Guinness. Well, now we are on day 3 after the discovery, the police have been notified and the owner of Good Guinness, a prominent attorney, has called the FBI…this is huge…The imposter horse could use Good Guinness’ passport as on paper their markings are similiar…All of us are hoping for a ‘mistake’ . The imposter horse is dark brown unbranded warmblood with a small star and is missing it’s front teeth and has a scar on it’s right hind leg. GOOD GUINNESS is a dark brown Irish horse, unbranded, with a star that has roaney edges, he has a super hind end and can be a bit strong, very careful… if you have any information please post it here anonymously if needed to protect yourself, or contact Patrick Seaton 415-797-0186…[/QUOTE]
I was getting group emails about this situation but never got the whole story. The emails I got also had pictures of both horses – I wish I knew how to load pics on this forum
but I’m sure other’s got the same email – it might be helpful if someone posted the
pictures so you can see both horses and possibly ID the imposter horse.
The horse showed last in 2008 on 8/27. According to the time frame in the OP the horse was shipped to NY almost shortly after that show.
Good Guinness next appears in Florida on 1/14/09. So there was a significant gap between the last 2008 date and his/whoever next show ring appearance.
So I’m not sure that your argument that ‘someone is paying to lease him’ covers much of the time frame from 8/27 to the present. Looks like the horse was unemployed for four months out of the six months in question.
This was sent to my Facebook inbox, I will try to link it here: (someone let me know if it doesn’t work)
I still don’t see how this could have gone on for 6 months. If he was a successful Grand Prix horse and then all of a sudden was a Children’s/Adult jumper, that would have been a big red flag for me!
I have had a problem with commercial shippers shipping us the wrong horse before, we had a van bring us a bay mare from quarantine in L.A. when they were supposed to bring us a bay GELDING. Imagine my surprise when she got off the truck! Luckily the owner of the mare didn’t live too far away and was equally as surprised when he went to pick up his “mare!” We were able to get it figured out quickly and actually got to be friends with the other people!
But this doesn’t sound like a mistake to me, this sounds like someone stole the horse, and I would venture to say it is Mexico. Good luck to all that are involved, I am happy to translate this message into Spanish and send it to some South American contacts, if that would help…
