Importing horses - do you view?

[Spoiled cob]

I'm thinking of importing a horse from Europe and am not sure whether to go and view the horse or buy unseen from videos etc. with a full vetting etc.

I would be grateful to know others experiences of this.

In an ideal world I would like to go and ride the horse but this may not be possible. I also know that a horse may be different when you get it to your yard from how it was when you tried it in its previous home so there are no guarantees either way.

 

[mollypoppy4]

Personally, I dont think i would. I understand some people have good stories of horses being bought from abroad, however quite a few of my friends have ended up in bad situations. Sometimes not even nessasarly the horses fault! One being that the horse passed away from dehyrdation during the journey, this was only from ireland
When i tried out my horse, i was able to look around the whole country! At the end of the day, there are so many horses in need of good homes in the uk, so im sure youll find one soon

 

[Hoof_Prints]

If it helps, I imported from Ireland- a 5 year old Connemara, based on viewing videos, a LOT of questions (that I wouldn't have thought of at a viewing tbh) and a lot of trust that the answers were true. I didn't have a vetting done as I wanted to save on money for importing and was fully prepared for it to go horribly wrong- fortunately it's turned out great my vet has checked him over here and all is good news. The pony is fantastic and I'm so glad I did it also it's a very exciting, (although equally nerve racking!) experience.

 

[Spangie]

I went to Spain to view some PREs. Had change of circumstance and didn't work out but ended up with rescue from Spain unseen. I was lucky. Not sure I'd risk it again. Looking for horse at the moment and saw one who on paper ticked all the boxes, but when I got in just didn't like it. Hard to tell really, everyone is different!

 

[Spring Feather]

I've imported a number of horses. About half of them I've bought and seen when I collected them, the other half I've bought and had shipped unseen. All of them have been much better than I could have hoped for. I also sell most of my youngstock unseen by their buyers. It helps greatly if you have contacts in that area who can vouch for the seller, otherwise you have to go off your gut feeling, combined with asking for plenty of video footage taken that day preferably. Ask loads of questions and don't proceed with the purchase until all photos/video/information comes to you and you are happy with it.

Like you I always prefer to go and view prior to purchase but I'm often way too busy to go that far and for a few days so I tend to rely on my intuition and it's not let me down so far.