advice horse failed vet with a small sarcoid what would you do?

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Turnover

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i have been looking for feels like a lifetime for the right horse.. found him last week and he is owned by very nice high profile eventing people but he has failed the vet and at the moment they will not consider dropping the price until their own vet has taken a look. should i just walk away now or what?
 
It would depend on where the sarcoid is and what type it is.Also are you willing to pay for treatment of sarcoids yourself as your insurance probably wouldn't cover it given it's a pre existing condition.
 
Wait and see what they say after their own vet has seen the horse. If they will negotiate enough on price that it makes the purchase worthwhile despite you having possible ongoing vets fees to sort out the sarcoid (and any possible future ones) then it's your call.
 
yes.. I was not present at the vetting but its apparantly in his armpit? size of a pea near the girth area. i'm upset, they are obviously upset but i think the price needs to reflect the risk i am taking in buying him? Their vet is coming on Friday. I would have thought that they could claim for his loss of value due to it on the insurance? what do you think?
 
I would wait and see what their vet says (and if poss get photos of the sarcoid and get them sent to Liverpool).

I would expect the purchase price to drop to reflect the cost of removal but i wouldn't expect it to drop £1000's.
If you have in your mind what you want to pay and they know what they want to get and there is no middle ground there isn't much in the way of a decision! :)


Its up to your whether you want a horse predisposed to getting sarcoids in the future which may be a big issue or more likely a bit of a pain in the ar$e but not life threatening.
 
What did the vet say about the sarcoid when you spoke to him?

Did he consider that it would be a problem??
 
We have been horse shopping recently and I have therefore needed to evaluate whether I would consider purchasing a horse with sarcoids. I found the information given online by Liverpool University very helpful. I made my decision that I would go ahead with a horse with sarcoids provided it was reflected in the price and the lesion(s) where small and not in any area where they could be traumatised.

I would not myself have considered a horse where there was a sarcoid present in the girth region (but that is just me). From the information I have read a sarcoid that is in an area where trauma can occur is more likely to become enlarged, ulcerated and suffer tissue breakdown and difficulties in healing.

ETA: it is certainly worth waiting for the confirmation from the secondary veterinary inspection as a minimum before walking away.
 
My vet it can be removed but would have to declared on the vet cert so no insurance cover for it now or in the future.... Its a risk you could remove it and never have another problem but you could also disturb it and then set off a chain reaction that means others appear. She is very realistic and agrees that the animal ticks all other boxes although we did stop the vetting before the xrays were taken and he does have a blemish on one of his front legs.... I am also realistic in that you will never get an absolutely perfect animal but sarcoids are a risk and the websites that i have read today indicate that the commercial value of the animal is affected dramactically
 
Turnover said:
My vet it can be removed but would have to declared on the vet cert so no insurance cover for it now or in the future.... Its a risk you could remove it and never have another problem but you could also disturb it and then set off a chain reaction that means others appear. She is very realistic and agrees that the animal ticks all other boxes although we did stop the vetting before the xrays were taken and he does have a blemish on one of his front legs.... I am also realistic in that you will never get an absolutely perfect animal but sarcoids are a risk and the websites that i have read today indicate that the commercial value of the animal is affected dramactically
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So you stopped the rest of the vetting so I assume you actually don't want to go ahead with the purchase? Otherwise what if you buy the horse and something that would have shown up on the rest of vetting didn't because you didn't have the full vetting? Even if they drop the price there may be a problem that you haven't let the vet complete the vetting?
 
Turnover said:
My vet it can be removed but would have to declared on the vet cert so no insurance cover for it now or in the future.... Its a risk you could remove it and never have another problem but you could also disturb it and then set off a chain reaction that means others appear. She is very realistic and agrees that the animal ticks all other boxes although we did stop the vetting before the xrays were taken and he does have a blemish on one of his front legs.... I am also realistic in that you will never get an absolutely perfect animal but sarcoids are a risk and the websites that i have read today indicate that the commercial value of the animal is affected dramactically
Click to expand...

Edited as when I thought I posted the Oooops link broken appeared so was redoing
 
no i stopped it the point of taking the xrays.... i spoke to the owners at that point and said can we discuss the price. I asked my vet to fully disclose the findings with the owners during the vetting, whats the point in having three way conversations??? I stopped it when they said no to reducing the price what was the point in spending money on xrays when i will not pay the original agrred price before we found the sarcoids.. I am prepared to send the vet back to complet the xrays if the price is right
 
how old is the horse? i only ask because when i bought V he had a sarcoid at the base of his ear- it was about half an inch by half an inch. as he was only a 4 year old my vet said that it wouldn't worry him as he was perfect in every other way so i bought him for the full asking price (which was fairly cheap anyway) and then the sarcoid fell off a few months later- vet said that it might do this with him only being a baby. personally a small sarcoid wouldn't really bother me...but yes you should get a few £100s off the cost as it will cost you to treat it. i wouldn't expect to get more than £500 off the cost though.
 
Don't buy it at any price, they spread. My horse had 3 small sarcoids which were treated with the cream and banding and now he has 100s. so far none are in the saddle or bridle area but I'm sure it is only a matter of time. They are no longer covered by insurance either
 
Okay so you dont buy this horse and you find another horse without any scarcoides, 2 months after youve bought the horse it develops them... There is always a risk with horses.

Personaly, i'd ask them to contact Liverpool and make sure that it really is a scarcoide first! If it is, for me it would depend on the place where it is and also if the sellers are willing to knock the treatment cost off the price of the horse. If they arn't then i would ask myself if i had enough money to cover the cost of the treatment - IF your vet feels that it needs treating.
 
Agree with Lialls that expert confirmation needed.

If it is a sarcoid, I would want to know how it would be treated if it became nasty. Sarcoid treatment can include surgery under general anaesthetic. As the horse will not have insurance cover for sarcoids or sarcoid treatment, possible treatment complications need to be considered.

I would not risk buying a horse with a definite sarcoid in that position.
 
Personally i wouldn't worry too much, if its small enough that you missed it when looking at the horse then it shouldn't be a bother. I would simply get the price reduced to get it removed (after proving it as a sarcoid) and have it removed. Plenty of decent horses just have one (we have several good jump horses who have a couple but they never have changed and it hasn't ever made the blindest bit of difference to them)
 
Hard one. When I bought mine, he had a tiny one in his armpit but wasn't failed on the vetting as I didn't want him for anything amazing. He then developed another bigger one on his stifle. The cost was about £200 for Liverpool cream and the vet told me I shouldn't have bought him. I am now paranoid that he'll get more as he is obviously prone. It's very worrying and I use an awful lot of flyspray/cream.

I doubt you'll get more than a couple of hundred off if it is confirmed as a sarcoid (I can recommend a fab non-vet cream that I've seen used with stunning results this month). If you look up pictures, you will see horror stories but so far, fingers crossed, there are no new ones.

You need to take into account the position of the sarcoid and if it spreads, are you going to able to ride. Is it a risk you want to take or not? Some YOs won't allow horses with sarcoids on their yards.
 
It would depend on the type and position of the sarcoid and if they were willing to negotiate on price. Obviously as it will be declared on the vetting, insurance won't cover it. if he is the horse of a lifetime you have seriously got to weigh up the pro's and cons.
if it's any help we bought a horse who had sarcoids arounr her eye, udder and elbow as a 2 yr old. They were removed and never recurred in the 20 yrs we had her. a freind's horse has just been treated with vaccine for 1 on his eyelid and you can't even see where it was.
 
Treatment (if it is a sarcoid) can cost hundreds of pounds, and make the horse quite poorly. They can come back in force or disappear for ever.

To me, it's too uncertain a future. I have known both scenarios and the best and worst outcomes.

I would only buy a horse with sarcoids if I was prepared not to get attached and its value as a worker (ie top horse at the job I have in mind) and I prepared to face vet's bills time off and ultimately its loss.

I had to laugh at the comment about the sarcoid appearance after a clear vetting - a sound horse at vetting can be terminally lame(d) the following day... I wouldn't buy a lame horse either.
 
Depending on where they are, my mare had one come up on her neck it was in nowhere that would matter but didnt look pretty, she is insured so I decided to have it done the liverpool way and get it burnt off (she had a flat sarcoid), after being put off by the vet and being told if I used the cream they dont always get better :eek: but sometimes worse :eek::eek:! I decided to not use the liverpool cream as highly caustic.
I went down the homeopathic route and used Thuja cream until it went completely about 9 weeks using everyday twice daily for first month, I then backed it up with tablet echinacia and Thuja one week on one week off and now 10 weeks down the line she has no sarcoid and no sign there every was one.
In the girth area this may not work but an inexpensive kind way to get rid!
 
Turnover said:
no i stopped it the point of taking the xrays.... i spoke to the owners at that point and said can we discuss the price. I asked my vet to fully disclose the findings with the owners during the vetting, whats the point in having three way conversations??? I stopped it when they said no to reducing the price what was the point in spending money on xrays when i will not pay the original agrred price before we found the sarcoids.. I am prepared to send the vet back to complet the xrays if the price is right
Click to expand...

I see so you would then have another visit and then pay again and if they find something else wrong?
 
Personally I wouldn't buy a horse with a sarcoid. There are plenty of healthy unblemished horses around so why buy one which already has a known problem.
When I bought my horse 2 1/2 years ago he was given a clear 5 stage vetting. A couple of weeks later I found a sarcoid on his belly while I was clipping him (he was only trace clipped when I bought him so the sarcoids were not very easy to see).Closer inspection found about 5 or 6 on his belly and on the inside of his hind legs at the top. They were confirmed as sarcoids by Liverpool. I was very upset, and cross that the vetting had not found them. We had no proof that they had been there at the time he was vetted, but I couldn't see how they could have grown in only a couple of weeks. They were going to be treated with Liverpool cream, but then, before the cream arrived, they started to disappear. Within about a month or 6 weeks they were gone, and, touch wood, have not reappeared. However, this is very unusual and I consider myself (and him) very lucky. One of the things that most worried me was the fact that I had bought him with a view to selling on (mind you - he's still with me!) and I was worried about how easy he would be to sell with sarcoids, because, as you will see from the above replies, most people would think very carefully before buying a horse with them, and many would not even consider it.
 
My friend sold her horse who had two sarcoids on his face. The vet pointed them out but was not concerned about them as they were not in an area that would be aggravated by tack. I think she reduced the price by a couple of hundred pounds - certainly not by a drastic amount.

I have had three horses who all developed (fortunately) only one sarcoid. One had the sarcoid banded, another had Liverpool cream and the other had it surgically removed. All were successful and have caused no more problems.

My vet now also recommends having the sarcoid cold laser treated.

If the horse ticked all the right boxes and the sarcoid was not going to be touched by the girth I would certainly consider purchasing the horse.
 
I would find out what type it is first. Can the vet do a biopsy or Liverpool determine the type from a photo? I recently purchased a horse with one that the owner had removed at her expense and another was visible but small. These two were in the inner thigh region. I got a few hundred quid off the asking price but the seller agreed to a 'contract of sale' which states 'within 6 months, should the sarcoid(s) return more agressively or multiply, the horse be returned for a full refund'. I know, how lucky am I that the seller was so nice.

With one or two sarcoids, I think the mangement of them is important to give them the best chance of going. My horse comes in during the day when the flies are at their worst and turned out at night with a full fly rug/face mask, fly spray. He is also on Hilton Herbs Equimmune twice a day in his feed to boost his immune system. My insurance company have excluded sarcoids and ANY skin problems!

Touch wood, things are ok.

You're right, you can find what you think is the perfect horse and something like this comes along. You will always have to make a compromise, it's just a risk you take.

I wouldn't swap/return my boy for a zillion pounds. He is FAB :-)
 
Its a difficult one, I have a lovely purebred 3 year old ID who I have had since a weanling, one of two I bought to sell on. He has now developed 3 small sarcoids on his sheath and a different type of one on his eye. As I know people do not want to buy horses with sarcoids i have had my vet photograph them and send off to liverpool. But im very dubious about using the cream in case it starts a chain reaction and he ends up worse, plus he isnt insured so i could end up spending lots of money for no result and also cannot sell the horse, nightmare !! my vet seems to think liverpool cream is the only answer but as I have not had a horse with sarcoids before Im very unsure, there seem to be lots of opinions about it all on here.
 
My mare was vetted and we thought she had a scar on her shoulder (poss rug rub) but by the 2nd clip it was getting bigger. So she had it lasered off as it was winter and the cream can rub off under rugs!! That was 2 yrs ago and touch wood she hasnt had another!

I may have thought twice had I know but she is my horse of a lifetime and I wouldnt swap her for the world!
 
Firstly, I would say you are lucky to have had a vigilent vet. I bought a pretty expensive 4yo in Ireland and had him vetted by an Irish vet...all clear.

Not having seen the different types of sarcoids before, I didn't know the "rough patch of skin" on the large vein on the inside of 1 of the horse's hind legs was a type of sarcoid you DON'T want to see...much more aggresive than the grape type.

After about 2 months noticed the "rough skin" had got considerably bigger so got my vet out and he confirmed the worst. I tried to see if I could sue the vet who vetted the horse in Ireland, but despite my vet and famous expert in Liverpool both giving the opinion that the sarcoid was definately present at vetting, once the VDU (think that's what most vets have to insure against being sued is called) got involved it was going to cost me literally £1000s to go to court in Ireland (fat chance of winning over there!), so had to drop the case.

Spent over £2000 getting the sarcoid treated and fingers crossed he is clear BUT it is always a worry should he get more...my vet says pretty likely altho 4years on none have appeared. He does however get turned out with complete eye cover to stop flies and is smothered in parafin!

Advice, well my now 8 yo is a star horse up to intermediate eventing and grade B showjumper so I wouldn't swap him for the world...would I have bought him if I'd known a purchase what I know now?....umm probably not and certainly NOT for the price I paid for him as he was only just backed, with no proof of ability. I'd talk seriously to your vet and get his opinion. I was told that sarcoids should be treated asap altho if possible not during fly season unless the sarcoids can be banded. At the very least I would have thought the sellers should pay for the treatment of the current problem. I know it is difficult but DON'T let your heart rule your head!
 
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