These forums not only found him but found him fast. They should be thanking the people who did all the work for them, not slamming them.
The horse was MISSING when this was posted. They hadn’t figured out they had him the whole time. He was FOUND by some COTH posters.
Oh for cripe’s sake of course he would have been found. The mystery is why it wasn’t noticed about five and a half months earlier. The agent who put the deal together is at WEF. Patrick didn’t think to call him and say, "Hey go take a peek at my horse and tell me why he can’t get a ribbon in the children’s jumpers.’ Frank didn’t think to ask him to come take a look? The horse didn’t go there under a false name, he went there as Good Guiness, a name even I recognized although I wouldn’t know the horse from Adam’s off ox. He was going to remain Good Guiness and at some point would have crossed paths with someone knowing the ‘real’ Good Guiness. Two horses, one recognizable on sight by people who know him and the other with a recognizable name, had to fly under the radar essentially for the rest of their lives. Not going to happen.
This is exactly why no one would have tried it. It wasn’t going to work. The owners of GG are going to collect the lease fee. Barney makes no money and has embroiled the kid in yet another scandal.
Which brings me to another question. GG was actually in the situation Patrick wanted and even better with some money coming in to the owner. I think he rushed to judgement in yanking the horse out of it’s situation.
Was ‘back barn’ in quotes on Phelps?
[QUOTE=2bayboys;3949967]
From Phelps:
Further, that “these [gossip] forums are the real scandal”. [/QUOTE]
Sorry, but the real scandal is someone losing track of their client’s expensive horse for six months that they entrusted with shipping and getting sold.
I know some have suggested that the trainers involved should have minimal or no blame and to blame the owner for not following up directly. First, when you pay to have someone take care of your horse and to have your horse sold, you are paying that person to follow-up. Second, I’ll bet there would have been plenty of bruised egos and hard feelings if the owner contacted FM directly to ask for proof that their horse arrived safely and that the correct horse arrived. Obviously this wasn’t done as they would have discovered the problem six months ago. Maybe this is will serve as a wake-up call to owners and trainers - for owners to follow-up to ask for proof of such transactions (which is standard practice for most logistics companies) - and for trainers not to get bent out of shape because owners won’t blindly accept a verbal assurance.
Mistakes do happen, and this very well might just be a simple mistake. I would consider a two week mix-up to be a hazard of shipping a horse. Six months of not knowing that the wrong horse ended up being received (especially after what has been reported that way lower than expected offers [even in this market] were being received and signficantly below expected performance was being achieved) rises to the legal standard of… (I won’t render a legal opinion).
Maybe more people in the future will be asking for that one minute of extra work to verify there wasn’t some accidental mix-up. After 3,000 miles, layovers and a week in transit, one minute of work isn’t too much to ask for.
Midge, back barn were the words that MW used to describe where the horse (that later went to Frank Madden’s) was located while the horse was laying over. MW also stated that he didn’t understand why people wouln’t just let this go since “everyone involved” has spoken publicly about it.
However, I have yet to see a direct quote from the shipper explaining what happened. I have seen and heard several versions of what the shipper supposedly did and what he said about it afterward, but all of these accounts have been through the filters of other involved parties. So as far as I’m concerned, that’s hearsay, and it is not admissible in court.
If that quote attributed to MW about the real scandal being the forums is correct, then colour me extremely disappointed.
COTH found that horse fast. I don’t know who those two (or maybe 1) posters were but they knew where the horse was and where the swap occured.
I don’t want to speculate, it’s pointless. I’m glad the mistake was corrected but people are curious so it’s going to be discussed whether the players involved want that or not.
I’d be surprised if the official investigation is truly over though so there may be factual details in the future.
OK, I love a conspiracy theory and am often in awe of the power of the internet.
But COTH didn’t find the horse- someone tipped off about it here, but whoever that was knew the horse, and probably knew other people, and word would have likely gotten to the right people without all of us freaking out and digging up pictures 
Not to downplay the role of the webz in all this, or anything…
If you read the HSS threads where the people looking for him posted they found him through this thread on COTH. They did not know where he was. The people that had him and lost him did not know where he was. A phone call from a post on COTH was what got him back so fast. And they did go get him the moment they read the thread. They were not just happy to have found him, they were so worked up they wanted him back THEN.
I think they would have figured it out eventually, but waiting would have sucked. If an insider or outsider knew where the horse was they felt safe posting it here. I think he was found so fast they might have already known, but it is just as possible they found him through the internet.
Because it really is a new world and the internet has changed everything. There are only so many shows and very few parties involved. It could have happened just like it reads.
Remember, the trainer that sent him away was the one who wanted it on BBs. They are satisfied now and want the speculation to end, but the credit this thread with the quick return of the horse.
amazing, isn’t it?
Some people in our (horse) world manage to keep their heads on straight, walk a straight line and just go about their days decently, which eventually add up to a decent life.
Others just attract trouble. Big trouble, little trouble … or in between trouble.
It sticks to them like lint on black slacks.
(Uh, where is that rolling eyes icon? I miss it!)
A comedy of errors and incompetence!
Wow, this is an amazing story. It definitely does not add up in so many ways…
Can I ask a dumb question? Is that a normal thing to take a Grand Prix horse who’s on consignment and show him in Children’s jumpers? Would they do that keep him busy but not put lots of hard mileage on him?
Horses sold at livestock auctions have these USDA tags with a bar code glued to their butts. Anyone who’s ever tried to remove one knows that they are almost impossible to remove. Why can’t shippers employ something similar to help keep horses straight, besides relying on microchips and halter name plates? It seems like you’d take these precautions with a $200k horse. Do the insurance companies who insure these horses have any say in how they are shipped?
When I shipped a horse from CA to CO last year with a major shipper, I was afraid of these shipper mistakes, so I tagged the horse in several places (mane, tail) with her destination city, address, and buyer’s phone numbers. I also tagged her halter to match. If I’d had a livestock marker, I would have written all this info on the mare herself. Poor thing.
When the hauler arrived, I apologized for the silly tags and for being so paranoid. The woman replied: “No, it happens a lot more often than you think.” And then she went to tell me about two horses this same major shipper mixed up. One ended up going to Hawaii on a ship by mistake!
this one?
:rolleyes:
[QUOTE=Watermark Farm;3950491]
Wow, this is an amazing story. It definitely does not add up in so many ways…
Can I ask a dumb question? Is that a normal thing to take a Grand Prix horse who’s on consignment and show him in Children’s jumpers? Would they do that keep him busy but not put lots of hard mileage on him?
Horses sold at livestock auctions have these USDA tags with a bar code glued to their butts. Anyone who’s ever tried to remove one knows that they are almost impossible to remove. Why can’t shippers employ something similar to help keep horses straight, besides relying on microchips and halter name plates? It seems like you’d take these precautions with a $200k horse. Do the insurance companies who insure these horses have any say in how they are shipped?
When I shipped a horse from CA to CO last year with a major shipper, I was afraid of these shipper mistakes, so I tagged the horse in several places (mane, tail) with her destination city, address, and buyer’s phone numbers. I also tagged her halter to match. If I’d had a livestock marker, I would have written all this info on the mare herself. Poor thing.
When the hauler arrived, I apologized for the silly tags and for being so paranoid. The woman replied: “No, it happens a lot more often than you think.” And then she went to tell me about two horses this same major shipper mixed up. One ended up going to Hawaii on a ship by mistake![/QUOTE]
A ship to HAWAII.:eek: Oh, my God. :no:
McLain Ward has popped up and posted on the board before, you would think he would show up to defend dear old dad’s honor. Oh I forgot, he doesn’t have any…
I can’t believe this is still going, and I do think that this thread helped find GG. But really, who, why, what etc isn’t really our concern, why point fingers when we have no fact or solid proof. Just accept the story, as strange as it is. Be glad the horse was found, and move on. There’s absolutly no need to bad mouth other professionals. How they choose to run their business, sales, horses and so on, is their choice. Not ours.
For Pete’s sake, people, IT IS OVER! Move on, get a life, go ride,do SOMETHING besides concoct BS, and badmouth people you have never met, nor know anything about regarding this situation.
Oh geez, here come the high horses.
If you think the story is over, why are you reading the thread ?
What I read and why is really none of your concern, now, is it?
The rolling eyes emoticon isn’t gone. You can easily make it like this:
: rolleyes :
Remove the spaces and you get this:
:rolleyes:
[QUOTE=lauriep;3950839]
What I read and why is really none of your concern, now, is it?[/QUOTE]
No it’s not. Why do you ask ?
[QUOTE=2bayboys;3950119]
Midge, back barn were the words that MW used to describe where the horse (that later went to Frank Madden’s) was located while the horse was laying over. MW also stated that he didn’t understand why people wouln’t just let this go since “everyone involved” has spoken publicly about it.
However, I have yet to see a direct quote from the shipper explaining what happened. I have seen and heard several versions of what the shipper supposedly did and what he said about it afterward, but all of these accounts have been through the filters of other involved parties. So as far as I’m concerned, that’s hearsay, and it is not admissible in court.[/QUOTE]
I was just wondering why back barn was in quotes in your statement when it wasn’t part of McClain’s quote. (Also probably not admissable in a court of law :rolleyes:) The sales barn I ran had an upper, lower and back barn. No one stayed over in the upper barn.
Since we aren’t a court of law, thank god, we have no reason to expect any statement from anyone. Since the law WAS involved, I am guessing the shipper did make a statement to those who matter in this situation.
Once again, I am astonished this sort of thing doesn’t happen more often. Like losing your luggage at the airport. The luggage is tagged and heck it’s even travelling with you and it ends up in another city. The number of times some shipper has walked up to me in the middle of the night, looking for so-and-so’s stall is endless. Shippers bring horses in (WHY always in the middle of the night?) find the empty stall waiting for them and put the horse in it. Often, no one is there the make sure it is the correct horse or even make sure the horse is healthy from it’s trip. Granted it is often the regular shipper of a big customer and he knows the horses, but just as often, it’s not.
Some of the things posted on this thread indicate a lack of mileage by the posters. That the lack of front teeth is something to be concerned about or even would require a special diet. The first time the teeth were noticed and maybe commented upon is when the groom put on the bridle. The trainer looked and said, ‘Huh.’ and that was the end of that. Missing front teeth is not that rare.
That the groom would somehow know he had the wrong horse and that they surfed the net looking for pictures of their charges, or as a friend said, "
I, too, laughed at the idea that the grooms would realize it was a different horse when the trainers didn’t know. I can just picture one of his guys walking up to Frank and saying, “Hey, Patron, we have the wrong caballo aqui.”
It also seems some people think Barney has been living in a state of suspended animation for the last 25 years. He had not. He has a rather large sale operation that has been very active for all of that time. He sells a lot of horses. It is completely possible he never saw the horse he took in on trade before it stepped off his van.
McClain’s quote also seems to indicate both horses were on the van at the same time and had already enjoyed a layover somewhere else. I am guessing the shipper was planning on dropping the horse at Ward’s then travelling on to Frank’s, but since no one had been checking up on the horse, he figured he’d hang with his friends a day or two. If someone called he could say, I had to stop, but I am on the way and will be at Frank’s in just a couple hours."
Or just click on “More” at the bottom of the “menu” of emoticons.
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