Hi, so a month ago i bought a young horse, three years old purchased after a vet check and a full set of xrays. The day after he arrived i lounged him a little but saw he was nqr in both hind legs. After a week i decided to call the vet (not the same who diq the ppr) but was on hollyday so i waited two weeks before he could come. Anyway, he looked at the horse and found he has 2/5 lameness in both hinds and after seeing the xrays he told me he has hock arthritis. What should i do? I am sad for the horse but i would like to send it back to previous owner (a professional). Do you have some experience with this situation? Do you think it is easy to get the money back? I do not want to change him for another one because he did not have another one i liked. Thank you very much, a sad day for me…
Sorry, but no, it will not be easy to get your money back. You did a PPE and presumably bought the horse as is, with those same xrays. And, the horse has been out of the seller’s hands for weeks, so they have no way of knowing what else could have happened to the horse in the meantime. This is why a lot of people have their home vets take a look at the xrays and talk to the PPE vet before finalizing the purchase in case there are different interpretations of the images. You can ask if they will take him back, but don’t be surprised if/when they say no. Presumably your PPE vet also thought the horse was sound when he/she saw it, so that will not help your cause either. Put yourself in the seller’s shoes - buyer takes horse that in their view and presumably the view of your PPE vet was sound when it was purchased, and weeks later the buyer wants to bring it back lame. Not many people are going to say yes to that.
well, i do not agree, first of all i saw the problem the very next day he arrived, so what i did first is send the pp x rays to three different vets and the three of them told me the horse had arthritis. i thought that when you get a vet to do the ppe and he tells you everything is fine you just trust him. I send the x rays to other vets because i saw the horse nqr and called the owner after a week the horse arrived. the horse is expensive end was bought to perform in reining but he obviously will not be sound enough.
Doesn’t matter if you agree or not. You got a bill of sale, seller cashed the check and you have had the horse in your possession for over a month. You can’t tell the seller what to do…for all seller knows, horse hurt itself in your care during the month you have had it. Had you contacted them within the first week you had horse, you be in a much stronger position. It’s not sellers fault you couldn’t get a vet for weeks…did you call seller during that month and give them a heads up something was wrong?
You possibly have an argument with whatever vet did your PPE. Who did the PPE exam, your vet or sellers vet and when were the x rays taken?
“Arthritic” hocks are typically seen in older horses as a result of age and use. Unusual in a 3 year old. IIWM I’d get another vets opinion and shoot some more detailed rads. Might be OCD and not age and use related joint issues.
Who’s vet did the PPE? I don’t see how you get your money back after you did a pre purchase, bought the horse, shipped it home, and owned it for weeks. You’d probably have to take it to court to get any compensation, but who would you sue? The seller? They aren’t responsible for reading X-rays. The PPE vet? They offer their learned opinion of the horse, but did they guarantee you would be able to use this horse for a specific purpose? Did you get this horse insured against loss of use?
I hope you’ll update us on how this goes. It’s risky business buying horses. A vet presumably gave you the all clear, and now this. I can see how you would feel slighted. I don’t know what recourse you have, but if you are able to figure that out please let us know how. The only guarantee is that this will happen to someone else buying some other horse.
This story is about the first horse my mom tried to buy me as a kid. TLDR; you may have recourse through the vet’s insurance to get the purchase price back if it was negligence, but then they (or their insurance company) will get ownership of the horse (at least in our case they did)…
We once successfully sued the vet who did the prepurchase on a horse and missed his horrible hocks. We trusted the vet to do their job. We tried out horse once, were unable to do a trial. Horse acted up as soon as we brought it home and put it into consistent work. Was a young one too, we found out later old owner lunged it a lot in small round pens.
Old owner was terrible to deal with, wouldn’t refund the purchase and we heard from others she KNEW the horse was NQR when put in to regular work. By suing the vet we got the purchase price back. Vet (or her insurance company?) got ownership of the horse.Horse was then sold back to old owner for a pittance and she relisted it for the same original price!!! Crazy.
Well the ppe vet did not tell me that the horse had hock issues and he wrote that the horse was good for the discipline. Of course i am aware that a vet cannot predict the future soundness of the horse but the hock arthritis is evident on the ppe x rays. I cannot read xrays and that is why we need vets to do the job. I am trying to give the horse back because of the bad prognosis of hock arthritis on a young horse which is evident it was there the day of purchase
Well, i can tell you that in reining and cutting bred quarter horses, hock arthritis is really one of the most common issue even at the age of two. I wanted to buy a two years old last year and he already had bone spavin.
We all understand you want the horse to go back and why, but you seem to be unwilling to hear what people are telling you, despite asking for opinions. As a buyer you rely on the PPE to assess the horse’s physical condition, not the seller – if your PPE vet misses something on the exam or the radiographs, that is not the seller’s fault (it could be the seller’s fault if the horse was drugged, or they affirmatively misrepresented something, but here you are talking about something that shows up in your radiographs). In a young horse the seller may or may not even know what the radiographs are going to look like. Your issue here is with your PPE vet (and @findeight asked a valid question - did you use the seller’s vet or an independent one? If it is the seller’s vet it is a little more suspicious). Have you talked to the PPE vet about this? Has your vet talked to the PPE vet to put their heads together on why the PPE vet thought the horse was fine? Did you pull blood in the PPE that you can test to see if the horse was given NSAID’s to mask the lameness on the PPE? If the horse vetted sound on the day, according to your PPE vet, it is just highly unlikely that the seller is going to take the horse back at this point and give you a refund. Have you contacted the seller yet and told them the horse is NQR to see what they say??
OP, you specifically asked “What should I do?” and “Do you think it is easy to get the money back?”
And sadly the answer is probably: No, you will not get your money back. Unless you can PROVE in a court of law that the seller knowingly sold the horse with known issues, you will be out of luck if they do not want to take him back. If you were looking for us to say “oh yes no problem just return him”, well, that’s just not going to be the case. Most of the time, a horse sale is “as is” and it is the responsibility of the buyer to do your due diligence.
Did you lunge him BEFORE you purchased him?
Is he already broke to ride? Did you ride him?
I know it sucks that the first vet told you he looked fine, but if you also did not evaluate the horse’s movement before you purchased him, you can’t entirely blame only the vet.
I’ve never bought an expensive enough horse to do a PPE myself, but I would absolutely have my local trusted lameness vet consult on it if she can, because we have a history and I trust her. And I personally will never buy a horse sight unseen, as that is not something I am comfortable with, for reasons such as this.
As far as what you should do, well, what kind of arthritis are we talking about?
Is the horse fusing?
Does he have a bone spur?
Small joint spaces?
What exactly do the vets see on xray? Be specific.
Because if it is, for example, just that the horse is fusing as a young age, I don’t see why that would be a problem. Inject while he’s fusing, continue riding, and that usually keeps it managed in most cases.
