Reverse gallop is sometimes the rough translation of counter canter. Gallop is most of Europe’s word for canter.
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Interesting! I’ve heard “false canter (gallop)”, “outside canter (gallop)”, “canter (gallop) on opposite hand”, “contra canter/gallop”, but never “reverse gallop/canter”. I’d say there might be a linguistic clue there about the scammer’s native tongue, but I think it’s more likely to be a clumsy, dressage-naive translation of stolen text than a calque from a language that uses the equivalent of “reverse gallop” for counter canter.
I doubt the scam is being run by horse people. I think these scammers just hunt around for the right price point on large clumsy merchandise that they can then have a fake delivery problem with.
That said, if you run text through a thesaurus translation program you can get some very funny results. Some of my international students try to cheat this way. They run a chunk of Wikipedia through a word replacement program. Well, they fail anyhow because the results are just absurdist word salad, even if I can’t get a sure link to the plagiarism.
On the other hand lots of legit low end American sales ads have big bloopers like mixing up age, color, gender. So if you are used to trawling through CL ads for filly stallions, rare red chestnuts, unbroke colts “out of” named stallions, etc., you might take a certain amount of incoherence as a sign you were dealing with a rube and getting a good deal.
Also so many people just look at price and photo. Thats attested to by the number of sellers on COTH who complain buyers will see a very informative ad then dash off IM or emails or text saying “please tell me how old horse is and is it suitable for beginner child.”
I was very lucky, I knew the breeder/seller of my guy very well. Although I wasn’t looking to buy a horse at all. This horse caught my eye 6 months prior and then again in April a year ago. Darn you FB! I rode with his breeder for 17 years but had left her 8 years ago to focus on other things. I still had him vetted. And who knows what will happen down the road or what will turn up. We do the best we can.
The scams and crap horse sellers pull… gah! One long term-project I had started out being 13 (he was a free horse to his owner and a free lease to me). I thought he looked more around 18 or so. The renowned equine vet/dentist said he was more likely around 24.
I’d guess maybe it’s Google translated.
Google is so literal and context-naive that a Google translation is exactly the kind of situation where identifying a language whose counter-canter term takes the form “reverse gallop” could be useful for getting a clue about the scammer’s language/nationality.
Alas, I don’t know of any languages whose term is close enough to “reverse gallop” for that to be suggested by a Google-like translator, and I really do suspect that the existence of a guitar term with some semantic similarity to equestrian language has influenced the scammer’s text (whether done by machine or human).
I’m still pondering the term “self evident gelding”…
I have to say I’m really surprised that people fall for this. Apparently they do, but hopefully people who even consider this sort of transaction will have a friend or acquaintance to advise them against it.
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Alas, I don’t know of any languages whose term is close enough to “reverse gallop” for that to be suggested by a Google-like translaton
contra and counter have so many meanings. Contra can mean “to reverse”( accounting term) and contra canter is certainly commonly used so you can see where a translator could get the term.
Self Evident Gelding is a puzzler, though, I agree
Canter in French is petit gallop, in German it’s galopp, the reverse part is a mystery but a mis use of it for counter sounds most likely. Still I think it should be considered as an addition to the dressage test, or maybe someone confused the horse’s extreme reaction to the flower boxes at E as being intentional?
There should be a dressage test restricted to self evident geldings as well, so they can feel superior, and sneer at the less enlightened geldings.
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As a finance lawyer, I think everyone should keep in mind transaction best practices for horse buying or buying anything of value really. To minimize chances of fraud, you should never buy anything expensive without seeing it in person. If you do, it’s a huge risk.
If you’re transacting with strangers, ask for copies of photo ID - do this before wiring money. If the recipient of funds has a name or address that doesn’t match the ID, ask why. Ask for documentation of ownership. If people are squirrely or something seems fishy, investigate or walk away. If they’re trying to rush you for money or avoid basic diligence questions, these are all red flags.
I would never blame a victim of fraud or theft - con artists are gifted at what they do and sadly these lessons often get learned the hard way. Just stay vigilant to protect yourself and never let fear of awkwardness stand in your way of basic pre-purchase diligence.
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self evident = plain.
so a Plain gelding…with honest work ethic ( but not flashy)
One of the least self-evident threads I’ve read in some time. I’m gonna reverse gallop outta here…
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I’ve always understood the term “self evident” to mean obvious, which is why I found it puzzling in the context used.
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Except that the horse advertised was far from being plain.
Just remembered a story about an early effort at translating software. It was put through from English to another language, and then back to English.
The original - “The spirit was willing but the flesh was weak.”
The output - :“The wine was good but the meat was bad.”
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