So most of you that frequent the boards have seen my thread regarding a horse that I bought from the step before the kill pen. Right now we know he is never going to be sound. He will be a pasture pet.
SOOOO…I am looking for a horse that will be able to do low-level dressage. I have a friend who does a lot of work with OTTB’s. He’s got a good dude that is 4 y.o… Came through a TB adoption group. I rode him a little today. He is a pretty chill dude, but I am a little unsure about his background. It looks like he might have had a sesamoid chip on his first breeze that was surgically removed. (I am not at a point in the discussion where this would have come up, I found out on my own.)
Here is my question: would you pay $5000 for a horse of this caliber? I don’t think he will pass a vetting using the vet I use. I am not sure he is 100% sound, he felt okay in the “track” in the arena (they do hunters where he is), but he would get funky in the “deeper” stuff.
He is not really being ridden regularly. I have no clue why because he is so well behaved, but I suspect that he is not going to hold up to jumping, so maybe they stopped riding him because he has shown lameness with jumping.
I really like this guy’s demeanor. No spook, buck, rear or other really bad behavior. He does try to head out the gate of the arena if it’s open, but that’s time and training, he IS a baby. I am really tired of having horses with behavior issues. It would be great to have a horse I can ride anywhere. He really is a steady eddy.
What do you all think?
No, I would not pay $5000 for a horse of questionable soundness.
He’s only 4 years old so you know there just aren’t miles of saddle time on him, so he’s probably green broke at best. Soundness aside I don’t think he’s got enough training yet to hit the $5000 mark for an OTTB that came off the track pretty much free.
I can’t think of any 4 year old OTTB that would be truly worth $5000 unless it came off the track at least a year ago and was already doing low level dressage consistently
and vetted well. I understand that a good BRAIN is worth something! It really is. Can you take the horse on trial and have and do a PPE? There are just too many gaps in your information to really say what the horse’s value is. He is worth whatever anyone is willing to pay. That might be zero dollars or it could be $5000 possibly. If he’s not sound for what you want to do, his value is nil.
5K for a let down, appropriately treated OTTB…?
Well…
Do the math yourself. You go to the track, using your expert eye, and look at a few horses. Factor in the time to look at horses, the cost to buy the horse, the cost to ship the horse, board it, feed it, layup, rehabilitation, dental work, chiro/massage, and training don’t come cheap… That’s ballpark what I pay in cost[s] once a prospect I have picked up from the track is in my barn, and I have done all of the above.
Would I pay it…? Probably not, because I tend to prefer doing the work myself… But it’s not an unfair price from the right connection – and people have got to stop thinking because it’s an OTTB, it has to have a cheaper price tag once it’s let down from the track. People wouldn’t bat an eye if it was an average WB (with the same inherent talent for your future discipline) with the same history…
Sesamoid fractures, depending on severity and the rehab, are not always career ending injury… They’re purely injuries that happen at speed… the chances of them reinjuring once it’s healed is very low unless you’re going back to racing. The real concern IMHO is finding out if it is healed, if there is suspensory involvement, etc.
A little info on sesamoid fractures:
https://www.bloodhorse.com/horse-racing/articles/135026/sesamoid-fractures-size-shape-and-racing-prognosis
If they can go back and race on it, they sure can do dressage on it…
The real question is, is he sound NOW? If he is sound, and you like him, he is worth what you want to pay for him… We need more details about this injury… if it was ever healed, and what kind of involvement there was.
Think of it this way - if you are in love with how he is NOW, and happy with that being his best he can ever give you, then he may be worth it… but if you feel something is off or he is not sound, then you should either pay for a PPE to get to the bottom of the issue, or find another horse.
The prettiest, biggest, soundest bays with four white socks and a blaze seem to go between $2k and $4k off at the track. Add in a few months of let down time, someone evaluating his potential and starting him back to work, and dealing with any health issues/chiro/teeth/feet/ulcers, and $5k starts to look very reasonable.
That said, if you don’t think he’s sound, I’d walk away. No sense in wasting a few hundred bucks on a physical exam/PPE when you already know the answer.
Thing is, they haven’t done much of anything with him, but put him over a few jumps as far as I know. If he was solid as a jumper they would have sold him already. He’s basically been a pasture potato, so that says a lot.
I already decided to let it go, plenty of safe, sane and sound horses out there!
