I’m so confused. A vet examined the horse and told you it’s 12? So why are you certain it’s actuallly 21?
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A 21 y.o. could go on being ridden and sound for years, and a 12 y.o. could fall apart in a year and cost you retirement care for 10 years or more. There are no guarantees.
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I have known horses successfully training to and showing GP Dressage will into their mid 20s. Age alone is not a determiner for a horse breaking down A 20yo horse that has not done much at all can be conditioned and worked for quite some time. You dont have to search far here on the boards to find that life with horses is unkind to some and tragic unexpected losses of the best cared for and beloved horse can end a career ( or life) at 6 16 or 26.
OP there are multiple factors in aging a horse by the teeth, angle alone is not all. I suggest you communicate directly with the owner and ask them why the barn gossip / rail bird/ farrier/ whomever would say such things about this horse.
What does the seller say? I’d probably send the horse back if I was in your shoes as the horse was misrepresented both in terms of age and experience. Do you have proof the horse is 21 vs. 12? Keep in mind that in most areas $2K would not buy you a 12-year old schoolmaster.
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Take a picture of the horse’s teeth and post it here and ask us what age we think he is.
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First, this :
Highly unlikely.
Then wondering why it is stiff…
The horse is out of shape, probably lame (OP wondering if stiffness was caused by old age) and not what you expected regarding training level.
I would send the horse back.
Then, find a trainer that will assist you with the purchase of a suitable horse for your level of riding, knowledge and goals.
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I am confusion, as my kids would say. What vet looked at the horse? Yours? The selleer’s? As long as the vet was unbiased (aka - your vet who is working for you) I think it extremely unlikely they would screw up something as basic as estimating age. And you had the horse in on trial? Well, does he go or not? The horse in front of you is what you bought. It goes “ok-ish” and not horrible in traffic as you were told? Then the rumor mill is likely wrong. $2k is a steal around here for a semi-decent horse. Any schoolmaster would either be older and physically incapable of a high level of performance anymore or expensive and needing a touch of maintenance like Adequan.
But, geeeeeeezzzzz people. Please stop buying horses without doing due dilegence. There’s a thread on here almost every day, “But the seller said it could do x, y, and z and walk to the show office unaccompanied with my credit card and pay his stabling fees!” If you need the horse for something specific, verify for yourself that it can do it! Want to trail ride? Hit the trail for the trial ride. Need a horse that can jump 6’? Don’t just flat it for the trial and assume that it will be able to jump 6’. Go out there and jump 6’. Do it. If the seller tap dances and obfuscates, the horse can’t do what they claimed it could. Simple as that. Watch a couple of the sale videos Brooksby Heights International makes. They exaggerate for comedic effect. But the videos always start with a basic question that they received about the horse and then they go to ridiculously thorough extremes answering. “Is it good in traffic?” They horse went to the grocery store and then carried a rider clad in a chicken costume and holding a live hen through the McDonald’s drive through without batting an eye. So, probably ok in traffic?
I joke that I thought most people were fundimentally honest until I became a farmer. Selling livestock brings out the shady in a lot of folks. Just last night I saw an ad on the community FB page for a horse. Highlights included: Quiet hunter prospect! OTT in 2018 and restarted by amateur! Reduced for quick sale. Has old splint that doesn’t affect him." $1500. Horse looked supremely uncomfortable in the blurry conformation shot. I clicked on the video. Rider could obviously stick a saddle because this was one unhappy horse. On an 18"-2’ course, this poor horse was switching his tail so hard on the landings he must have whacked this chick in the back every time. Hind legs locked out straight over every jump. Went around with his poll so close to her face that I’m surprised she didn’t get her nose broken and the horse stopped several times on course; looking precariously close to rearing. But the best part? Turn up the sound! You could hear this horse roaring clear as day. Even from across an Olympic-sized Derby field with a stiff March wind whistling into the camera microphone. 
The ad text didn’t say anything about the horse roaring. Just an old splint. Hmmmm. And maybe the splint doesn’t bother him. But something else sure the hell was making this horse hellaciously uncomfortable over jumps.
Don’t believe what anybody tells you about a horse they’re selling. You’re the only one with your own best interests in mind. Get a thorough PPE with X-rays. Check for drugging. If you don’t know any vets in that area, ask around on COTH. Or throw a dart at the phonebook. Anything but asking the seller to recommend one. If you don’t know what you’re looking at, take someone who does. Better yet, take two or three such people. I sort of know what I’m looking at and I’m sure i missed things in the video above that my trainer or my daughter’s trainer would see immediately. Don’t buy someone else’s problem that they’re desperate to get rid of.
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"But the seller said it could do x, y, and z and walk to the show office unaccompanied with my credit card and pay his stabling fees!
Here take my money…
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I pretty much agree with how this thread has evolved. You bought the horse in front of you, and if you had looked crarefully before you did it, it wouldn’t be a surprise today, no matter what his age is. Heck, if all you had done was muse about how low the price was for a supposed 12 year old schoolmaster, what you have in front of you wouldn’t be surprising you. I also think a 21 year old horse that is sound has a lovely many years ahead of him. I assume you bought a sound horse. If you didn’t even get that checked out, then I can’t sympathize much.
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My 18 year old light bay is getting a lot of gray on his face, has been for a few years.
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I keep looking under the bridge!
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This. Everybody needs another set of eyes when buying a horse.
I don’t dispute that a 21 year old horse could have a lot of life left in him. I know two people hunting horses that turned 26 this year and they are both looking good and moving soundly. However, this horse is already looking stiff. Are you willing to pay for the maintenance to keep him comfortable? And potentially retire him in a couple of years?
I have an OTTB who just turned 22. I’ve had to scale back his work load to keep him comfortable, but I figure he has a few more years of going on hacks and being flatted. He lives out on 2 1/2 acres and keeps himself pretty fit. But I had 16 years of fun with him first and I will take care of of him forever.
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You assumed a lot because the OP said the horse is stiff.
The OP thought the horse was stiff because it hadn’t worked in the past year or so, or haven’t done much and is brought back to work.
But then, the OP reconsidered the fact that the horse could be stiff because it might be way older that advertised.
So we should assume the OP haven’t had a vet check for soundness.
There seems to have been a vet involved in the process as OP said vet suggested the horse was 12 y.o. But who’s vet was it and what besides age did the vet say?
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op, you bought a horse you thought was 12, that had some actual training, expecting to have to recondition but then be able to move on with him.
Apparently it turns out he is actually 21 and doesn’t have the background training you were told.
This really sucks.
This is also why I do PPE’s on even a $2000 dollar horse and first have the owner ride then I ride. If the owner or his rep won’t ride the horse first…I pass. I mean really.
As far as what to do? You can try to return the horse but you seemed to indicate you already liked the horse and didn’t want to return him.
You could try to get a partial refund as the horse was misrepresented but seriously horse buying is where the phrase, "buyer beware’ originated!
I do wonder how you now know the horse is older and has less experience?
There are two sides here to remember, as much as you were misled , so if you tell many people about the seller misleading you, you also didn’t do your due diligence.
When you say you had a vet examine the horse do you mean you asked for a ppe or ‘look’ and tell me what you think? (horse vet?)
I am befuddled as to how a vet could miss a 10 year difference.
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I would keep him. He nearly ticks all your boxes, and frankly you didn’t pay much for him. Not what the market would be for a genuine schoolmaster that’s only 12. Keep him, and bring him slowly back into gentle work, he may surprise you with what he is capable of. Just don’t “drill him” and that will help more than anything.
I am a softie, so I’d keep him and love him and chalk it up to a lesson learned. Aging a horse by teeth is not an exact science … esp if you don’t know what he’s been fed on and if he has been a cribber or otherwise abused his teeth. But having said that, any vet could tell the difference between 12 and 20s without too much effort. Pinning it down to exact years isn’t easy, but getting a general idea is quite doable.
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I don’t get it. A vet said he was 11/12ish. He has clean legs and rides and looks like a 12 year old. He is not as bad in traffic as they warned. You really like him. He cost $2000. What is the problem? Did some nasty gossips tell you he was older? What proof? Is there a verifiable tattoo? It sounds to me there is a good chance someone just yanked your chain and you actually have the horse you wanted to buy. Don’t listen to pot stirrers/bangers. Enjoy your horse.
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This is basically exactly what happened. I posted on a fb group to find out more about his previous owners and what he had done etc, to have a message from somebody telling me he was actually about 21yo - not 12. They said they had informed the girl I bought him from as soon as they saw the advert (prior to me enquiring about him) but the seller didn’t pass this info along. I then spoke to the yard owner of the place where he was a livery for 9 years and she sent me photocopy of his actual passport stating his date of birth was actually in 2001. So he isn’t 21 but he also isn’t 12. I have decided to keep him as he has clean legs and is a really sweet horse, hopefully with many more years left. I am unhappy that she didn’t disclose the information that she was told though. If she didn’t know and genuinely was only going off of a vets estimate then that’s fine, nobody was to know. But the fact is that she DID know and was told he was much older than advertised before I had even spoken to her. That’s what rattled me more than anything.
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Not a troll, sorry! Just an idiot apparently :lol: At least I have a kind and safe horse at the end of it… just not the age I thought!
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It was somebody that knew him from a few years ago, they put me in contact with the yard owner of a yard he was at for 9 years with previous owner (before the one who sold to me) and they showed me a photocopy they had of his passport from when he was a livery there that showed his DOB at 2001 (so not 21, but also not 12!). So I don’t think it was anything malicious, just informative. I’m just annoyed that the seller didn’t disclose this info when she found out about it (which was before I enquired)
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