04/14/2025
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1EVM67Bjky/
What is the REAL purpose of reviewing x-rays nowadays?
Ok I know, I know lots and lots of you are going to jump in and say, “I had a horse and he got lame and this sport is so expensive I can’t take a risk to buy a horse who is going to be lame”.
And so I will agree with that. But I think we, as an industry are going too far and giving way too much value to X-rays on determining a horse’s value.
My business partner just lost a sale on a very very nice horse because (I wish you guys spoke French so I could play you the audio from the vet) and I quote : the naviculars have some slight changes that will never impact the horse’s sport career as they are so minimal, but they will impact the value of the horse and its resale”.
Wut? Come again? So an amazing jumper prospect is going to be less valuable and harder to sell for a “remark” that vets agree will never be an issue for its actual career?
Make it make sense… please. Why would the value of a horse change because X-rays have findings that don’t affect the long term soundness? And my vet says the same thing to me over and over. X, Y, Z is not going to be an issue, but some vets are not going to like it and you will have a harder time reselling it.
We “as an industry” take more and more X-rays, the machines and computers used are more and more sophisticated giving us very clear images where you can detect every nano detail.
So we end up noticing more and more “problems”. But are they really problems? Or is it just that we do more and more diagnostics and are more aware of everything.
My experience over the years is that most vet bills I have incurred were not related to findings on X-rays (like in 99% of the cases it had nothing to do with anything on X-rays).
Meaning that I have had a ton of horses with beautiful X-rays and not so beautiful X-rays, having soft tissue injuries, EPM, EDM, Colic, atrial fibrillation, pleuro pneumonia, broken femur, eye issues, you name it. I’m on speed dial with my vet.
But after 25 plus years I have still to call my vet because a chip made my horse lame.
I for one, I’m way more picky about the actual clinical part of the exam than the X-rays. Is the horse doing its job at the level I intend to use it for? what does it take to keep the horse going sound? If the answer to the last question: is do the Hokey Pokey every couple of months, it’s a pass for me. I believe in injections but I believe they are over used and mask a lot of issues that become big problems in the long term.
My 17YO GP horse hasn’t seen a needle in the 3 years I have owned him.
My daughter’s horse who I bought with the worst navicular X-rays at 3YO, is still going strong at 11YO, the only issue we had was a very mild tendon injury after showing at WEC (watch the footing more than the X-rays people, I promise you, many soundness issues are related to footing issues).
One more anecdote. I have a very very good client who has bought numerous horses from me. She bought a 1st jumper type from me 3 or 4 years ago and discovered a “horrific X-ray finding” that gave every vet palpitations. She got said horse for a steal because we were told he is pretty much bound to be lame anytime soon.
Well soon is still not now after showing and winning for the past 4 years.
Then she got an other one with sketchy af X-rays. Even I got a tad queasy looking at them. That one is currently jumping the welcomes and medium jumpers like a boss.
And because I didn’t want her to think that all my horses had s**t X-rays, I sold her one with gorgeous perfect X-rays. This one on the other hand, managed to be hospitalized for shipping fever, colic, managed to get a catastrophic pasture injury, then went back to showing to get what looks like not one but 2 back to back tendon injuries. But Folks, his X-rays were deemed zero risk for future soundness.
So yeah, the struggle is real here as a horse seller. It’s tough to “have to giveaway/sell cheaply ” super sound athletes because they have findings on X-rays.
Good horses are not easy to find. Good horses with “perfect” X-rays are unicorns and so we are in this conundrum of prices going up, people vetting horse after horse in this quest of the “perfect horse” to minimuize the risk when in the very long term the risk you take buying a horse is and will always be very high.
Horses are high maintenance suicidal herbivores that have one goal and one goal only, finance your vet’s lifestyle and annihilate your savings account , when you have accepted this fact you will have a blissful equestrian endeavor.
