Failed vetting - now what?!

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Denzel

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My boy has just failed his 5* vetting. Im a mess, I dont know what to do. This has never happened to me before so I dont know where I go with it? I am selling him because we need to save up for a house, is that it now? No house, Im stuck with a horse so saving is out the window. What do I do?

Apparently he has a bit of arthritis on his left hind. The vet didnt actually speak to me at all. So I dont actually know the proper reasons, its all come from the buyers.
What do you do with a horse thats failed it vetting? Sorry its a bit blithering and bumbling, I am literally a mess!
 
I think we need more details, type, history, age, condition etc, and your circumstances, and how you feel about loaning or other options.
If it were me, I would ask my own vet to inspect and advise on outlook.
 
I would ask to see the report, either from vet or seller and go from there. I would also ask for a copy to be sent to my own vet and then get him out for his opinion. If your vet gives the OK then readvertise, if there is a problem you can adjust the price. When people view they can look at the reports plus your vet's opinion and make their own mind up.

Failed vet isn't end of the world (although seems like it at the time). I bought a horse that failed a vetting. He was the horse of a lifetime :) I actually think the vet who failed him was bonkers.
 
17hh tb, 10 years old. Raced twice as a youngster and since has competed affiliated sj and eventing.
I suppose I would consider loaning him, but what do I say? Im waiting on permission from the buyers to the vet so that I can actually speak to the vet. Client confidentiality apparently means that although its my horse he cant tell me anything without the buyers permission.
 
I'd get your vet out to look at him and see what they think - it might be treatable and doesn't mean you can't sell him, it might mean you have to drop the price though.

Also, a lot of horses will fail under one vet and pass with another...
 
Happened to me a while ago. All I did was knock the price down, kept advertising it in the cheapest place possible and sold it to a buyer who didn't vet it.

A prime example of buyer beware !

For this OP I guess they need their own vet to have a look and advise on treatment or future usefulness.
 
Doesn't mean it is the end of the world. A horse i know failed 3 vettings with 3 separate vets on cataracts and a heart murmur. Was readvertised and has just passed a full vetting, with someone who is supposedly one of the best equine vets! We are still not sure whether it has anything to do with the fact the owner paraded herself and 2 of her glamorous friends round at the time so he wasn't really paying full attention!

I would speak with your vet and hopefully get the report from the vendors vet and see where you can go. Have you spoken to vendor about whether a reduction in price my still be of interest to them? That does work sometimes.

I personally am not a huge fan of vettings, only shows what the horse is like on that day.
 
be prepared to drop the price, if the ones that have had the vetting are still interested. Or readvertise at a lower price. Its the cost of actually keeping a horse that takes up so much money.
 
I shouldnt worry to much, a horse I was selling failed the vetting for 1 buyer i had and a week later he passed with another vet with flying colours.
 
AdorableAlice said:
Happened to me a while ago. All I did was knock the price down, kept advertising it in the cheapest place possible and sold it to a buyer who didn't vet it.

A prime example of buyer beware !

For this OP I guess they need their own vet to have a look and advise on treatment or future usefulness.
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dont you just love dishonest sellers like this - no wonder sellers get a bad reputation.
 
If you are confident the horse is sound and happy in its current level of work work, I'd do nothing and wait and see if it passes with the next prospective buyers. If you wonder if the last vet could be right and the horse might not be 100% but still very useful and sound by a lot of people's standards ;) I'd advertise it cheaper, maybe re-marketing as a riding club schoolmaster sort, if he would fit that job? Then he might not be vetted and also, if he is, horses that fail vettings as competition animals will sometimes pass as leisure horses. Failing that you are looking at selling very cheaply, keeping, loaning or pts.
 
Dont panic, the vet cannot diagnose at vetting so it is only possible he has arthritic changes not a definite, I have also had fails that passed next time on flexion tests. Some vets are stricter than others on what they consider acceptable, I sold a pony that was hopping lame after front flexion, the vet said fit for purpose and it was £5k, I expected a fail on that.

You can readvertise, renegotiate with the purchasers possibly, get your vet to investigate or loan, there are many options.
 
Old horse i shared was sold, lame without corrective shoeing. He failed a 5 star vetting, two weeks later a lady came along fell in love and brought him. She took him competing for 5 years before she lost him to a tragic accident. The fact he failed meant nothing to her seeing as he was fit for what she wanted. The people who pasted him up actually got beaten in a competition a few months later by him on their new horse.
 
Well the vet can't tell its arthritis from the vetting unless he did X-rays so if he did not its an educated guess.
Get your own vet in to advise what the best next move is it seems like it now but it's not the end of the world just get some good advice.
 
My horse failed his first vetting when I bought him. He was 1/10th lame on a circle on hard ground after the flexion test.

I had him on two weeks trial before the vetting. The vets advice was ' if you really like the horse continue to work him as you have been and re-vet in two weeks'.

Same vet, who is known for being very tough on vettings passed him two weeks later.

In the interim I extended the trial period and continued to jump, hack, flat work etc. Vet didn't want him rested inbetween vettings for obvious reasons.
 
AdorableAlice said:
Happened to me a while ago. All I did was knock the price down, kept advertising it in the cheapest place possible and sold it to a buyer who didn't vet it.

A prime example of buyer beware !

For this OP I guess they need their own vet to have a look and advise on treatment or future usefulness.
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brucethegypsycob said:
dont you just love dishonest sellers like this - no wonder sellers get a bad reputation.
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My thoughts exactly.......
 
brucethegypsycob said:
dont you just love dishonest sellers like this - no wonder sellers get a bad reputation.
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Ditto.

Flame_ said:
If you are confident the horse is sound and happy in its current level of work work, I'd do nothing and wait and see if it passes with the next prospective buyers. If you wonder if the last vet could be right and the horse might not be 100% but still very useful and sound by a lot of people's standards ;) I'd advertise it cheaper, maybe re-marketing as a riding club schoolmaster sort, if he would fit that job? Then he might not be vetted and also, if he is, horses that fail vettings as competition animals will sometimes pass as leisure horses. Failing that you are looking at selling very cheaply, keeping, loaning or pts.
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This :)
 
I assume you watched your horse being vetted, so you must have seen if there was any un-level steps. As others have said, the vet cannot diagnose arthritis unless he did x-rays. It is always possible that the potential buyers decided after the vetting that they didn't want your horse, not that he actually failed the vetting.

The vet is working for them, so he does not have to speak to you, nor show you the report he wrote. It it was me, I'd ask my own vet to come and have a look at the horse and see what he thought.

Vettings are very subjective things, you can't blame a buyer for wanting a horse vetted, especially if they want to insure it.
 
OP, ring your own vets, and get them up to look at your horse. Tell them what the potential purchaser has told you and go from there.
 
Hi everyone. Thank you all, you have been very reassuring. I am waiting to hear from the vet now, the buyers have given him permission to talk to me. Im just waiting for him to get back to me.

I couldnt just sell him on to someone else without mentioning it, as you say it could be that he's not suitable for the things she wants but is for someone else. He deff said something about arthritis to them so I dont understand how he can do that if he needs an xray for it. He's due to be shod, I wondered if that might have an effect, he's also been in his stable for 3 days (I was paranoid about him getting kicked in the lead up, wish I hadnt bothered now). Maybe he was feeling stiff for being in. Who knows.

I couldnt see what he said he was seeing as I was trotting up as much as my horse! (Incidentally, I think I failed my vetting! Blooming knackered!!) But we got through the whole thing, he didnt stop it like ive seen them do before, and he deff wasnt hopping lame after flexion tests. Ive never noticed him lame so it must be really minute.

Hopefully there is someone out there who would want him. I never thought this would be an issue. Hopefully someone at a different stage in there life who isnt wanting to start a family like me! I feel like Ive let him down and my husband. Thanks to those who said it feels like the end of the world. lol! Im devastated and feel like a terrible owner!
 
You havent let anyone down.....my vet and back lady said there are very few horses who would be one hundered percent perfect in any vetting as you are looking at different body types and what the horse is like one day will be different tomorrow......arthritic changes can be suspected but without xrays it's impossible to tell....it could of been he was stiff being in or the vet could be just being picky....a friends new one would have failed the vet as it had long cannon bones he meaning he was short behind when did the flexion test but because she had loaned him for two years she knew he would do what she wanted, BE100, without
 
Naturally said:
Ditto.



This :)
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I can certainly see why you are questioning my honesty, but what is dishonest, the buyer could have had the horse vetted. Why should I have told the potential purchaser that the horse had failed a vetting a few weeks before. How many people have a viewed a horse and been told that? When I buy I use the safegaurds that are available, vets, bloods, xrays etc.

I admire everyone's rose tinted thoughts on buying horses, but it is not the real world, especially if buying privately.

A purchaser has the choice to buy sold as seen or use the available safeguards.

People get what they pay for, it was a very cheap horse, sold at the height of the horse market a few years ago. It went on to be a decent horse and never did have hock problems despite failing the flexion tests. So there are two ways at looking at my so called dishonesty, the purchasers took a punt and risked buying an unvetted horse that could prove useless, and I took a punt at losing at lot of money instead of keeping a potentially lame horse that could prove useless. Where is the dishonesty, both parties assessed the risk and decided on which course to follow, buy unvetted on the purchasers side, or sell at a loss on myside.

I totally agree that it would be wonderful if we could go and try horses that are exactly as described, 100% sound, the vets would be out of business for starters, but this will never be the case.
 
I wouldnt have expected you to point out that the horse had failed a vetting.....but it would be decent to point out a diagnosis of arthritis....it would have a bearing on what the horse would be used for.

And if you don't give a crap about the potential new owner then how about a thought for the horse?

Your 'punt' was an educated one- you knew all the facts...which you witheld from the purchaser....unless I'm reading your post wrong and you told them what was wrong with the horse?

You are right...cheap horses are cheap for a reason....but it would have been the morally right thing to do to point out the reason the horse was cheap.....
 
Hippona said:
I wouldnt have expected you to point out that the horse had failed a vetting.....but it would be decent to point out a diagnosis of arthritis....it would have a bearing on what the horse would be used for.

And if you don't give a crap about the potential new owner then how about a thought for the horse?

Your 'punt' was an educated one- you knew all the facts...which you witheld from the purchaser....unless I'm reading your post wrong and you told them what was wrong with the horse?

You are right...cheap horses are cheap for a reason....but it would have been the morally right thing to do to point out the reason the horse was cheap.....
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You are right, but the horse failed a flexion test, it was not diagnosed with arthritis. I did not have my vet look at, it had been bought as a hunter for me, but was too strong and was therefore for sale.

When anyone sells a horse it becomes the responsibility of it's new owner, I can only hope the horse will be looked after and suitable but I have no control over it when it leaves my hands, any emotional thoughts have to come to an end at the point of sale.

I have horses now that there has not been enough money printed to buy, but I have also had horses that had to go and the risk is down to the purchaser if they chose to buy unvetted, the safegaurds are there to be used.

How could I be morally wrong to sell a horse that might or might not have a problem in the future. As others have pointed out one vet will fail a horse and another vet will pass it. Surely it is the vets job to assess if the horse is fit for the purchasers purpose, or in the case of an unvetted horse, it is the purchasers who must use their judgement to make that decision.
 
I have now spoken to the vet myself and I think he may be quite picky.
He said he is very reluctant to pass anything with any kind of lameness at all.
He said my boy was 1/10th lame on his left hind which was slightly worse under saddle, but not quite 2/10ths lame.
He said he couldnt give any kind of diagnosis but because it was a hind he told the purchaser absolutely no jumping and he'd only be any good for hacking. This feels somewhat extreme to me for 1/10th lame.

What do you think?
 
I think you made a mistake by keeping him in, this would have allowed him to stiffen up and it may be that next time he will be fine. I bought a horse that was similar a few years ago, the vet said it was not sound but went with instinct he was fine and sold 2 years later with no issues the vet even commented that for a 15 year old he was remarkably good on his flexions.

I would give him a day or two then get your own vet out for a quick check so that you can just go on and sell if nothing shows, he could have just been stiff, it may even be in his back if it showed up when ridden.

Many vets are reluctant to pass any horse, if there is a slight lameness they are almost relieved.
 
It was a toss up really. He has a bit of a 'bromance' going on with another boy in his field and they often spend an afternoon on their back legs and zooming around the field together. I opted to keep him in to prevent any bromance related injuries! It seems that may have been the wrong decision. Who knows!

I hate to think that he's in pain and I didnt know. Then again Im probably easily 1/10 lame in human terms and dont notice it!

Im going to get my vet out to him and hope for the best. This does not help the saving for a house! hehe!
 
be positive said:
I think you made a mistake by keeping him in, this would have allowed him to stiffen up and it may be that next time he will be fine. I bought a horse that was similar a few years ago, the vet said it was not sound but went with instinct he was fine and sold 2 years later with no issues the vet even commented that for a 15 year old he was remarkably good on his flexions.

I would give him a day or two then get your own vet out for a quick check so that you can just go on and sell if nothing shows, he could have just been stiff, it may even be in his back if it showed up when ridden.

Many vets are reluctant to pass any horse, if there is a slight lameness they are almost relieved.
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agree with this, :)
being 1/10ths lame i would not be concerned about !!
 
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