Does anyone know of an experience investigator that can research past behavior problems? I have all show history and it is win or loose (not placed). I need to fill in the gaps.
You mean a horse was sold without proper disclosure of bad behavior?
If you posted your location and the horse’s show name maybe you’d get some help here.
I get hired frequently as an equine private investigator. Clients include regular Horse Owners, insurance agencies and law firms. I get hired to do this for everything from private sales to court case to insurance fraud. Send me a PM. www.equineappraisers.com
Its pretty easy to track a record on your own. When there are 5 in a O/F class and yours didn’t get a ribbon, points to a few reasons. Stopped out ( most likely), major misbehavior and did not complete course, maybe due to fall of horse or rider, or thrown out in the jog. Not a lot of other possibilities. All that can be gleaned from just the results on USEF record. Then go onto whatever website handles results from the shows it attended. There are only about 5 that seem to handle posted results of most shows. Look and see who the other exhibitors were. You may know some of them. The internet makes it so just about anybody can track down almost anything they need to know a bout a horse or rider. And most people just love to give you any info they can when there is a sniff of a scandal, sad but true…
Google the horses show name. That often pulls up results from non USEF shows. Do the same with the rider. USEF results don’t tell the whole story.
The win or nothing does not necessarily mean anything or scream fraud, especially if the classes are large. For example a brilliant Jumper that might typically be an easy double clear winner sometimes drops a rail or gets time faults that kick it out of the ribbons in big, competitive classes. Even in a more modest class, pilot error like off course or crossing the track could eliminate a horse that should have easily been the winner. Or it’s a dirty stopper, results won’t tell you that.
Anyway, need a lot more history to draw any conclusions and you may not need to pay a professional investgator to find it.
ETA just read your other thread. Listen to your trainer if they think it’s not the right horse. No need to waste time looking for what you assume is outright fraud just over the spotty results of a horse your trainer thinks is unsuitable/too expensive. Moving a horse to another area really doesn’t necessarily mean fraud either.
Move on.
Ask the questions in writing in the contract or bill of sale. Full disclosure.
If this is a green horse or something that has just been in schooling shows 2 foot 6, there might not be any on-line history of the horse.
If the horse has been competing at rated shows, the results will be on-line somewhere (I know how to look in Canada, not the USA). And if the horse is being marketed in any way semi-seriously there will be a video or two up, probably on Youtube. Also, search the horse’s name on the relevant sales sights like Warmbloodsforsale. Sometimes old ads linger around for a long time in cyber space.
Also, if you can get the name of the owner, either the current owner if the horse is being sold on commission, or the most recent past owner if the horse has landed at some kind of “dealer” or flipper situation, then you can research that operation too.
If you find on-line show results, the name of the owner, trainer and rider will be there, so you can Google all of these. Look for web pages for trainers and barns, Youtube videos in the names of all these people, Facebook pages for owners and riders if they aren’t pros, etc. You might be able to find video of a ride on a FB page. You can always friend someone without saying why you are friending them. Lots of people just accept any random friend request, and then you get to see their whole life.
Why not ask the sellers for video and links to past accomplishments?
I am assuming from the rest of what you are saying, that this is a horse for the 3 foot plus jumps, and into the 5 figures costs. Not a kid’s cross-rails packer for $5000 :). A horse like that would have some internet record, IME. I’ve certainly found it easy enough to put together histories of all kinds of horses and riders of my acquaintance, purely out of curiosity and nosiness. If you feel a bit baffled at searching on-line, you might want to ask a more comptuer-savvy friend, or accept the services of the equine investigator.
If a high-value horse has no internet presence, has been brought in from further away, and is being sold at a too good to be true price, then that is a red flag. Horse could have some injury, or horse could have developed a behavior that might be beyond your skills to fix.
Not sure why a horse being “win or lose” makes you think there’s FRAUD. Maybe sometimes it leaves the rails up and other times (maybe under a different rider even) it doesn’t. Maybe it’s just an inconsistent horse?
No offense but sometimes you win and sometimes you don’t. I have a horse that moves fantastic! Hack Winner-typically…but sometimes he isn’t. Sometimes he’s like 4th or 5th Sometimes if he’s snarky looking he may get nothing. Just is.
As mentioned most shows have their results posted and you can go get the record from USEF to see who the rider was.
However-I would be cautious about gaps in showing history depending on how old the horse is. I would want some logical answer and proof. I learned the hard way on this many moons ago.
[QUOTE=Blinky;8723175]
No offense but sometimes you win and sometimes you don’t. I have a horse that moves fantastic! Hack Winner-typically…but sometimes he isn’t. Sometimes he’s like 4th or 5th
.[/QUOTE]
Totally agree. I remember as a young ammy coming out of a class on my horse (who was usually in the ribbons and almost always the hack winner) without anything and asking my trainer what I did wrong. He said “Judge just like the other horse better”
I don’t know that “win or lose” is really indicative of some kind of a behavior issue. In the hunters, it happens all the time–ammy rider loses focus, chips a fence, and voila, horse is out of the ribbons. Even with the pros, a little accidental lead swap in front of a fence, or a hard knock to a rail on a hot day has the same effect. In the jumpers, some horses occasionally pull rails, which obviously can take you out of the ribbons. I’d say that “win or lose” is the norm for quite a few excellent horses.
I’d say that a failure to show, a lack of respectable show videos, or failure to win any ribbons at all is more indicative of an issue.
ETA: Just went back and read your other thread. I think it is very fishy that a horse with some “big wins” doesn’t have a bunch of youtube videos to his name. A missing history on a horse that has been sent away from home to sell is a big red flag. When buying a horse, it is 100% fair of you to expect that the seller provide a reasonable history for the animal. If the seller’s agent “doesn’t know” they should be able to ask the horse’s owner. For a horse that has been out showing, there shouldn’t be anything vague about the history.
Why bother hiring an investigator? Just walk away. Even if you could find out more information, do you really want to do business with a seller that is deliberately being vague or obscure about important details?
