That’s how I read it too…
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Yep, absolutely. But it’s a risk I’m obviously willing to take. I ignored a lot of warning signs before buying my KS horse, up to and including rads like the OP posted. I avoid those warning signs now when looking at horses, and I am generally a lot more educated than I was 7 years ago. I’m also buying cheap straight off the track (not restarted) or out of the auction pen. So PPEs aren’t even really an option most of the time. I also have my own farm and the ability to retire them. The point a lot of people are making is that OP KNOWS about this finding. If any of mine come up back sore, or display any of the other myriad KS symptoms I’ll investigate and swallow that pill again if I need to. But I’m not buying it if I know about it.
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So I would argue that there are no other warning signs in this horse save for the rads. He has no back pain under saddle or on palpation. He doesn’t have NPAs or SI/Lumbar pain or sore feet or low heels. He has good even muscling on both sides of his back and hindquarters. He moves very well under saddle, coming into the bridle pleasantly.
Which means if you’re looking at similar OTTBs who have no “warning signs,” then you very potentially could still be buying KS horses. Which…is a risk you’re willing to take?
I guess I’m just confused how the reasoning works in your mind, since radiographs are really the only way to find it with asymptomatic horses, which it appears you’re now looking for. Plus there are much more dire things like arthritis and knee chips that you’re completely ignoring without any sort of PPE, not even a basic exam.
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The horse is doing just slightly more than ZEROS.
Remember that.
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That’s great! I hope you have a long career together. Absent x-rays I might buy the horse too. But the x-rays exist, so I wouldn’t. I have x-rayed the backs of two horses post-purchase since my KS gelding “just to see” and they were both beautiful. Lucky me.
Horse buying and horse ownership is as personal as it gets. And I’d argue there’s very little logic in horses when you look too closely. lol You asked the question and I’m relaying my experiences with a very, very similar situation. That’s all. It’s entirely your call whether or not you buy the horse. I wouldn’t. Asked and answered. 
Edited to add: If I was spending more than auction prices/$2k for my horses AND didn’t have the ability to retire them on my farm AND had bigger competitive ambitions, I’d absolutely PPE. And it would include back rads. And I’d walk if they showed KS, symptomatic or not.
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I’d echo people who say that there are no perfect horses but there are findings that you’re OK with and others you walk from.
My other horse had one bad LH flexion during the PPE. So we x-ray and find early arthritic changes in her hock. Horse is 5 yo, barely backed. For me it was a gamble I was willing to take. She’s on a joint supplement and hasn’t complained since. We might need to start injecting in a couple of years when the supplement and adequate exercise/turnout isn’t enough.
The things I personally walk from in PPE:
- Hoof issues, particularly front feet
- Back issues
- Neuro symptoms
- Chips/spurs in areas that interfere with a joint
And I probably wouldn’t buy a horse with a suspensory injury history unless I was gonna step it down from a job it was already back doing post-rehab…
But a lot of my personal aversions are solely based on my own bitter experiences. What your personal list is up to you to decide! If you feel so inclined that you want to buy this horse, nobody should talk you out of it. And I think everyone here is rooting to be proven wrong about the outlook of this horse.
But if you ask us what would we do? I think you’ll find a lot of us that will tell you it’s not a risk we’d personally take again…
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All of this shared knowledge, experience, clinical studies etc and KS is still as clear as mud.
If you want my opinion OP, go buy the horse. You have dug in with your argument which indicates to me that you want the horse. Horses are one of the worst lotteries to play.
I have a conformational train wreck sitting in my backyard who is one of the most solid, appreciated horses on this planet and who has always exceeded my expectations. I could have passed on him but I took the gamble and I’m glad I did. Could this all end in tragedy? Yes, but none of them last forever. You might get exactly what you want from this horse. Sometimes we buy experiences, not horses. JMHO.
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This. Buy the horse! You want him, you see potential in him, and you seem willing to take the risk. We’re all rooting for it to work out, even those of us screaming for you to run. 
A lot of us feel an obligation to other horse people to share our heartbreaks and experiences when we see a similar situation, especially when explicitly asked. Literally no one else in my life - even my horse friends - can relate to the experience I’ve had with my KS horse, so internet strangers get to hear all about it when the topic comes up.
So buy the horse. You’ve done your due diligence and aren’t going into it blindly. It will work out, or it won’t. Just like every other horse on the planet.
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So I just thought of another way to explain my “logic,” which you may or may not care about at this point. But I’m invested. lol.
I’m willing to take the risk that the horses I buy don’t have rads that look like the horse you want to buy. You’re taking on the risk that iffy rads aren’t going to turn into something more. They are two different risks, IMO; the risk you appear willing to take is one step further along the KS spectrum. And that’s fine, we all get to have our own lines in the sand. But like I said, the horse world is where logic goes to die.
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fwiw, I think I get your logic. I guess I feel pretty similarly. If I was doing a PPE, I wouldn’t do back rads as a matter of course.
OP, I do not envy your position - I’m guessing that you wish you had never seen these rads! I’m not sure if was addressed earlier, but one of my concerns about knowing about any PPE finding is that I’m now under the obligation to disclose the findings should the horse not work out for me, and then your potential buyer comes on these forums and asks “I found a horse I like, but he has KS - should I buy him?” 
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Here’s a perspective I don’t remember seeing…. You like him, you buy him, he does well and you decide to sell him at some point. The potential buyer radiographs his back - and you say “oh yes…had that when I bought him.
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Yup. And as a buyer I don’t necessarily walk from this if the horse is comfortable and consistently performing at or above the level I’d like him to.
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The other side of that is you remove from the pool of potential buyers those people who won’t purchase a horse with positive KS rads regardless of how the horse is performing at that moment.
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It may have been said already but one perspective I find interesting is that there have been horses with KS/CA/ECVM/whatever other new diagnosis for decades but we just didn’t have the ability to look for it and they were all fine! I think that standards for soundness have gotten higher over the years and even at the lower standards there have always been a LOT of horses who probably were not fine, but whose deficiencies was chalked up to some other diagnosis du jour (like navicular) or to being spoiled or just being a jerk. I suspect if our vets and diagnostics were omniscient, we’d know that these horses aren’t and never were fine, and actually some of them are just incredibly generous or stoic. Pain behaviors can be pretty damn subtle.
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I don’t really understanding asking “WWYD” and then disagreeing when people answer and tell you what they would do.
OP, if this was such a no brainer, why come here and ask? I think the fact that you asked means on some level you know this might not be the best decision and you’re seeking validation.
But you can’t be annoyed if you get non-echo chamber responses. That’s life.
FWIW I have a horse I bought at 3 years old who has KS. He was vetted but back then back/neck x-rays weren’t that common so they weren’t done. Once a year he’d buck EVERYONE off for “no reason” and there were certain distances o/f that seemed to challenge him more than they should have given his scope. He’d swap right in front of a fence to avoid that distance if he had to. Then one day “out of the blue” he started stopping… and that’s when we did x-rays and found the KS. He was 10.
I did the ligament snipping surgery and brought him back more slowly. He stepped down significantly in his workload (not necessarily because of the KS but his age and the fact that I was riding rather than leasing him out and my goals are different). He is a blessing and I am lucky to have him. A complete “horse of a lifetime.”
But treating and managing the KS was $$$$. It wasn’t a sure thing either. I got lucky, very lucky. He could have been out of commission forever. I own a farm and can afford to retire a horse. I also can afford to own more than one.
And even with ALL of that… I would not buy another. It’s too uncertain and too expensive and frustrating to deal with. I can compromise on ALL sorts of things (have and will in the future) but even as someone with a KS “success story,” I don’t want another.
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I’d hazard a guess they likely weren’t all “fine” they were just labeled other things instead.
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I’ll echo @VXF111 story with one of my own (and one that can be noted in my post surgery). I did not x-ray my OTTB when I purchased him (he was 4 at the time), it wasn’t until roughly 7 mos after his purchase (and coming off track) that he started having back pain. We x-rayed his back and found Grade 2+/4 kissing spines T15-16-17-18-L1; I’ve included his x-rays below
At the time we treated with mesotherapy and back injections (my records say Amikacin Sulfate Inj and Depo-Medrol) and a very expensive custom fit saddle and then decided to wait and see. This visit ran me $147 for the xray, $154 for the mesotherapy, and $117 for the back injections, plus $33 for tranquilizer.
His back was fine for another year. Throughout the time, I consistently had his saddle re-fitted and checked to accommodate his back. In January of 2023, the indicators of back pain returned and we did back injections again (Amikacin Sulfate Inj; Sarapin Inj; Depo-Medrol)($138 for injections, $36 for tranquilizer).
My OTTB expressed pain via bolting; which, while slow, was scary for me. His pain returned in the fall of 2023. I had his back xrayed again in September of 2023 and we noted that the xrays had not changed at all. I made the decision to put my OTTB through the surgery versus worrying constantly about when the injections would wear off and wanting to prevent any possibility of pain memory.
Because of our location, I had access to the top KS surgeons. I chose to go the bone shave route. Including the surgery (Dorsal spinous ostectomy T14-L1), hospital stay, anesthesia, etc, the cost was $3500. Next was 3 months of rehab, this cost me $2400.
My OTTB has been back in work under saddle for the last two months, wholly focused on flatwork/dressage. He is absolutely shining. While I’ve made the decision to sell my OTTB, it’s solely due to my own anxieties. He has truly never been stronger. For me, the $6k in surgery/rehab is worth it knowing that I’m setting him up for his future, especially since he’s so young.
I’m not sure if I would ever buy a horse with KS again. I’ve seen horses with more severe KS than my OTTB who’ve never been reactive a day in their life, but I’ve also seen those with barely any KS fly through the roof under saddle in reaction to their pain. I will certainly always xray their backs, but I’ve also learned a lot that will influence my horseownership.
For instance, there’s a host of stretches and in-hand exercises that I think every horse, regardless of KS status, should do to strengthen their back. I will also always prioritize having a horse turned out 24/7, ideally in a hilly pasture. I’ll always have a saddle fit to that horse and consistently get the fit check.
I think you can purchase the OTTB… provided you understand the full scope of what you may be taking on.
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Curious to see how this post surgery horse will be in 1,3, 5 years, but exciting to hear he is feeling better in the moment.
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The data on long term effects/results for any KS treatment is almost non-existent. The KS Facebook group has some longer term anecdotes that aren’t encouraging, but obviously those results come with major caveats.
I hope we see more tracked results over time.
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I’ve resisted posting on this thread because I find people tend to be pretty set in their views regarding KS, but I’ll share my KS experience.
My KS horse is coming up on 5 years post bone shave surgery later this year. I have a great vet/surgeon who specializes in back issues/KS. For my horse surgery was a game changer and much cheaper than continuing injections or other treatments. Within 2 years of surgery we were competing at higher levels than pre-surgery. I don’t do anything extraordinary to maintain his back post-surgery - just correct riding and Bemer treatments because he loves them. He gets other routine maintenance that I consider appropriate for his age (14) and job (jumper/eventer).
I consider him a KS success story, but I always tell others that what worked for my horse might not work for others and what my horse needed might not be needed by others.
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