09/21/2023
💁♀️ Let's Talk... Who's at Fault When the Horse You Bought Stops Working?
This is a topic I cover a lot when I'm teaching training courses but I tend to avoid posting about on Facebook.... Because let's face it, there's going to be A LOT of opinions on this topic.
So let's set the scene here: You've just purchased your dream horse. He worked great when you tried him. Your tack fit perfectly. He walked in the gate. Passed a vet check. All is good. Then you get the horse home and a month or so goes by... Your new horse stops working or is suddenly sore or has EPM.... You start to wonder if you bought a problem horse. How could the seller not disclose these problems? What do you do now?
I get calls from frantic owners in this exact situation all the time. I will be the first to admit that I've bought my fair share of horses that had soundness issues and I've spent a lot of nights wondering if the seller took a vacation on my money whole I got left with a mountain of vet bills.... But this post isn't going to be about bashing sellers (there are plenty of fb groups for that). This post is going to be about the other side of the situation, because I believe that good sellers do exist and sometimes they get the blame for things that are out of their control.
Did you know? That stomach ulcers can form as quickly as 5 days? And just because it takes 5 days to actually form an ulcer, it doesn't mean the horse's stomach wasn't in distress the 4 days before. Bringing a horse into a new environment can immediately begin to stress the body, especially for young horses. Transitioning to different hay or feed can add to these issues. So the horse that you've had for 3 weeks that is now cinchy and fussing at the alley, could have scoped completely clean at the time of purchase. We see this happen a lot where the new owner thinks they have bought a horse that was "drugged," when actually it was an onset of ulcers creating the poor behavior after purchase.
I also see this happen when the new owner decides to put the horse on 47 supplements, because they always think they know how to feed better than the other person.... The horse's system gets shocked from too many changes at once.
I've personally had a horse that seemed fine at home and after a 6 hour trailer ride to a race in south Texas, went off feed and had a complete EPM relapse to the point of having to scratch the barrel race. That was a good lesson that taught me how important prevention techniques are especially for how hot our summers get. Yes.... It can hit that fast. Ask anyone who has dealt with it a lot.
So what about joint pain? Surely the seller would know about that, right?
So much of how the body reacts to anything is a result of fitness and consistency. Another common thing we see in a rehab is the open rider that buys a solid horse from a trainer, only to find the horse is blown up within a few months of purchase.
(Now, I know there are good trainers and bad trainers. I'm not here to debate that. Do your homework before purchase.)
The scenario I run into most often is that when that horse is with the trainer, they are in work every day. That trainer is going to have the horse in peak condition. Just walk through the stalls at a futurity... Those horses shine like a penny and have muscles like the Magic Mike movie. Every reputable trainer wants their horse to be a reflection of their program. This is how they make their living.
So when average horse owner makes that purchase and takes that horse home, most do not keep the same conditioning routine. They work a 9 to 5, so sometimes riding is tough... The kids have sports and activities... The weather doesn't cooperate... Soon that super chiseled horse from the sale ad is starting to look heavy, flabby, and undefined. Inconsistent workouts lead to the loss of stabilizing muscle and fast twitch fibers. So now when you only ride one day a week and then enter a 3 day show.... You are setting that horse up for fatigue to cause muscle soreness, compensation patterns, strain on joints, gastric upset, and risk of bleeding.
Trainers can ride multiple horses in a day because it's their job. The average owner typically owns several horses, but very few actually have the time (and discipline) to realistically work a job and keep 5 to 7 horses in competition fitness without taking shortcuts that can lead to costly vet bills. That jumping on twice a week a long trotting 3 miles will create way more problems than it will fix.
Did you know: It's been proven that muscle atrophy is detectable on ultrasound within 72 hours of a horse being on stall rest? So in just 3 days of your horse standing around in a paddock or stall, you are losing fitness. This is why riding twice a week doesn't work. When those muscles compensate for weak areas, it puts strain on the joints and changing the pull and wear will cause inflammation... Which leads you to the vet. 3D/4D horses seem to be able to compete without as much fitness and stay relatively sound, but your hard running, hard turning horses can't. Kind of like how you can not exercise and play on a casual pickup game of basketball, but a college player has to be in the gym daily.
... This is also why people think injections don't work. The injection just breaks the pain cycle and inflammation. It doesn't correct the core root of the problem, which is almost always muscle compensation........ For the record, most of my kissing spine rehabs (both surgery and not) are owned by open riders, not trainers. And if you look at the x-rays against the horse the kissing spine will always present at the weakest part of the core, nearly every time. I'm not saying 100% of the surgeries can be prevented, but in human medicine they will not do back surgery unless you are below the correct weight for your body to be able to successfully heal from the procedure. Just food for thought....
So when we get these horses in that are running up the fence, refusing the alley, have had 5 things injected, and the owner is bashing the trainer they bought the horse from... I always ask what their fitness program is. Especially if it's a young horse that is still growing and their conditioning has become inconsistent.
The last chapter of this novel is personal story of defeat... The "back burner" horse that hasn't been hauled, but has all of the potential.
So I bought one of these. Straight out of the pasture. Overgrown feet, fat... but the most patterned thing I'd ever sat on. I even vet checked him. So I take him home and start to work on his feet and get him in shape. He was so great on the pattern that I thought... "He's not in shape, but I'll just enter and coast him through." He worked like a dream. So I kept riding at home, but I entered again and asked him for a bit more sp*ed. He worked so nice, I got excited and entered a whole stack of races. Within 6 months, I'd crippled him because I wasn't patient enough to get my correct foundation of fitness first while I was changing angles to correct his feet. He was winning races, but I was injecting everything on him, my tack didn't fit, and I ended up with soft tissue damage that would take him out for another year. It wasn't my lack of dedication, but my impatience for competition that caused it. I struggled with wanting to blame the seller and was convinced they knew he had issues. It took selling him extremely cheap and watching someone else rehab him correctly and start winning on him for me to realize my fault and lack of education.
... That's also some of the heartbreak that fueled my education that would lead later on to the desire to open Superior Therapy LLC and my current project Learn Equine Therapy....
We can't prevent every accident and there are times when shady sellers need to be held accountable for their actions, but a lot can happen in 30 days of a horse being in a new home that isn't a seller's fault....
