Need opinion on PPE

[phippsie62]

OP, I’m sure the horse is lovely, knows his job well, and has taught you a lot during your yearlong lease. But you’re quite clear about two things: 1) you don’t show often, maybe once a year and 2) you’re an amateur rider contemplating the purchase of your first horse.

My advice is: Do not buy this horse. If you were uber wealthy and had plans to show in the big time, you might say to yourself, “Well, what the heck. He’s a nice horse and I’ll take the gamble that I can get one good show season out of him.” But that does not sound like you,

Second, you are indeed way over your head in evaluating this PPE finding. It takes years of experience and plenty of heartache to develop a reasonable set of guidelines for what is and is not an acceptable risk, given that any horse can injure itself or develop some unforeseen problem that can end its career.

Do listen to the people who are telling you there are all kinds of red flags here. You would be much better off with a sound but perhaps less fancy horse you can have fun with, given your modest ambitions. Of course, later, if your goals change, you can always “trade up” so to speak.

[Lusoluv]

I agree ^^^. No way I would spend $100k on a horse with this medical history if the next statement was, “I can’t afford to show very often”. Hell, I wouldn’t spend half that much!

[good_booie]

So much of this makes no sense.

[anonevent]

Congratulations!

[RedFox5]

Remind me to steer clear of whoever you know that can’t keep a middle aged horse sound while competing. Yikes

[findeight]

Huh? I spoke of age and mileage related wear and tear, not competing an unsound horse.

[RedFox5]

If their horses are that worn down from competition then that’s why I’m concerned. I know of hunt horses and xcountry horses in their 20s still going strong with maybe hock injections as maintenance still going strong. That’s why that sentence is concerning. A 12 yo shouldn’t be broke down high maintenance so it was just alarming

[CBoylen]

So do I, although I would call them serviceably sound. I have not met many hunt horses, or local show horses, of any age that are competition sound. There is a big difference between sound enough to ride and sound enough to compete at a national level. I also found most show horses start to need significant maintenance around 10/12 and at 15/16 most retire. There is a giant difference between jumping in straight lines on grass and jumping in circles on footing, and between living mostly in a field and living on the road. You really can’t compare the two. They are both horses, but live completely different lives.

[RedFox5]

And again. I will stay far away from the people you know. Retiring at 15/16 is wild and I’d wager those horses were not bred to stay sound best case scenario. Also light maintenance on a show horse I don’t view as abnormal I worded that poorly (body work and on middle aged horses, 15-16 I would also think injections one a year is reasonable. For a horse competing nationally) but multi injections and crazy amount of maintenance to keep them competing I do not think is normal. Or should not be normalized. I would again suspect poor breeding ( a lot of top dollar warmbloods are not bred to last. Qhs too) or poor riding that does not help maintain a horse properly

[CBoylen]

Again, it’s completely normal. Living a show horse life is hard, and the soundness expectations are much, much higher. I can speak personally to both worlds. Outside of that level, no one could even afford to maintain their horse to the necessary degree, and it’s not as necessary since the expectations are lower and the lifestyle is easier and more natural to the animal.

[RedFox5]

I’ve got no words for how you’ve normalized that…. Have a good rest of your life….

[CBoylen]

Normalized that everyone does the best they can with what they have? Yes. I’d like the hunt horses of the world to be maintained better and the show horses of the world to live more naturally, but that’s not reality. The reality is the hunt horses and local horses are serviceably sound for the most part but nowhere near actually sound, and the show horses are done early, or leave their show career for another where they only have to be serviceably sound and it doesn’t matter if they land more on one lead or swap off now and then or don’t quite get down the line without having to accelerate. Sound is a spectrum. Thankfully!

[GraceLikeRain]

@RedFox5

body work and on middle aged horses, 15-16 I would also think injections one a year is reasonable. For a horse competing nationally

That is a wildly random benchmark grounded in nothing. Beginning in their early teens and sometimes younger most horses will flex at least a 1/5 somewhere even if they’ve spent their life in a field or bopping around.

The average owner is very oblivious to variations in soundness until a horse is essentially head bobbing lame. Even then most people can’t pick a leg much less discern what where and why.

Even as a very experience horse person, my mare felt just a little eh so I pulled out the big guns and took her to a top hospital. The vet graded her 3/5 and none of us lay people could even tell which leg. He’s a FEI vet with a laser eye and a more novice vet on site admitted he wouldn’t have even graded it a 1/5. Body work, x rays, time off, went ahead and did her annual stifle and hock injections, therapeutic shoeing, 12 weeks of careful reintroduction to work, and this horse trots over logs for fun and had a stone bruise from a trail ride.

At the top level of competition you can’t risk even the slightest unevenness the stakes are too high for safety and performance. It has nothing to do with not breeding a robust horse.

Gymnasts aren’t out doing floor routines at 40. NFL players over 35 are seen as seniors. Elite performance is a game for the young across species.

[Halternatively]

100% this

[dags]

@RedFox5

And again. I will stay far away from the people you know. Retiring at 15/16 is wild and I’d wager those horses were not bred to stay sound best case scenario. Also light maintenance on a show horse I don’t view as abnormal I worded that poorly (body work and on middle aged horses, 15-16 I would also think injections one a year is reasonable. For a horse competing nationally) but multi injections and crazy amount of maintenance to keep them competing I do not think is normal. Or should not be normalized. I would again suspect poor breeding ( a lot of top dollar warmbloods are not bred to last. Qhs too) or poor riding that does not help maintain a horse properly

This is just an insanely high bar to hold these animals to and it does them no favors.

A great many of the treatments show horses go through throughout the year are, on one hand, preventative/therapeutic and, on the other, placebos for the owners. Most are not head-bobbing lame without these treatments, but their lead changes might start getting sticky. If we’re going to call a sticky lead change an unsound horse that shouldn’t be competing, then we’re going to have a lot of useless horses out there. Useless horses are not safe horses.

This is an ideal most working horses - literal athletes - cannot live up to, especially with the constraints of modern horse keeping. This sets them up to disappoint their people, people that are generally paying thousands a month to house, feed and enjoy them. This is how they come to be viewed as expendable.

[endlessclimb]

@CBoylen

I’d like the hunt horses of the world to be maintained better and the show horses of the world to live more naturally, but that’s not reality.

I was at a local 4H esque show this weekend, and I think this is what this poster is considering “sound and not retired” when in reality I think there was one truly sound animal on the entire property and many more that were not sound at all and arguably shouldn’t have been out there.

What they aren’t differentiating is the level of soundness and athleticism needed to be at the 1.0+ m in stiff company, versus monkeying around in rail class, versus hunting where heart matters more than soundness.

[Railbird]

I think what @CBoylen may not be getting across to you is that when she’s talking about horses needing that kind of vet work to stay sound, it is to get them comfortable performing to a level that most people wouldn’t even notice the difference. These aren’t horses who need that kind of veterinary treatment so they don’t limp, they need it to have a brighter expression or a cleaner lead change or a more expressive jump. It is a rare horse who could not be improved in some way by some kind of maintenance treatment, and I am sure most people would feel better with PT and shockwave and the occasional injection of their bad joints, but if none of that is bothering them for their desk job and walking the dog, then it’s just an unnecessary expense. She is not referring to treatment that fixes the binary “is the horse capable of doing the job, yes/no” but rather the “would the horse be more comfortable giving peak performance if this is done?”

[findeight]

While discussing this, can we express our experience based opinions without the shade because our opinion and understanding of the specific situation may vary?

I defer to the vet who pronounced the horse in the OP suitable for intended purpose. As are many show and field Hunters, others may have different opinions based on their observations and experience. No reason to be condescending to others whether intended or not.

[Bristol_Bay]

@Bristol_Bay

There’s one at my barn right now. Absolutely class horse, eq champion, gorgeous, but he inconveniently developed ringbone and landed as a school horse. His current owners (I have no idea who they are) feel they owe him nothing. If he can’t earn his keep in the show ring, well…

I’d like to share an update on this horse. I worked out a deal with my trainer to get some x-rays and the results were grim. But she found a retirement home for him with a kind person who has horse property and a big heart. So he’s safe.

It absolutely disgusts me that his owner refused to step up for him after sacrificing his soundness so she could bank lease fees.