Behavioural changes in newly bought horses, from the dealer's POV

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emmab13

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I've noticed there are soooo many threads about how people have bought their safe, sane confidence giver and as it has stepped off the lorry has turned into the devil incarnate.

Selling a lot of horses, we get this phonecall about once every year. I have driven from Lancashire to Norfolk, and back, in a day, to ride one who had gone from pleasant and a bit boring to 'unrideable' during the journey down South.

After getting on it from the floor (you 'couldn't get on without a leg, and two people holding it') and riding it down the road (it won't leave the yard), I was then told to ride it in a 60 acre hay field (the indoor isn't free). So I did. Then when it became obvious to the customer (who was videoing the whole thing) that I wasn't going to fall off or die the indoor became miraculously free.

I have had the whole yard (think 20 people) hanging over the arena fence waiting for me to be bucked off, driven hundreds of miles just to prove a point before taking a horse back anyway, and only once have I got there to find the horse a lot sharper than it was when we got it, and god knows what happened because it took a month to fix when it came back.

Mostly, it is easier to just take the horse back unless the buyer really wants to try. You do not need someone continually falling off their horse and telling everyone they got it from you.

No offense to anyone who is in this situation, but in my experience there are more and more non-horsepeople getting horses. If your horse is used to being handled in a certain way, and without you even realising looks to you for reassurance, when it goes somewhere else, to someone who perhaps isn't as experienced, it is going to be a bit sensitive. Then when the customer misreads the signals and makes the wrong choice at the wrong time, all hell can break loose.

When we sell to experienced horse people we NEVER (touchwood) have this problem, its when we sell to your everyday, never wants to jump more than 2'6'' sort of person that they occasionally bounce back. JMHO
 
I do feel the less experienced/newcomers do seem to expect a lot of a sentient being, almost as if it should be a little robot. Pre-programmed to be fabulous.

This will never go away sadly and sellers will always be faced with boomerang-horses when selling to the less experienced buyer. Perhaps a caveat should be written.....perhaps attached to some after-sales support for this type of buyer? Just a little thought. We can't blame the inexperienced as after all, you have to start somewhere.... chicken... egg....

It's not about putting people down when they don't cope, but showing them the way forward. I appreciate that lots of dealers are time poor, however, I have seen the supportive approach work wonders for new owners that results in a positive long-term relationships. Some need more help than others. No-one should be blamed. Least of all the horses.
 
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Hear hear well said. I agree. Iv had the same and sold a mare who I had owned for 9 years YES 9 years and done everything with her only to be told 6 weeks later that she's a bolter. I laughter so loud but they were serious. I took her back and kept her and never had a problem!! Funny that.
99% off the time it's the owners at fault not the horse but it's always made out that the SELLER was at fault etc. Really winds me up.
 
thatsmygirl said:
Hear hear well said. I agree. Iv had the same and sold a mare who I had owned for 9 years YES 9 years and done everything with her only to be told 6 weeks later that she's a bolter. I laughter so loud but they were serious. I took her back and kept her and never had a problem!! Funny that.
99% off the time it's the owners at fault not the horse but it's always made out that the SELLER was at fault etc. Really winds me up.
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I think this horse was trying to say something.... :D:D i.e. I want my Mummy!!!!!!!!
 
I read this with interest as I can see how frustrating this must be for reputable dealers...its a shame as I think that the dodgy dealers out there have made everyone very wary!

I have witnessed the conversations in yards where horse 'isn't as described'...its made me laugh a few times.

The best one was when a horse turned up and the owner complained that the dealer was rubbish, she said to me ''my horse was a nightmare when he turned up...but it only took me a month to get him right!, now he is behaving properly but I wouldn't buy from them'' :D:D some people!
 
Awww.. bless her, and you. nice to hear a horse getting what THEY want in life for a change :):):):)
 
I had an ex racer some years back who was an absolute sweetheart. So much fun, safe and about as steady as you can get. We bonded almost instantly and she would lean over her stable door and fall asleep on my shoulder.

She went out on loan whilst I had my 2nd child and became the bolter/bucker/rearer/biter from hell (allegedly)
I went to ride her and she was her usual lovely self. Loaner got on her and she went mental. The loaner was a good rider, nice and quiet.
My horse just didn't like her :(

So she came back to me and carried on being her usual lovely self until she was sadly pts due to severe DJD.

Wierd behaviour I know....but sometimes when they bond with a human they can't/won't have that with anyone else. Or you just have to take a little effort to find the right person for the horse regardless of the potential owners experience/ability.
 
I have to say that a few of mine change when out of sight of a confident adult. So whilst they'll look after beginners/novices when I'm around, if said person tries to go anywhere with them solo, they go rather loopier as they don't feel secure. Even with me there, if they act up I can just get on and they chill. And I'm not an amazing rider by any stretch, just reasonably experienced and pretty bossy!
 
I always think this about ANY horse sold to a novice and esp nervous owner. It's so easy to ruin a good horse inadvertantly. Even more so from dealers as they're usually young horses who NEED a competant handler and rider to help them at first.

Not all novice nervous first time owners are idiots though. My friend is riding a young pony for someone. They bought him from a well known reputable dealer who sells nice natured but often green young Irish horses. This pony was just too green for their very novice nervous daughter. But instead of making out to be the dealers fault, they got help (my friend rode and schooled him for a couple of months) and they now have a really nice pony who, with continued help from my friend, will be perfect for their daughter.
 
I sold a horse through ascot sales. He was a very well bred tb that we needed to sell as we didn't have time for him. He was a lovely Horse and we made no more than we paid for him. We had competed him, xc schooled etc. The girl that bought him loaded him up and took him back from ascot to Devon. I told her he would take a day or two to settle in and that he hadn't been worked for a couple of weeks. Next day I had a phone call to say that they were going to have him put down as he was dangerous! They had unloaded him a mile from home, tacked him up in the lane, jumped on as a motorbike cane past and scared him to death causing him to run backwards in panic into a car! I was mortified as he was such an easy horse. I had him back and he was scared but came good in q couple of weeks, I resold him to a lovely hone where he went on to win lots at riding club level.
 
I agree with all you say.
A dealer makes their reputation not on the good horses they sell but the 'bad' ones.

Far to many inexperienced people are owning horses nowadays and when things go wrong it is always someone else's fault.

I bought a mare cheaply from a private owner. There were issues, nothing to bad, a lot of spooking, galloping past heavy vehicles oncoming and impossible to clip unless heavily sedated.


The mare needed leadership. Firm, fair riding mad to go up to anything she spooked at, stopping her hooking off when a lorry came past and she never objected at all to the clippers.
She hunted hard for the winter and was sold as a boys hunter. Ex owner heard what they paid for her - which was nearly double the price, and the tale went around that she was 'beaten into submission',
She never had a hand laid on her - or a stick!
 
There's irresponsible individual sellers as well as dealers. Near me a reputable small scale dealer sold a horse that really was an ace first horse type. The new novice owner approached me at the shops to rant & rave about what a nutter it was on the roads, 'bolting' everywhere. Given my 7 yr old has cantered all 15h of it & described it as boring, I doubted this. But new owner insisted no matter how hard she yanked its mouth, it wouldn't stand, just went backwards. And why would she use her leg if not wanting to speed up. Enough said!
 
Really? I've been around horses for about twenty-five years and I can honestly say that most horses people buy are nice, useful horses from the day they arrive on the yard. Most of the ones I've known to cause problems in week one are still problems twelve months down the line when their owners have stuck with them. I'm all for people sending back horses quick smart if they display issues early on.
 
Some of ours we have long enough to build some sort of relationship with, the one I went to see down in Norfolk had definitely decided he was MY horse, and breathed a sigh of relief as my bum hit the saddle.

I am no great shakes as a rider, I have more days when I can't see a stride than days when I can. I have dreadful habits that I can't get rid of, and through injury am not quite as secure in the saddle as I used to be and sometimes I have to give myself a talking to about growing a pair.

However, when we get a horse in it has a few hours to get its bearings, have a drink and some hay, and then on I get.

We trot up the drive and go 200yds down the road, then go in the school and jump some things and do some circles, then we jump some XC fences. After all that we go down the road the other way.

We don't have time to let them settle in, but very very rarely do we have problems bigger than the odd spook or humpy back or "OMG A KILLER PLASTIC BAG!!!!, oh ok I'll go then"
 
emmab13 said:
No offense to anyone who is in this situation, but in my experience there are more and more non-horsepeople getting horses. If your horse is used to being handled in a certain way, and without you even realising looks to you for reassurance, when it goes somewhere else, to someone who perhaps isn't as experienced, it is going to be a bit sensitive. Then when the customer misreads the signals and makes the wrong choice at the wrong time, all hell can break loose.
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No offence to you - but hell, that's basic horse sense - not rocket science! I would suggest that it is the professional seller's responsibility to decide if a buyer has sufficient experience for the horse in question. If the answer is no then you don't sell it to them! Simple, really!

I sell my home-bred, home backed youngsters at 3 - 5 years old and we have only EVER had one come back. He was a 5 year old who decided to test out the buyer and napped - and she allowed him to get away with it - so he napped some more! He'd never been a napper at home - andhe only tried the once when he got home!

I have sold 3 and 4 year olds to relatively inexperienced riders with good back up and Instructors - and it has worked well. I wouldn't sell a youngster to this type of rider unless I was convinced they DID have adequate back-up. But several times I've had to rfuse to sell a youngster to someone who wanted it and thought they could ride it - because you could SEE it being a disaster in the making!
 
Well said, OP. Having always kept my horse at assorted livery yards over the years, I've seen a seemingly endless cycle of novice owners try the horse ownership thing and then bail due to an out of control, badly behaved horse. In one or two instances, the horse was far too hot or green and should not have been sold to those owners, but often it seems to be a broke horse becoming increasingly insecure due to the inexperience of its handlers. There are so many little cues a horse can pick up that -- in my view anyway -- it takes more than a few months' experience for people to get clued into how they should simply "be" around horses.

It appears to me that some people think they should be able to own a horse after a few months of riding lessons. Sure, we all have to start somewhere, but I had seven years of riding lessons and had volunteered at the stables before I got a horse. Other teens I knew who got horses around the same time had similar experiences -- years of lessons, maybe working at the stable, maybe leasing a horse.
 
I agree with Janet George I do not sell loads but a few mostly ones I buy in young bring on and back,we turn away several buyers for every horse we have sold.

This is not because I think I am clever but I think if you know your horse you can mostly tell that its not right for someone, I have had buyers I have not been sure about but could not put my finger on and persuaded them it was not the right horse for them and think I was probably right as have not had a horse returned yet, although I realise it could easily happen.

I would however always take them back or help if it did not work out.

I think anyone who has bought one of the few I sell thinks I am mad as they get a book with all their likes etc habits my contact details everything I think they need to know however trivial,I also think buyers knowing they have back up can help their confidence with the horse but only works if you have sold to a committed buyer who really wants the horse.

If you wait you can always find a buyer who you can see is truly suited and really has found what they consider the horse for them this goes alot further than a buyer who is unsure but goes ahead with the sale anyway.
 
JanetGeorge said:
No offence to you - but hell, that's basic horse sense - not rocket science! I would suggest that it is the professional seller's responsibility to decide if a buyer has sufficient experience for the horse in question. If the answer is no then you don't sell it to them! Simple, really!

I sell my home-bred, home backed youngsters at 3 - 5 years old and we have only EVER had one come back.

I have sold 3 and 4 year olds to relatively inexperienced riders with good back up and Instructors - and it has worked well. I wouldn't sell a youngster to this type of rider unless I was convinced they DID have adequate back-up. But several times I've had to rfuse to sell a youngster to someone who wanted it and thought they could ride it - because you could SEE it being a disaster in the making!
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I understand what you're saying, but I think we differ in two ways.

Firstly, its a numbers game. Between August and December last year we sold 46 horses. Between January and July probably 30-odd. We took one back, sold to a relative novice adult with an instructor on a livery yard, who had tried the horse 3 times. Those are pretty good odds.

Secondly, you've been there every step of the process for your horses for at least three years. We just could not make a living keeping things for that long. We'll clip/trim them according to the time of year, if its between September and March they'll go hunting, they are shod, have their teeth done, they go on hacks. We try to do everything your average horse owner would do.
However we don't know what they were up to for the first 5 years of their lives and how its affected them, and while they are mostly well adjusted individuals, there will always be one that just will not suffer fools.
 
Also, I'm ALWAYS on the end of the phone, and will ALWAYS have one back if for whatever reason it isn't right, and quirks are ALWAYS disclosed, even as small as 'yes, he will look at you like you're about to kill him when you turn the clippers on, but give him a minute and you can do him all over'.
 
I think that a lot of people buy the wrong sort of horse, for them. I don't think that it is necessarily a novice either, who ends up with the wrong horse. I've seen quite a few 'experienced' horse people end up with something they shouldn't have.

Anyone who sells a green horse, to a green rider should expect to see it coming back, and rightly so in my view.

Most dealers, who spend all day every day round horses, are not going to have many problems with many horses, you just don't when your round them all day, riding lots of horses.

How they make an assesment of a prospective purchaser is beyond me really, especially when you need to sell to make a living. We all know dealers who trot out the old story of how they refused to sell to someone. I'm sure they have, it's bound to happen.

When you are making a living selling horses, you have to accept a few coming back. Lots of people cope with what they've bought, and step up. Some just turn them out never to be ridden again.

The best I've ever seen was a very 'dominant' woman who bought a very 'dominant' horse. These two bullied each other for years.
 
Pale Rider said:
When you are making a living selling horses, you have to accept a few coming back.
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Agree with this. The important thing is to TAKE THEM BACK. Not go on about how it hasn't settled, you're feeding it too much etc.

Just go up there, ride it to prove them wrong if thats what you want to do, and bring it back.
 
But to point out that actually, there are some dealers on this board, who are repeatedly.....praised!!! and always recommended. Granted there are some who cause a sharp intake of breath, but others must be doing something right.

I know my YO has stopped people when selling one of hers as really thought it would be a recipe for disaster for horse and new owner. I temper the people who are truly novice by looking at it from their perspective. Logically, why would you buy an old horse?! Unless someone showed you the advantages and how much more quickly you will be away enjoying your new horse..

We don't always get it right. I have made mistakes and taken a deep breath and sold on to a better suited rider ( or someone consderably bigger in one case!)
 
Parker79 said:
. . . owner complained that the dealer was rubbish, she said to me ''my horse was a nightmare when he turned up...but it only took me a month to get him right!, now he is behaving properly but I wouldn't buy from them'' :D:D some people!
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Interesting to hear the dealer's side . . . I haven't read the whole thread, but as someone who bought her first horse (not from a dealer) and found the learning curve enormously steep, I do think novice owners/buyers need a) alot more education before they buy; and b) help and support after they buy. It took a good year and a half to really get to know, understand and trust my quirky boy . . . and for him to know, understand and trust me. We have a fantastic bond now . . . but it hasn't always been an easy road . . . and thank goodness I didn't listen to all the people telling me that I should sell him and get something "easy."

How do we redress this balance, though? I agree that it isn't always the dealer's (or owner's) fault when a quirky, sensitive horse arrives in a new place with different handlers and acts accordingly . . . but who has the responsibility of making sure new (particularly novice-y) owners understand what's required in settling a flight animal into a new home/routine? I know some vets have Q&As on settling new horses - and some breeders also provide them . . . but should there be some sort of course people can do before they pick up their animal? Something else?

P
 
Pale Rider said:
We all know dealers who trot out the old story of how they refused to sell to someone. I'm sure they have, it's bound to happen.
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I actually had dealers not let me try particular horses b/c they didn't think we would be a suitable match . . . so went up in my estimation.

P
 
Buyers also need to understand you need experience and riding riding school horses is nothing like looking after and riding your own. We did stable management courses and not a lot of people booked them because they weren't interested in that side. Riding school horses are ridden for hours every day not a few hours every week.
 
I think it is crazy from a buyers POV that if they are novices they don't get lessons on a new horse. I was definately a novice when i bought my first horse, and he was a 13 year old schoolmaster, but he still tried it on something chronic and knew every trick in the book. It never once crossed my mind to send him back, I knew that it was me that needed to learn how to handle him, and had weekly lessons from a good instructor. When I loaned him out to a novice when I went to Uni many years later, I insisted that she had weekly/fortnightly lessons from my instructor as well, and they got on beautifully. Novice owners need to take responsibility for their own education and not expect an animal to behave like a machine :mad: BTW that horse taught me more than any plod ever could have done, bless you Alfie xxx
 
Having worked in a dealers yard I would say another point to add is that most people who work for a dealer will be fairly experienced - and will ride accordingly. As experienced riders will give a different 'feel' to a novice or less experienced rider, its sometimes difficult to identify what issues may crop up with a less experienced owner. We used to get horses in from Ireland and would push them faster than you generally would to see how they reacted and if they had any quirks but you can't make yourself ride like a novice and so may not get the same reaction. As the OP has pointed out, we often didn't have the benefit of the horses background either.

The issue is that although you can take a pretty good guess at how a horse may react with a novice, its difficult to identify what the longer term implications might be. A horse that is perfectly sane and sensible whilst at the dealers *may* develop some quirks when sold on to an owner who is possibly not that experienced. We never had any returned because they had turned into fire breathing dragons but we did go and visit a few who's owners were finding difficult - mostly they had become a bit bolshy or bargy or nappy. Rarely was the problem a large one and mostly it was caused by the new owner not setting the boundaries and allowing things to escalate.

Funnily enough, the one situation that sticks in my mind was a lady looking to buy for her daughter. Pony in question was an ideal PC/RC type, sane, sensible and ideal for the kid who wasn't that experienced. Kid tried him 2-3 times in the school, hacking, jumping and general handling. The lady in question then didn't buy him because he 'wasn't a 10k pound pony'!! Her child wouldn't have sat one side of a 10k pony and I dread to think of the consequences if they ever found one. The mad thing was that if we'd stuck a 10k price tag on the pony she'd have bought him without question!
 
Taffyhorse said:
Having worked in a dealers yard I would say another point to add is that most people who work for a dealer will be fairly experienced - and will ride accordingly. As experienced riders will give a different 'feel' to a novice or less experienced rider, its sometimes difficult to identify what issues may crop up with a less experienced owner.
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that's a really good point. I have had on loan a fantastic arab who i think is a perfect gentleman pushbutton pony, but when i let a girl on him who was what she would call an 'agricultural rider' - i.e. ridden for a long time but without lessons - to go for a little hack together, he ended up having what he thought was a lovely canter but what definitely could have been interpreted as a bolt (fortunately she was not toooo scared, but was definitely unable to stop!). I never would have thought he'd gallop off if asked to stop, I literally gallop on him whilst chatting on the phone and would hvae described him as having perfect brakes - so i do agree, it's hard as an experienced rider to see the issues that might come up when a novice hops on the same pony.
 
I sell a few and also help people buy, the competition horses or ponies and the reasonably competent rider is so much easier to sell or buy for than the less able.

Finding a genuinely safe, well mannered, happy hacker with a basic level of education is usually by far the most difficult to find and when selling something of this type you can struggle to find a buyer with at least some basic level of riding and care.

People with little experience may ask all the right questions, often many pointless ones but frequently do not listen to the answers or do not think it is relevant to their circumstances.
I sold a pony once, the owners were told it must not go out with mares, it was turned out the first night in a mixed group and caused mayhem, that came back as they had not realised I meant it could not live with mares and geldings.
 
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