When someone says their horse is "imported"...

[Horizon]

Do you consider horses purchased from Canada to be imported? For example, I saw an ad that said a foal was by a certain stallion and out of an “imported” mare. However, I know the mare was just shipped a few hours across the Canadian boarder to its present home.

When you read the word “imported” before the description of a horse, do you usually assume that “imported” means from Europe?

Is calling a horse that hails from Canada “imported” sort of false advertising?

Similarly, if a horse from the US is sold to Canada, and they call it “imported”, do you find that misleading advertising?

[magicteetango]

I would immediately think Europe but no it isn’t lying, it was imported.

[Cumano]

My first reaction would be “What difference does it means it is imported or not, and where it is imported from?” as long as you are able to evaluate the specific horse you have before you.

[joiedevie99]

I don’t have a problem with it, because it is true.

That said, I would not say a horse was imported unless it came from Europe (or Brazil if its an Andalusian).

[VirginiaBred]

Imported implies Europe to most people.

[JWB]

Technically correct, but if someone tells me their Canadian horse is imported, I’m going to roll my eyes.

I’d call any horse that comes from another continent imported… Europe, Australia or NZ, South America. Don’t often hear of horses coming from Asia or Africa, but it’s still imported if it does come from there.

We joke that imported horses outnumber the domestics in our barn with 2 from Germany, 1 from the Netherlands, 1 from New Zealand, 1 from Canada, and 3 from the US, but really consider it to be all even.

[MonterStables]

[QUOTE=VirginiaBred;6944166]
Imported implies Europe to most people.[/QUOTE]

:yes:

[Stoney447]

Not to hijack, but I was wondering along the same lines…

When someone advertises their Thoroughbred for sale and calls it an Irish Thoroughbred, do you assume said horse was imported from Ireland?

[rideagoldenpony]

@JWB;6944192

Technically correct, but if someone tells me their Canadian horse is imported, I’m going to roll my eyes.

I’d call any horse that comes from another continent imported… Europe, Australia or NZ, South America. Don’t often hear of horses coming from Asia or Africa, but it’s still imported if it does come from there.

I completely agree.

[netg]

It’s technically correct. Unless the person says “Imported from X country” I assume Europe, but I’m not paying more for a horse because it was imported anyway, so whether they say what country or not it’s not upping my opinion of a horse.

[Daventry]

Agree with everyone else. As already stated, technically, a horse IS imported from Canada to the USA and vice versa. Import papers have to be filled out, horse is crossing into another Country, etc. That being said though, and I know this has been stated on COTH so many times before, the Canadian/US border is kind of blurred now, due to so many horses being sold to Canada/US or from Canada/US. Now, 25 years ago, it was definitely not as common as it is now There are no quarantine requirements, no testing requirements (except for EIA- Coggins test) to get from the USA and into Canada or vice versa.

I also roll my eyes when I hear someone say they imported a horse from Canada. I think the majority of people only considered an imported horse as coming from another Country other than Canada or the U.S. On our own website, we just state such and such pony was brought up from California, Florida, etc.

[rugbygirl]

In my region (Western Canada) more and more horses are being imported from South America, mostly Argentina.

“Imported” to me generally implies from another continent (like South America or Europe) but I won’t make a fuss if it was just over the border. Internal eye-roll, but that’s about all.

I also do the internal eye-roll when someone says “Irish” or “New Zealand” TB, and it turns out that the horse was born here, just of Irish or NZ breeding.

I don’t really care much, buying mostly riding horses. I’m really not the sort of person who gets a big kick out of snotting about my horse’s background…I’m usually too busy trying to stay on him.

I know that a lot of horse people really do enjoy acting superior about their horse’s fanciness though, so if I were trying to market to snooty people (who often have money, so not a bad crowd) I would be very scrupulous about those kinds of statements. Hell hath no fury like a snooty person embarrassed by their admirers when their recent purchase turns out to be more “common” than originally expected…

[SCMSL]

When someone says their horse is “imported”…

and the horse is from Canada, either the seller is ignorant or trying to fool the buyer.

Yes, it’s not technically a lie. But given that everyone used the expression “imported” to refer to European horses, anyone knowledgeable wouldn’t refer to a Canadian horse in the same way.

When someone is selling a horse, the description should be as close to the actual horse as possible - no room for any dubious statements. This way, you’ll avoid time wasters and the clients are happy about what they choose. You don’t sell horses by making statements about them which aren’t exactly a lie, but aren’t true either by everyone else’s eyes.

Just my two cents…

[LaurieB]

[QUOTE=Stoney447;6944273]
Not to hijack, but I was wondering along the same lines…

When someone advertises their Thoroughbred for sale and calls it an Irish Thoroughbred, do you assume said horse was imported from Ireland?[/QUOTE]

I would.

If not, I would assume that the seller doesn’t know what he/she is talking about.

[SCMSL]

If not, I would assume that the seller doesn’t know what he/she is talking about.

Exactly! Either a liar or an ignorant… either way, not someone I would like to deal with.

[Mara]

[QUOTE=Stoney447;6944273]
Not to hijack, but I was wondering along the same lines…

When someone advertises their Thoroughbred for sale and calls it an Irish Thoroughbred, do you assume said horse was imported from Ireland?[/QUOTE]

To further not-hijack, when did the practice of prefixing an imported Thoroughbred’s name with an asterisk end? And why?

[Sabino_Farm]

In this case I can brag that I just sold a filly out of country or exported her…eye roll…to Canada. Of course I would leave the “to Canada” out but I am not into false advertising or misleading my buyers! Seriously…I have shipped foals within the US farther away than this filly.
On another note, yes, the argument can be made of why would the word “imported” mean anything…in a perfect world I would agree, but as long as American buyers go shopping in Europe or assume Europe always has the better horses…it is good marketing to mention my broodmares are imported. Wow, was that a run on sentence! Someday, I hope the words “bred in America” means more than “imported”.

[rugbygirl]

Exactly! Either a liar or an ignorant… either way, not someone I would like to deal with.

I feel that one distinction is important here. I also would not LIKE to deal with the liar/ignorant…but I would. If they had a horse I liked for the price that I considered fair, I’d buy it.

I’d also promptly laugh about their stupid claims with my friends/family, and share the amusing details with anyone who asked me about them.

Even the worst liars in the horse world SOMETIMES have a fair price on a decent horse. I’ll deal with them, though carefully. They’ll be paid (cash, they will NOT receive any personal information about me if I can help it) and I will behave reasonably and civilly. I will put up with a lot of BS if it doesn’t cost me money and I really want the horse. I will not add the person to my Facebook or send them updates. I will not feel badly whatsoever in changing the horse’s registered name if at all possible to erase any connection with the person. I also will not feel guilty laughing about them to other people and being brutally honest about the lies I was told, including on forums online.

Sometimes just completing a sale or moving a horse shouldn’t be used as the sole yardstick for “satisfactory business practices.”

[cloudyandcallie]

I would consider any horse imported from outside the USA as “imported.” Of course, there’s the issue with the contiguous states, but I guess if a horse came from Alaska or Hawaii, he’d not be imported, because he’d be “from” an American state. I’m sticking with the legal definitions of importing and exporting. Whether the horse is an iillegal or legally imported one is up to the feds. (My horse has a passport and is here legally. And his “wife” was born in Minnesota, although up near the Canadian border, but she has a USA registration. (Have to be careful as they both live in a county full of redneck bigots and yankee bigots in the south.)

If I took a horse to Canada, I’d be exporting him from the USA and importing him to Canada. I think.

[MuskokaLakesConnemaras]

I have always looked at “import” and “export” as crossing a border to one country to another. Be that, Can to US, US to Can or from Europe, SA etc. Never occured to me to label it anything else…