Prior horse owners

[appendix100]

I am looking at a mare whose videos I really like, but will have to travel a bit to go see. So far the biggest red flag I have trying to decide if it is worth the time & expense to go look at her is number of owners on her papers. This is a 7 year old mare & has already had 6 owners (including breeder). Some raise no concern (ie breeder sold as a weanling to someone) but the longest stint w/ one owner was about 2.5 years. everyone else has had her only a little over a year, including the current owner.

Does anyone know how I can reach the last couple of prior owners & ask why they sold her? Current reason for selling is owner wants to change disciplines…

I am not great a cyber stalking…

[Horsegirl_s_Mom]

Have you looked up the mare’s show record? That might give you some additional information as to how she does in a show situation. Depending on how online entries for those shows are handled (i.e., horseshowtime etc.), you might be able to find out the trainer(s) involved.

If you have the names of the prior owners, you could try googling and searching Facebook, Instagram etc. However, it’s questionable whether a prior owner will be forthcoming with you, because they may be worried about the ramifications of disclosing something negative about the horse after having sold it.

Do you have a trainer? Best bet might be to see if your trainer can quietly reach out to the mare’s prior trainers…

[Moon_River]

So without seeing the timeline, it wouldn’t be at all unusual for the horse to have had 3 owners by the time it’s 4 and under saddle (breeder, someone who keeps it until 3 or 4 and either starts it or sells it to someone to start, then first owner under saddle), and then you hit the weirdness of the last almost 3 years now which could have turned new buyers plans upside down several times as lockdowns, financial ups and downs and time spent at work all changed. So it could be a red flag, or it could have been a series of people who intended to keep the horse and then circumstances changed. If you have the previous owners’ names I would try facebook and if you find them scan back through any posts to see if they were posting “I love my horse isn’t he amazing” stuff, or the opposite. When I’ve been looking to buy I’ve found posts about undesirable behaviour with the current owner that they’ve not mentioned at all in conversation.

[Calhoun]

My gut feeling says no. The mare could dealing with a lot of anxiety from being moved around so much, not to mention ulcers. Did you ask the seller why the mare is for sale?

[TinFoilHat]

@Horsegirl_s_Mom

Do you have a trainer? Best bet might be to see if your trainer can quietly reach out to the mare’s prior trainers…

^^ This is the approach I would take. IME, trainers will generally be more forthcoming as well…

[appendix100]

@Horsegirl_s_Mom

Do you have a trainer? Best bet might be to see if your trainer can quietly reach out to the mare’s prior trainers…

Currently I am on my own…trainer moved away & haven’t found someone else to fill the slot

[Small_Change]

Sometimes people will “sell” the horse when it is actually out on a lease to avoid everyone having to get memberships to show (owner and leaser), or so that the leaser can show as an ammy owner. I wouldn’t be comfortable with someone else’s name on my horse’s papers as the owner, but lots of people do it for a variety of reasons.

[xQHDQ]

I think you’re right to be concerned by 6 owners in 7 years. With that said, I would look at the horse for who she is now and then look for any records you can find on the Internet as others have said. One reason for maybe 2 sales could be that the horse was sold to a trainer who then sold it to a student. Good luck!

[furlong47]

I don’t think this is necessarily too crazy when considering it’s a young horse. People buy as a project to put training/showing on and sell, or they buy and find out the horse won’t suit what they want to do, etc. I’ve seen plenty of people buy a horse, end up not riding it like they thought, and selling shortly after (especially if they already have several others.) I do think I’d probably try to do more research. Even if there’s no bad reason (behavior/physical/etc) why she was passed on, she may have other problems due to having so many different trainers/riders or moving around so much. Or she could be fine.

[hoopoe]

considering the events of the last three years, it might represent people who lost their jobs or otherwise could not maintain a horse during the pandemic.

[OverandOnward]

@hoopoe

considering the events of the last three years, it might represent people who lost their jobs or otherwise could not maintain a horse during the pandemic.

This is what I was thinking as well. The crazy economic changes throughout 2020-2021-2022, plus the wild inflation in horse prices, there is a possibility that people changed their plans for a ‘project’.

Of course it is no help as a true history as it is just another possibility. But maybe those changes are less unusual these days.

[Libby2563]

@appendix100

Does anyone know how I can reach the last couple of prior owners & ask why they sold her?

Someone did this to me recently regarding a horse I looked at last year that they currently own and are struggling with. They must have looked at the seller’s FB ads and PMed everybody who commented!

(The weird thing is, I never owned the horse. The seller allegedly told the buyer that the horse was bought and returned twice before she bought him, and the first person had another horse flip over on them, causing blood clots, and couldn’t ride for a while. Well, that did happen to me and it was the reason I didn’t move forward with a PPE. But I had not even come close to buying the horse—not even a deposit. It’s such a weird story to tell that I have to wonder if the buyer misunderstood something.)

I hate FB but you can definitely find good info on there. When I was shopping I learned that a horse I really liked had had Lyme very recently—which the seller did not mention to me of course.

[rulex]

I bought a 7yo and am the 5th owner on papers. Horse was at a sales barn so I got limited history since I never spoke with the owner. I did a search on YouTube for the horse’s name and found some old videos. Did a FB search for the name on those YouTube account and was able to get in touch with that person who filled me in on more of the horse’s history and sent me loads more old videos and even baby photos.

[RantyvilleHorror]

I’d be concerned. I bought a horse who had 7 owners by the time he was 7 and he was easily the worst investment I’d ever made - totally destroyed my confidence as he was missold by almost everybody who had previously owned him, resulting in a very mixed up young horse who had an awful lot of quirks and has decked pretty much everyone to have ever sat on him. Find out as much as you can prior to viewing.

[paddi22]

I’ve just been given a 7 year old (very high quality breeding) with 7 owners and we traced it back.

First owner breeder,
second owner bought from sales as foal
third owner was producers yard who backed her
fourth owner was pro who didn’t click with horse
fifth owner was pro who did click but found horse wasnt talented enough for level he wanted
sixth owner was pro rider who bought the horse cheaply enough on the off-chance the other rider wasn’t right about it’s talent, found out the horse wasn’t going to be an upper-level horse, and then sold to …
seventh owner, a young rider coming off a schoolmaster who wanted a flashy jumper but found she couldn’t actually ride it

so ended up with me for free. the horse is a chestnut mare who is totally fried from all the moving, cribs badly, is riddled with ulcers, and has remedial shoeing on that has destroyed her feet and her balance. she is a lovely horse and at the moment has just gotten shoes off, ulcer treatment and will be turned away for 6 months to see can she relax a bit.

I found the trainers she went through were very helpful and honest about her history, and gave me lots of information about her and even showed me videos they had off her competing.

[beowulf]

Oh wow, someone reached out about that horse? Count me in as also wondering if buyer gravely misunderstood or even misrepresented something.

OP, I don’t see that many owners as a red flag, given the last few years and the general climate of horse ownership as a whole. I suppose this may be discipline specific - some disciplines it’s more common to see horses change hands regularly, especially in show season or in preparation. This would be fairly typical in a professional show barn for HJ, typical for racing, and not unusual in some QH circuits. Why not ask the seller? See what they say.

[Libby2563]

@beowulf

Oh wow, someone reached out about that horse? Count me in as also wondering if buyer gravely misunderstood or even misrepresented something.

Sorry to be unclear, this was not the horse that flipped over on me, though that would be interesting!! He was allegedly sold with a clean vet check a month or two later, and I still wonder if he’s killed anyone yet.

It was a horse I was interested in and trying to get vetted when that happened, but I decided blood thinners plus unbacked 3-yo might not be the best plan. This horse allegedly has wobblers and kissing spine and is a violent bucker, so I guess I dodged a bullet! (Although the video the owner sent me of her falling off him is about the farthest thing from a violent buck I’ve ever seen, so who knows.)

[beowulf]

Ohh!! Guess it was I that gravely misunderstood.

[clanter]

we had one horse that had been through multiple owners because of his color. At that time buckskin was a rare color for a Morgan so every one thought they could flip him.

By the time he got here he did not trust much of anything.

The way we got him to accept this was home was to load him every day into the trailer taking him for a ride only to bring him back to his paddock. Did this for about two weeks before he calmed down to know if he got on the trailer he was coming home

[tabula_rashah]

I bought one that was like that- 7 but changed hands so many times (found out he wasn’t even the breed or age that I was told originally), even went through the same sale barn twice. I definitely dug around and talked to old owners, but it was after I purchased him. He actually was a really nice horse just not old lady trail ride type nice which was what he kept being advertised as and he was a total arsehat in the field to other horses.

Anyway having gone through it, it’s definitely a red flag for me, even if the red flag is just that so many people have had their hands on the horse, there’s no way it had consistent training (aka more for me to fix).