Been viewing horses today-Ahh Rant!!

[Steeleydan]

My friend and I have been today with another of our friends' to view a horse for her. Bearing in mind we have driven to County Durham a good 2.5hrs from us, personally it was not at at like it looked in the picture, and it was lame!!
We could not beleive it, it was blantantly obvious it was lame behind, at a guess I would of said stifle or possibly higher, the vendor tried to blame it on a scab on its cannon bone, that was the size of my little finger nail if that, and looked old, no heat/swelling etc.She said it got it when it was kicked last night, WTF!!
She must of thought we were stupid.
The story was it had come out of Doncaster sales- un raced, it was like a whippet very weak and un furnished, miles over priced TBH it looked like a typical £500 thing that comes out of Donny sales, certainly not worth half she was asking.Also it says in the ad "Will excel in BYEH classes(only with a blind judge I think) its conformation was dire, looks nothing like in the picture.
So our friend was extremly disapointed we had driven all that way.
I dont know how to post a link but the horse is in this weeks Horse and Hound page 95, 16h 4yo TB, grey.
Talk about embelished the truth.

 

[indie999]

Are you really suprised its so blooming disappointing isnt it! I got up 6.30am went up to Northampton(M1) and then down to St Albans...saw two horses and got home about mid day..............
Another day 2nd viewing drove up to Norfolk 10am appointment was there 10mins and got home about 2pm

2 of the three horses were not as described...all sounded wonderful and Yes I did interrogate ask for more pics etc etc etc.

Meeting a lot of small time Ds too

I really dont know what the answer is to make sellers be honest...they are very rare!

 

[pricklyflower]

It's even more frustrating when you fly in and spend £££'s on flights and hire cars. I try usually to make a weekend of it and see 4 or 5. my first trip when I was looking last year was 4 days and saw 8 horses and only 2 were as describes. So disappointing. I used an agent after that to weed the wheat from the chaff.

I feel your pain!

 

[Jesstickle]

It's even more frustrating when you fly in and spend £££'s on flights and hire cars. I try usually to make a weekend of it and see 4 or 5. my first trip when I was looking last year was 4 days and saw 8 horses and only 2 were as describes. So disappointing. I used an agent after that to weed the wheat from the chaff.

I feel your pain!

Pricklyflower are you channel islands?

 

[jaquelin]

I think the answer is video! Won't look at a horse without seeing a video first, and won't sell a horse without preparing some good accurate videos. For this reason I prefer Horse Quest though now H & H supports video too.

 

[pricklyflower]

Jesstickle - yep!

Video is great but can still hide a multitude of sins! Amazing what some people try and get away with. Especially one woman who said the video was taken "last night" when it was summer and the horse was in winter woollies and trees were bare! I didn't go to see that one lol

 

[Jesstickle]

My dad lives on Guernsey

Sorry OP. Not trying to hijack. I've been very lucky and have always had more or less honest sellers but there isn't much to lie about with 2yo sold from the field. It must be a nightmare!

 

[pricklyflower]

Good choice of island. Do you visit?? (sorry again OP!!)

 

[Jesstickle]

I'm out in August if I hurry up and book some flights.

I'm glad you said that. You could have been from Jersey and spat at me! Such a minefield!

 

[LEC]

I know several forum members who have been to look at horses for people if lived close by and taken video. This would be something I would be happy to do for others and might save wasted journeys. No judgement needs to be made but you can video it being trotted up and ridden so anyone can do that if they have a camera.

 

[calon]

I know several forum members who have been to look at horses for people if lived close by and taken video. This would be something I would be happy to do for others and might save wasted journeys. No judgement needs to be made but you can video it being trotted up and ridden so anyone can do that if they have a camera.

me too i would go look for someone if not too far from me

 

[loopylucifer]

I see horses a lot for work and they are never quite as discribed. Quite a few have issues lets say which is par of the course. But the thing that irritates me more than anything is when people change there mind and dont both to let you know so you travel to see a horse and they just dont turn up. And when you then phone them they always say they tryed to leave a message or did leave a message. But if they left one you wouldn't have wasted an afternoon!