Do you think it's okay to investigate your horse's past?

I only wish I could find out about my boy as a baby, unfortunately as far as we know, from the Haflinger society, he was bred for meat, never registered and bought in a job lot from a dealer.

If I could, and he had the right history, I'd want to know everything about it, so I say do it! It would be lovely to know, and if she's been good up to now, I'm sure there's no skeletons in the closet!
 
i have just done it this week :)

this is whats happened

bought an 8yr old ,he'd been past about and ended up looking pretty poor and sorry bless him

looking through his passport someone had him about 4 yrs so hummed and harred a bit and decided to wright to them last friday


got a phone call today

girl was 13 when she got pony for xmas as a surprise complete with tinsel all over him ,got a part time job to help pay his keep and loved him to bits
brought him up (was a yearling when she got him) broke him in etc then tragicaly he got peritonitis and spent a while in horspital and they nearly lost him

girl lost her part time job and vets bill came to over 3000 = had to sell beloved horse to pay the bill etc
thought they had found forever home where he'd stay ,saddly not they sold him on and they lost touch ,girl was devestated :(

she's coming at the weekend to see him :D and has spent the day in happy tears and i can't wait to see them renunited ,the idiot in me wants to wrap him up in xmas paper and turn up at her door with him but saddly i can't afford to loose money on him


its made my day ,they loved him to bits :)
 
caitlineloise said:
I only wish I could find out about my boy as a baby, unfortunately as far as we know, from the Haflinger society, he was bred for meat, never registered and bought in a job lot from a dealer.
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:( If he was mine that would make him even more lovable, as you can make up for his sad start.

Mollie's nervous, but she's gentle. I'm not afraid of finding anything "bad" from her past, but being several times over a trekking pony she might not have had a lot of individual attention and love for the last few years. However, she's 17. There could be interesting things to find out from before her trekking days.
 
I'm terrified of finding out my horses past! I managed to trace her back to a dealer that specialises in difficult horses and I darent phone them because I think I would rather not know what she did as I think it could have been terrible :p and I would always worry albeit subconciously if I knew. Although I did manage to contact someone who knew her as a foal and she was delighted to hear about her and has been very helpful.
 
Sorry can't quote again on my phone! But I love him more than any other horse I've ever met no matter what, regardless of his initial reason for being brought into this world, it saddens me so much he was destined to be meat:( but so glad I have him now! I think it just makes me a little bit bitter I'll never be able to know anything about him when he was younger, he's only 7 now! Haha, and god knows where he went when he was imported:( poor baby! Haha :(

But, he's with me for life, and doesnt know himself he was going to be a burger!
 
angelish said:
i have just done it this week :)

this is whats happened

bought an 8yr old ,he'd been past about and ended up looking pretty poor and sorry bless him

looking through his passport someone had him about 4 yrs so hummed and harred a bit and decided to wright to them last friday


got a phone call today

girl was 13 when she got pony for xmas as a surprise complete with tinsel all over him ,got a part time job to help pay his keep and loved him to bits
brought him up (was a yearling when she got him) broke him in etc then tragicaly he got peritonitis and spent a while in horspital and they nearly lost him

girl lost her part time job and vets bill came to over 3000 = had to sell beloved horse to pay the bill etc
thought they had found forever home where he'd stay ,saddly not they sold him on and they lost touch ,girl was devestated :(

she's coming at the weekend to see him :D and has spent the day in happy tears and i can't wait to see them renunited ,the idiot in me wants to wrap him up in xmas paper and turn up at her door with him but saddly i can't afford to loose money on him


its made my day ,they loved him to bits :)
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That's really lovely. Turned out to be a very nice thing to do for someone else, not just you! :)
 
I so wish I'd had more info on my old mare. She was bought by my riding school at the time from a market I believe, thinking she was 8. She bucked most of the kids off so they were ready to send her back to market, so my parents bought her from them (after I spent days in floods of tears...I was besotted with her). We placed an ad in a tracing horses column and got a reply from a little girl. It turns out Dusty had been kept in an adandoned beer garden full of broken glass, the owners never fed or watered her so this little girl and her dad would take her hay and water. In the photo they sent me she was a total hat rack with a matted coat. It seemed that not only was Dusty not 8, she was 23 years old. She had belonged to an old lady and when the lady got dementia, the family didn't really care for the ponies, so neglected and then sold them all on without telling the old woman as they didn't want to upset her.

The little girl and her dad came to see her though, and she had a little ride on her, she was so happy to see Dusty again. The sad part is that I think Dusty had a really sparkling career somewhere, as the second she went in the show ring (just local stuff) she just knew where she was, she went into this amazing shape, flicked her toes out and knew just where the top of the line was, I don't think she was ever out of the top 2 locally.

I lost Dusty 2 years ago now, at the grand old age of 39, 16 happy years after buying her. She cost us meat money but gave us so much.
dustyshow.jpg

Good luck with your search!
 
If I ever get a horse I'm sure I won't be able to resist investigating! If previous owners don't like it, they can just ignore the letter can't they?

Can't see that much can go wrong really.
 
My horse is a registered welsh so it's quite interesting to look into his past. He was only 5 when we got him but he'd already had a lot owners (not including the dealer who we bought him from) so I thought it would be fun to look into his past. From contacting old owners and researching on the internet I've found out the stud he was born at leased his mother and they wanted a filly but he came out so he went back to the stud his mother was leased from (home number 2), he was then sold to a stud where he stood as a stallion (home number 3) for a couple of years and sired a few ponies. We then found out he he was sold to a home local to this stud for what we have been told is an amount the stud couldn't really turn down (home number 4). He was gelded and backed for a young girl who understandable couldn't manage a freshly gelded and broken welsh cob! So he was sold to a woman down south for showing (home number 5) I've been in contact with her and she said she sold him because they didn't get on. He then went to the welsh sales and went to someone in Barry (home number 6). I haven't been able to get in contact with these people but I do know he went to the sales looking well. He was taken to the following spring sales looking quite poor and he sold for half what they bought him for . He was bought by a dealer (home number 7) who sold him on pretty quick for meat money . This person (home number 8) then part exchanged him for a showjumper with the dealer we bought him from (home number 9).

We then came along- completely unaware to all the above and bought him. I've found it very interesting looking into his past and seeing his offspring and their subsequent offspring. I've also found pictures of him as a foal and 4 year old. I'd say look into your horses past but don't let what you find out put you off and change your opinion of your horse. If I had done that before buying him, I probably would'nt have got him and assumed he was some asbo pony!
 
I'm still in regular contact with my boys old owner despite living 3hours away.

I do have very occasional contact with the owners of a pony I sold 4yrs ago. They now have her up for sale & I desperately want them to pass on my details when they sell her as she was a project pony for us & I miss her to bits. I've a feeling they won't though as her past makes her sound a right dodge pot! I can only hope that new owners will think to contact me via passport details
 
Oh Daisy Dancer, I'm so sad to hear that the information rocked your confidence enough to seller. I know it's happened on this forum, that a member has sold her horse on as safe and the new owner, also a visitor here, found threads about past bad behaviour. It shook her for a little while, but the horse has been a delight in every single way: it's clear that the horse and the previous owner just weren't a match for one another. I mean, I think most of us have been in relationships with people that just weren't for us in the end, and been a bit more cantankerous than is our natural disposition! (Or is that just me? lol).

So many lovely stories: sounds like, as long you're confident, it's absolutely the right thing to do.

OP I wonder, is Mollie living or working alone? I remember someone else selling on their ex-trekker: they thought he'd make an idea happy hacker but it turned out that because he'd always been out in a group, he was terrified even working on the school on his own.
 
I googled all the old owners of my new horse when I boght him - I rang his old race trainer, emailed the racehorse rehoming people (who unfortauntely didnt reply) and the person who bought him first (who confirmed they bought a horse that was too much for them). :D
 
I investigated my boy even though I knew he came from dealers and was very screwed up. Previous owner before the dealer was very relieved that he had a home as she had been torturing herself about selling him at market for a couple of months, he had been sold to them by another dealer (possibly doped from her account) and scared them all under saddle, though agreed he was an angel to handle.

I started by saying Hi, I have bought a little grey cob with a very unusual personality, and I love him to bits, I'm trying to find out a bit about him, good bits and bad bits, I fully expect to take everything I find out with a pinch of salt and he has a long term home with me regardless of what I discover. I believe you used to own him.

Good luck, as long as you are polite and don't push if people don't want to talk to you, should be ok.
 
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Vixen Van Debz said:
OP I wonder, is Mollie living or working alone? I remember someone else selling on their ex-trekker: they thought he'd make an idea happy hacker but it turned out that because he'd always been out in a group, he was terrified even working on the school on his own.
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She lives on a livery farm where there are lots of other horses. Sadly though, I haven't really got anyone to ride out with so she works mostly alone. However, the one time we went out on a hack with a couple of others (who she knows), she was more nervous than ever. Puzzling.
 
I contacted the 1st person on our pony's passport,purely because none of the subsequent owners had registered as such and I needed a transfer form filling out before I could register her.

The lady was delighted to hear that we had her and that she was doing well,and interestingly enough,told me that the pony had been 'very naughty' in her youth.Coincidentally,after 3 problem free months,I was having trouble leading her and asked what form the 'naughtiness' took.Apparently it was with catching,leading and loading,and when she was sold to some people on the same yard,the original owner had to catch and bring her in because the new owner couldn't.She told me exactly how to handle the pony,what she did and didn't like and loads of other stuff,including an offer to come over and work with us both if need be.I did exactly what she said and not had any problems since.

She also said that the pony was the perfect child's pony and you could do anything with her,hunt, xc,jump,and that she was never naughty with children and absolutely bombproof-all which I have found to be true.I'm going to email some photos to the first owner so she can see how much we love her.
 
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