lol!! I have to actually laugh because I did exactly that. Bought the most expensive horse in my barn(I don’t pay a ton but still low-5 figures) after literally seeing him standing in cross-ties. Yes, I rode him and could definitely feel that he was not sound. I negotiated his price down to about half of what they were asking. And mentally prepared myself to bear the burden of this horse if I couldn’t get him right. I estimated to have about a solid year with him before he might have to retire to trails or whatever. We are now going into our 5th year together! We have had various set backs along the way but nothing that seems to hold this guy back! He is 17 and just keeps chugging along. I will say though, that I bought him to be a low-amateur jumper, or at least Adults and we have never actually made it there. We stay tooling around the low-adults and I’ve accepted that and can honestly say that he is so worth every penny I’ve spent on him! Maybe this will be the year we move up but even if we don’t, I really don’t care! He is a gem. Sometimes, you just have to go for it and listen to your gut.
I forgot to add that I knew the vet that had been working on him before I bought him so after I picked him up and was headed home, I called him to ask what I should know!! He actually groaned!!lol! We still laugh about it to this day!
My first horse flunked the prepurchase (pretty badly- at 11, he was lame for a week after flexions.) My mom bought him anyway because my trainer had known the horse for years and thought that the issues were manageable- they had been for the last year while the horse was doing what I wanted to do. I had no idea that Mom was looking for a horse for me at the time or I probably would have spoken up. He was lame half the time I had him, for a variety of reasons, but what got him was an aortic rupture out hunting. As is common in those situations, among all the physical issues he had, his cardiac health had been fine!
He was a wonderful horse and I learned a lot from him- not least how to build fitness to support musculoskeletal problems- and I’m sorry to have lost him young. If I had known then what I know now, maybe I could have kept him sounder. Then, though, I didn’t know enough to help him, and the program that had been working to keep him comfortable just wasn’t enough.
Now, with my own money and knowing what I can handle and what I can’t, that’s probably not the horse I would buy.
I’ve never done a PPE. Never had a horse be unsound or have any health problem after I bought them. I have raised most of my riding horses, but have bought 15 or so horses in my 40+ years of horse ownership.
If the horse is sound with a good mind when I try them, I take my chances. They can injure themselves in any number of ways the minute they become mine and obviously a passing PPE doesn’t seem to guarantee much from the experiences on threads here.
I am not spending 5 figures on horses though. Just good minded trail / pleasure riding horses of various breeds.
My situation I purchased a 6 yr old OTTB that was a Trained and Shown Equitation horse donated to a rescue without a ppe, though if I had done a ppe i would probably never had purchased him. He ended up having Navicular with bone degradation at 6. The rescue refused to take him back, but after 6 yrs he has been the most amazing horse ive ever had the pleasure of owning. I purchased him as a Schoolmaster Equitation horse and we have never jumped lol we may never jump, but I have learned a lot from him and enjoy doing anything with him. He is now a Dressage horse that has taught be so much about being a better rider. Sometimes you have to take a risk I don’t think there is a single horse for sale that doesn’t have a problem somewhere otherwise why is someone selling a perfect horse. So a ppe is just to see what you have and if you feel the risk is worth it for that horse. Its gamble sometimes it is, sometimes its not. Nobody can give you a crystal ball and tell you when or if your horse will have problems in the future.
Thank you guys for making me feel better!!
Confession: I just purchased a horse with some questionable x-rays and slight lameness…but he raced for 4 years so I’m hoping some time and good care will help. He’s a nice mover and has an amazing brain, as he demonstrated when the vetting was conducted on a windy, frigid day. Plus, my trial ride was only his second ride off the track and he was so fun that after two turns around the arena I said out loud, “This one is my horse!” So I’m hoping my intuition didn’t lead me astray.
Still, I feel a bit stupid for shelling out for an expensive vetting and then basically disregarding the results. I think I might have felt better just skipping the PPE entirely! I guess I will comfort myself by saying that at least now I know what areas to keep an eye on.
No joke! My now-23-year-old vetted clean when I bought him at 4 except for a chip in his right hock. We negotiated the price down by the cost of arthroscopic surgery. Over the years he had almost every other issue you could imagine… loose stifles, hind suspensory, EPM, annular ligament, bone cyst not in the hock, one traumatic pasture injury that required surgery, etc etc. And despite all that we still made it to Grand Prix! (Though it did take a long time with all those setbacks.) He does get hock injections but no more than most older guys with mileage.
Meanwhile my baby horse vetted clean (granted, as a weanling) and ended up having to be euthanized in Nov for intractable lameness and DSLD. I wasn’t sure then that I’d even want another horse, but here I am! 
Not me personally but I know someone who did. Horse had really bad flexions but they were in love with it so bought it anyways.
Horse bowed a tendon a few days after they bought it. After a few months of rehab the tendon healed beautifully, and as far as I know the horse is healthy, happy, and still being ridden.
On the flexion issue, it seems to have not effected much except that it needs some extra warmup before cantering.
I think PPEs can be really useful but at the same time, sometimes the worst PPE findings show up on horses that can be sound with proper care. I have seen some really horror story PPEs on horses that are sound for heavy work! Sorry about your baby horse 
Confession: I just purchased a horse with some questionable x-rays and slight lameness…but he raced for 4 years so I’m hoping some time and good care will help. He’s a nice mover and has an amazing brain, as he demonstrated when the vetting was conducted on a windy, frigid day.
Oh, hell, this probably wouldn’t scare me either- any horse who raced for 4 years will probably have some clinical findings on his x-rays and I wouldn’t expect them to be sound as a dollar not long off the track either. Enjoy your new horse!
There’s a difference between “failing the PPE”- which depending on your vet could be anything from “had a clinical finding in the exam” to “had multiple findings which raise significant question about the horse’s suitability for purpose”- and having your vet take you by the shoulders and say “Don’t do it!” I figure most horses are going to fall into the former category, and the more they’ve done in their lives, the higher the odds of an interesting finding. You pick the holes you can live with!
Yes. My last horse failed his PPE miserably. My vet loved him from the knees up but from the knees down - hated him and said he would be unsound for me in very short order. I declined to purchase him then (and boy was I upset, cried all the way home) but when his owner called me 2 months later and offered him to me for a rock bottom price, I jumped at the chance. I got a good many years out of him and he taught me many things. What the PPE vet predicted came true and even with the best care and excellent vetting and shoeing, his retirement was inevitable. I don’t and will never regret that purchase. My beloved Shiloh aka Sharpe’s Diamond - RIP 12/28/12.
I’m a going to argue the last part of this. There are horses for sale that don’t have a problem somewhere, they are more rare, but they are out there. People do sell perfect horses for a variety of reasons. I own one that vetted immaculately at 4 years old. He was from someone that breeds/buys, trains, and sells. It’s his business. He will often x-ray/examine the horse before starting it to see what he’s got. He has a strict program and sells these horses because it’s his occupation, so he would sell a perfect horse. I know others with a similar model and find that in here in Europe it is more common for the seller to have the horse vetted before it hits the market.
People also hit hard times, injure themselves, have life changes, lose interest, and that can cause the sale of a very nice horse a clean vetting.
Of course the horse could go lame or experience something catastrophic the next day because horses.
I have bought horses (lower priced and green) without PPE’s. I lucked out twice, and kicked myself for not getting the third one. So I have vetted since, but my purchase price also went up so the financial risk was greater. I also insure my horses/have to so there’s that too.
I’ve just seen many people get burned over the last few years and they wouldn’t have taken on the horse/it’s issues if they would’ve gotten a PPE. That is my personal experience though.
Everyone has their own comfort level when it comes to taking risks, and that’s fine.
Have I ever purchased a horse against my vets advice? Absolutely not. But over the years we’ve bought a number of horses with various degrees of issues that have come up during the vet check.
The PPE is really just a snapshot of the horse on a particular day, and tolerance level of issues depends a lot on the horses intended job for the horse. We had one we bought that was a short-stirrup superstar with a lot of previous mileage in the bigger divisions. Horrendous vet check, fairly rigorous maintenance program required, but probably one of my favourite horses of all time and absolutely worth his weight in gold.
My current horse failed his ppe due to an OCD lesion in his right hock. I bought him anyway after much discussion with my vet. Had surgery the week after I bought him and he’s been sound for the past twelve years! The seller did come down on his price and I took a risk.
My first horse failed his PPE. I was 13 at the time and still wanted him, and my parents were naive. The vet couldn’t fully identify where he was off but he had a pretty nasty looking cut on the heel of one of his back feet and was barefoot. The vet thought it would be a combo of those things.
Honestly, I really regret buying him in some ways. He couldn’t get his right lead for a year, then went lame, was diagnosed with mild navicular and some other random non-diagnosis. We fixed his feet and he was servicably sound for a while but would never have held up to real competition training, which is what I wanted to do. He had a huge heart under saddle and his head was always in it, his body just couldn’t hold up.
I retired him at around 16-17, he’s 20 this year. The cost to maintain him could have gotten me a really nice warmblood by now.
I LOVE my horse. He is my first horse and I’m so happy I had the riding years I had with him, and I love having him around as a pasture pet. But I always wonder what I would have ended up doing if I passed on him. In many ways he has really held back my riding.
My boy’s xrays got the response of “Is he even sound?”
at 4.5 he had some abnormalities in his left hock. Interestingly, in the last 6 years he has more consistently flexed slightly off in the right hind than the left and his actual injuries have been in the RF and entirely unrelated to the hock. Planning to re-xray at some point but so far his fronts still look great so I’m not worried yet.
To be fair, when I did the PPE on him, I had been riding him regularly for 4 months and was confident he had been 100% sound since being in work. I was also at the PPE and able to see the result of his flexions (the only notable thing was the rearing at the end of the jog strip and the cavorting on the way back, his jogging manners haven’t improved much since then, no matter what I do). I’d have been less confident in buying him if I didn’t trust his soundness.
I have bought horses that have had issues show up on the vet check, but I have never bought against my vet’s advice. My vet and I have a pretty good relationship, and I trust her judgement.
I bought an 8-year-old OTTB with questionable x-rays that had “failed” a previous PPE. Now, I had been riding him for his owner for three years already, and that owner had not done a PPE coming off the track.
My vet at the time was also the Canadian show jumping team vet, and he was honest: Could go lame tomorrow, could go on forever. I made a serious low-ball offer. Best decision ever! That horse showed for another 8 years in the A/As with me, going to Canadian indoors three times, never missed a zone year-end award in both hunters and eq. Then I leased him out to kids for a couple years (each time for FAR more than I paid) and at 27 is happily retired and roaring around his field.
That said, when I was shopping for his replacement, I did pass on a three-year-old with questionable x-rays. It wasn’t even backed yet, let alone in work, and when I buy young horses I always consider future re-sale in case it doesn’t work out for the job I want it to do. Bought that horse’s half sister who vetted perfectly instead. Have had her for 10 years now with knock wood no problems.
A PPE is a picture in time, of course.
Yes. He coughed once during the PPE (I had leased him for a year prior and he had never coughed). Vet declared he had heaves and said “pass on him.”
He’s now 30. He has never coughed since. He doesn’t have heaves. He was sound until 20ish and frankly could have kept going in tack except he’s a pony and we ran out of tiny riders.
I think it depends on the horse, the background and the diagnosis. I rode two OTTBs for other owners who sold them. One had a suspensory issue that didn’t become a problem for his new owner. The other I took from the track and motherhood to Novice-level eventing, and a clinician I worked with wanted her for a client. She vetted with navicular changes which dropped her price into the high 4 digit range, yet I’m not sure how the horse did since. She was sound when I rode her, and qualified for First Level regional championships. I think her name was changed.
My super high end vet in TX failed A for sale to MP’s daughter. Yet she has not taken a lame step since with her current rider.
That said, my friend has paid probably ~60K+ in the last 3 years for horses she didn’t PPE, all of whom were under $10K. She spent more in vet bills than the purchase price of 4 horses, and I don’t think she’ll go that route again.
I think the vets can only present you with biological facts, and they may or may not be an issue down the road. I think one can increase their odds of no problems by PPE and purchasing a horse with low odds of obvious problems. But only you can decide what kind of risk you are willing to live with.
Good luck with your new horse! Pictures?
You are totally right, I had not thought of that lol sadly here in the USA perfection is like a unicorn… Europe sounds like it is the best place to purchase quality performance horses.
I have learned a valuable lesson on ppe for purchasing a riding horse, I wouldnt trade my current gelding for the world but I definitely feel like I’ve been held back by him, as until recently I couldnt afford to purchase another horse so now I’m in my 30’s still a novice in Hunter/jumpers lol so I definitely preach the need for ppe. Always seek to get as much info as possible, as every horse is an investment and can be permanent as is my case. I couldnt even give my gelding away now and i know what would more then likely happen to him if I did rehome him. So he will stay with me until death whether that’s by my design or gods lol.
