I heard an interesting story Sun. We ran into a man at breakfast that we know pretty good. He has a horse, and does alot of team penning. He's relativly new to horses I think, but sounds like he does pretty good. But he has told us he can take the horse sport or leave it. This past winter he had all but decided to sell his horse, and mentioned it to some lady he knows who pens.
Anyway, she called him a few weeks ago and asked if the horse was still for sale. He told her yes, but he told us he had changed his mind (funny how in winter everyone wants to sell,and then spring hits:). Anyway, she wanted one of those pre purchase vet checks.
The same thing happened to him that happened to me last year with Harley. Altho this horse has never taken a lame step, never had a problem, the vet told the lady there is a "possiblility" that this horse "might" have a problem with his left hock at some point in his life.....of course she back out of buying him.
What is it with these vets....if they are afraid that they don't put something bad out there about the "possiblelities" of what could go wrong because of liability reasons, they need to not do these types of exams. It doesn't seem fair to anyone buyer or seller.
If you were paying more then say $2500 for a horse, would you insist on a prepurchase vet check? If the vet came up with things like this would you pass on buying?
Doesn't it seem that any horse has a possibility of something going wrong at some point?
I've been quietly simmering about this since I heard this. Makes me mad all over again about Harley, altho I'm glad now I still have him.
If I ever have a buyer again for any horse, I'm telling them right up front there will be NO prepuchase vet check, other then to my vet to say the horse is sound, and I would allow a blood test to insure no drugs or infections at present time. But that's it.
Becky
It does sound like at least some vets are overly anxious about OK-ing a horse without finding something that could be a caveat. I don't know what the answer is. What we want is to know if the horse is currently suffering something, or if they are prone to break down bacause of an obvious defect. But ALL horses have the potential to be injured any time anywhere, it's part of the game of athletic sport. No horse is a perfect specimen in all areas of conformation, all horses could be designed better somewhere. It's OK to point out conformation areas that are not ideal and describe how that shortfall might limit some expected activity, but all that needs to be taken as good background information to be aware of in moving forward in training and conditioning for the sport, not necessarily a reason to back out.
We didn't do a pre-purchase exam on Cyn... we just took the shot because at her age and usage we wouldn't expect anything pre-existing to be wrong. IF we had, and IF the vet would have seen her stifle issue, would we have declined on her? I don't know. It's really minor.
As for trying to set ground rules for vet checks, I think you'll lose buyers... I'd be leary about a 'no vet check' rule, even if I wasn't planning to have a check. But I'd be happy enough and would find it useful to talk to your vet, because I think the history of treatment is valuable, and I would assume vets would be honest. They aren't going to outright lie for any one customer's business.
I'll say this, when I had my vet out a couple weeks ago to do shots and a soundness evaluation on Bay, and Bay was so hot-to-trot, he said, "If this was a pre-purchase exam, I'd approve him without even wondering if he had Navicular".
I don't think I would ever tell a buyer not to get a vet check, and have provided them gratis on horses I've sold site unseen to be shipped out somewhere.
It's possible that some vets feel the need to CYA so throw something in - I think buyers need to use some common sense also. Depends on what they are buying the horse for. The "possibility that a horse might have a problem at some time in the future" translates to the horse is fine, take care of him and he'll probably stay fine. No one can guarantee the future and if the buyer needs that, they need to buy a car, not a horse.
On the prepurchase exams, there's no easy answer. If I had of gotten a prepurchase on Winnie, I wouldn't have bought her, her x-rays were horrible and of course, she turned up lame.
I got a prepurchase on Tuffy and his was iffy, he does have some problems, but I wanted him so badly I took the chance and never regretted it. If he would have had any major problems, I wouldn't have bought him.
I've only sold a few horses, 2 of them went back to previous owners (Juma's mama and a gelding I had), 1 was Juma and I had him priced so low he wasn't much of a risk and one was a palomino gelding that was basically given to me. I sold him to a friend of my brothers, very cheaply, for him to lead his son around on. This was about 5 years ago and they still have that little horse. No one asked for a prepurchase but I sold the horses so cheaply it wouldn't have made any sense to go to that expense.