The other crazy thing to me, to be honest, is that apparently while all this mud is being slung all over the place on Social Media, and friends of the trainer and owner are mobilizing to give Jet Pets negative reviews on Facebook and Yelp…
the horse is actually still alive. And sitting in a stall in quarantine reliant on Jet Pets employees for hand walking… which is probably the highlight of the poor guy’s day.
Keep politics out of it. Who cares if he defeated your friend!? That’s politics. As his “red neck voters”, that’s awfully bigoted of you. Who said that? What are their names?
What would your friend have done if he won? Would he step in for this family and break protocol? I think not because if an outbreak were to happen, he would get blamed.
You have to follow protocols. It’s better to be safe then sorry. Outbreaks of a disease such as Glanders is not fun.
That may be true.
But the company representative did post a very unprofessional comment on the Facebook discussion, and based on the emails posted by the owner or trainer, it looks like the rep’s comment about the daily rate was also completely inaccurate. That was not exactly a good sign.
The posts the trainer is making publicly on Facebook (e.g. expecting Jet Pets to pay her client $50k) are not at all realistic and, unfortunately, people who seem rather uniformed about the import business are encouraging her.
(Once again, I find myself regretting checking Facebook for more details. What a mess.)
ETA: It’s unfair that this family drew the short stick here. But I feel like we are all rolling the dice when we buy a horse. I think someone already said “know when to hold’em, know when to fold’em”. It’s sad, but we need to be prepared to lose money when we get into horses. So many things can go wrong.
Yeah… I’m seeing the same thing. And it is QUITE a mess. Hard not to check it once you start watching it.
She just posted that someone sent her a cease a desist letter today. But apparently it actually wasn’t from Jet Pets. 
So who knows… that leaves the USDA vet she continues to refer to by name over and over… or Horseflight. Because they are certainly also in the middle of this.
I haven’t (and don’t want) to find the Facebook drama, but based on reading the posts here, it sounds like this was a very naive family who wanted to step up their daughter’s level of competition, with a trainer with very little experience (possibly quite young). Naive enough not to know just how inexperienced the trainer might be. Obviously, too much trust was put in the trainer and while there may have been a vague understanding that importing has risks, I can’t imagine the full range of those risks was fully outlined. Even if this is a bit of a “unicorn zebra” scenario.
Regarding the costs, although I know there is real world money and horse world money I do admit that the figures seem staggering to me for a family who is not in the “money is no/little object” income bracket. I’m not comparing it to my own financial situation, btw, since I can’t even afford to own my own horse, but it’s still a mind-boggling risk even for a “upper middle-class family.” The idea of this being helpful to the family if picked up by the news…I think it would have exactly the opposite effect. Yes, there might be sympathy for the horse, but I think there would be a great deal of judgement of the family spending so much to import a horse, when that figure would be beyond the out-of-pocket means of most even for a health emergency of a human family member.
If there is no happy resolution, I hope this case is reviewed, and at minimum the current testing protocols for Glanders, quarantines, and imports are given a once-over, and an autopsy performed on the horse. If the horse does not have Glanders, it would be interesting to know why he repeatedly fails such a test.
Did anyone follow the Sagacious ordeal to the end? From the article I read it sounded like they ultimately accepted the Western Blot Test results. Am I reading that wrong?
Agree completely with all of your points. I would add, regardless of the outcome of this saga, I would hope it triggers a review and possibly modification of protocols and procedures for the better.
I can’t see myself ever having enough money to import a horse, but if I did, I think I would say a big ‘pass’ after seeing this nightmare play out. Still keeping fingers crossed for the horse.
Cut and pasted from Trainer’s letter to Dr. Healey: I am a horse trainer for the “middle class”! My clients don’t typically have the 6 figures to spend on show horses. When we pooled 36,000 together to purchase this horse, it was a stretch! The Farrells are a military family…
First I think the $36,000 is likely cost of horse delivered to USA. There were comments somewhere that seller made all transport arrangements, etc.
But what is interesting is it appears that said trainer has some financial interest in this situation also. otherwise why would she way “we pooled”? This would explain some of trainer’s actions.
Meh. It’s not as if they have a lot to lose at this point.
And it’s not as if the horse’s initial cost was $360,000, or $3,600,000. As someone said earlier, $36,000 is an amount many people spend on the car sitting in their driveway. Imagine someone bought the car and then the price doubled (or more) as it was coming from the point of origin in another country. And that’s without even factoring in the “girl and her horse” aspect.
I don’t blame them for trying to draw more attention to the situation, even if it’s a long shot. I hope they can figure something out.
I feel like this is where the horse community is really out of touch with the general population. There is likely a much larger portion of the general population watching the news that can’t scrape together enough money to buy a car, and instead rely on public transportation to get to their minimum wage job, than have $36000 cars just sitting in their driveways. $36,000 is a significant down payment on a house that many renters can only dream of having. $36,000 is A LOT of money for most.
While I think there is sympathy amongst horse people and many other animal lovers, it is important to recognize that this might not play well with the larger public.
BINGO. I said about 100 posts ago when that letter first got posted, that trainer is not helping this family.
I’ll straight up say it, she sounds like she has a screw or two loose.
In this camp. Do feel sorry for the family and horse but between inexperience in the import process, questionable advice, subjecting the family and minor child to public scrutiny and what has to be the most unprofessional, ranting public FB post by a trainer possibly ever? Unfortunate for all involved.
I think this is out of touch thinking with the average North American family. Sure, someone might spend $36,000 on a car, but it is likely financed and the buyer is subject to monthly or weekly payment. That’s very different than someone slapping down $36,000 in cash to purchase an item. And even if someone was able to hand over $36,000 cash, there is no way to know whether that was their life savings, beyond what they could afford, accessed through a line of credit, second mortgage, etc. Long story short, my guess is, for the average family, $36,000 is a lot of money!
It is a lot of money. By the same token, there is no way to know if the family did the same things to come up with that amount for the horse.
I just pointed out that the amount was not a figure that only a billionaire could afford. Lots of people who are not billionaires drive cars that cost more, and lots of other people take public transportation.
The trainer mentioned in her posts that the family had to scrape and save for the price. Grandma also pitched in. So I would guess the family stretched the budget A LOT.
Why does it matter the cost of the horse or how the family saved for it? At the end of the day even if the horse was $1 the whole situation is messed up which ever direction you look at it.
At this point I just feel so bad for the horse, and the girl (who I wouldn’t be surprised if her and her family are forever soured on horses for this). I couldn’t sleep last night and checked out the Facebook page - yes, it’s a train wreck. Yes, the trainer loves !!!, and maybe she doesn’t have deep money pocket clients and doesn’t show at all the huge shows (maybe she does, I don’t know)…but none of that changes the incompetency of the USDA in this situation. Of course the US uses outdated tests and protocols. Naturally.
Reading the comments on the FB page it’s actually very fascinating how many people this has happened to. One owner of another horse on the plane also chimes in. Also it looks like the cease and desist was in response to a photo the trainer had posted. No idea what the photo was - she mentioned she deleted it.
There are more unprofessional, ranting posts out there for sure.
Purely a PR focused discussion. If you’re trying to mobilize public support and crowd-funding (GFM), it absolutely matters how the public perceives you - if you have 36k to import a warmblood, there’s going to be large segments of the public who’ll see you as a rich person, or at least a well-off one. And well-off people trying to raise 25k for a hobby may be negatively perceived.
If you read the posts the trainer didn’t even know how to set up a GFM. It was suggested to her by multiple people. Personally I wouldn’t have done it, but to each their own. My point is the price of the horse doesn’t really pertain to the ineptitude of USDA and how that resulted in this mess.
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