Mid-sold pony PLEASE HELP!

[SO1]

Absolutely right my pony has had 2 soft tissue injuries and both time my vet was able to pinpoint the issue quite quickly and scan on site.

A good vet will be experienced and be able to make a good guess as to what is wrong without expensive diagnostics. Explain you are uninsured.

& Deep Breath.

There have been some very sensible an helpful posts on this 5th page of the thread (!) .. OP, most things are fixable. You seem to like this mare, and that's a good start. You may well be stuck with her, so I'm going to work on that scenario for a moment.

First: turn out in a small paddock (no gallop space, but not stuck standing in box) for another week or two and re-assess.
-If some improvement, I would start a rehab plan i.e. walking out in hand/long lines (or ridden if you have a tiny rider), building up time, surfaces, then adding in trotwork, etc.
-If no improvement, I would call several several clinics and get quotes for an uninsured lameness workup, and then take her to one of them, give them a spending limit, and hope they can diagnose the problem quickly.

As an aside, I am surprised your vet immediately rejected abscess idea although I realise there was some hock swelling so that seems a good place to start investigation. I have spent £3000 (Petplan, thank you!) on diagnosing a tricky abscess - they present in all manner of ways and shouldn't be automatically rejected. What is her foot conformation like? My mare had suspected kissing sping/pelvis damage/"something up high" that turned out to be sub-solar abscess in right hind. But in any case, nerve blocks should help isolate the problem, and the key is to have a good vet working on it from the start - you want the type of experienced vet who looks at the horse trotting up and goes ahhhhh let's scan the medial collaterals eh!

 

[Pinkvboots]

I said it earlier on in this thread find a good equine vet tell them there is no insurance so keep costs down and get it nerve blocked and find out what is wrong, hopefully its something fairly straight forward and can be treated.

I seriously wouldn't bother pursuing anything with the previous owner.

 

[Pearlsasinger]

I think OP the problem is the story is not consistent so it confusing for people. I do have every sympathy for you as my pony is currently on box rest due to an injury


It would be useful if from the passport you can contact previous owners to see why they sold especially the one that sold the pony 3 months.


Hopefully your solicitor won't give you false hope the solicitor bills can soon add up unless it is a no win no fee solicitor. You will need to have clear story audit trail for the solicitor as otherwise they will get confused like people on here and not be able to give good advice.

I think we all have sympathy for those whose horse/ponies require vet treatment/investigations for whatever reason and understand that horses can go lame in instant because they do the daftest things, even in an an empty field.



Unfortunately OP can't contact any previous owners, as the vendor applied for a new passport when she acquired the pony.

I quite agree about solicitor's fees, some run up bills where there is no reasonable expectation of a successful resolution.

 

[SO1]

No passport from previous owners prior to this one sounds a bit dodgy to me. I know passports can get lost but could even be a stolen pony that was out on loan or a pony that was meant to be PTS.

Could this pony have come from outside of the UK hence no passport?

I think we all have sympathy for those whose horse/ponies require vet treatment/investigations for whatever reason and understand that horses can go lame in instant because they do the daftest things, even in an an empty field.



Unfortunately OP can't contact any previous owners, as the vendor applied for a new passport when she acquired the pony.

I quite agree about solicitor's fees, some run up bills where there is no reasonable expectation of a successful resolution.

 

[paddy555]

No passport from previous owners prior to this one sounds a bit dodgy to me. I know passports can get lost but could even be a stolen pony that was out on loan or a pony that was meant to be PTS.

Could this pony have come from outside of the UK hence no passport?

I don't think anyone knows. This is OP's post


I can only say what the seller told me as fact. She was broken as a four year old, not done much with. They bought her as a project in April, have been working on her since and then presenting viewings. Sold as having potential but unfit and green. I can’t comment much more about this because it was before I actually owned her and this is what I was told!

The pony is now 12 per passport so what has happened since age 4. Why didn't she do much. There could have been a reason, in foal perhaps, but not very clear. No passport in April is odd but it could have got lost I suppose. If the seller knew the pony had not been worked much since 4 where did they get that info? sale advert perhaps.
It's not clear and all the instances in your first para are possible. I would get the vet to scan for a 2nd chip just on the off chance. If the pony had a name that had been registered that may also be useful.

I don't think OP has sufficient ATM to accuse the seller and I cannot see they will have for a private seller. They may however make progress if they start really digging to establish if this is a dealer in disguise situation.

I think OP now needs recommendations for a really good horse vet who can visit and assess the situation. They should be able to see where the problem is and they may be able to say if it could possibly be an existing condition or that the seller couldn't have been expected to know. That would be very useful information even if it was just an opinion. One visit would give a large amount of info. as to where this can go then at least it wouldn't just be going round in circles as at the moment.

 

[cariad]

This is a bit of a deviation, but I do see a lot on here about "running up solicitors bills". Very often, they give the first bit of general advice in a phone call, which they don't usually charge for. There may be a very simple answer if you are a lawyer and that's often the end of that. If it is more complicated, then they can ask for more detail, any paperwork etc to consider to see if there's anything in it. Then a "risk assessment" in some form is done; some solicitors will have formal regular meetings to assess potential cases to see if they want to take them on; others will be less formal, one solicitor might just look at it and think, nah, doesn't look a runner to me and decline to take it on.

The reason for this and especially in accident work (not so much commercial/consumer/civil litigation, which the sort of claim in this thread would fall under, where they do often ask people to pay on a "private" basis-ie, pay them on an hourly rate out of your own pocket for work done), is that most of the work is now done under a Conditional Fee Agreement, or CFA, which the general public know more commonly as "no-win, no-fee". There are a few exceptions to that which get explained to you, but basically, if you don't win your case, the client (you) doesn't pay anything to their solicitor. NB-there are exceptions to this and in some cases you will be liable for the other side's costs if you do lose, but you do take out an insurance policy against this happening, which pays those costs if you do get stuck with them. There is also something called QUOCS, but I'm not even going there!

So if your case is properly risk assessed by a solicitor who specialises in whatever sort of work it is-usually personal injury/accident- and they decline to take it on, then that's usually a fair indication that your case is not strong and you may not win. That might be enough of an answer for you. If they DO take it on, then there's still no guarantee of success -and cases do change evidentially as they go along, for better or worse-, but at least the solicitor is willing to give it a go, in the vast majority of cases, at no cost to you. It is in the solicitor's interests to try to take on only, or mostly (some do lose desipite everything) cases they are going to succeed in for the client, as of course they will then get paid by the losing Defendants. But do be sure this is all explained to you first, as there are exceptions. As I said, it's normally accident cases where CFA's are used, but it is worth asking whether other areas of law use them as well.

CFA's can be used to defend claims brought against you as well, (if you don't have insurers to do that for you) but it is nothing like as common as CFA's to bring claims.

It's also worth checking any insurance policies you have, including just basic building and household contents ones, cars, horseboxes, animals, any memberships of anything, as sometimes they have "extras" where you have insurance for legal expenses to investigate/bring a claim.

Finally, it's not only the BHS have a legal helpline. Some other memebrships/affiliations do have an agreement with firms of solicitors that you can call for initial advice. You may well be charged for advice/work after that though, so make sure that is clear.

Hope you didn't mind me mentioning this!

 

[ycbm]

The amount is 3000. This can be taken to a small claims court via an online form for very little money without any solicitors being involved and even when the buyer has no hope of winning the case whatsoever.
.

 

[Flyermc]

OP - 3k in this market is not a lot of money for a safe PC pony, it really, really isnt, however i do understand that 3K (in general) is alot.

Before writing the pony off, it really would be worth getting an xray or blocks done. I had xrays done of my boy at the yard (mobile machine) and it was £100 for the first one and £20 for each after, plus the call out free, which i think was £50

If she's only slightly lame then she might have been fixed by now, it could just something simple. Slight muscle wastage that a vet missed first time could be a 'red herring' it could have been caused by poorly balanced riders, ill fitting tack, just the way the pony naturally moves etc etc.

To put this into context, i had a welsh D gelding from 4 years until i lost him at 21. He didnt have the best conformation, so had windgalls on his feltlocks on his hind legs which was 'just him'

Also is your pony shod?

Would you be willing to post pictures?

 

[Wishfilly]

I’m sorry, can’t get my story straight?! I’ve only told the facts all along. At what point have I not been straight? Hugely offensive.

You can't seem to be consistent about who rode the pony and when and what was done with the pony in your care. The timeline keeps changing. You also keep adding in additional information which would have been very relevant early on.

I'm glad you are taking legal advice, as that will be more useful than posting on here. I would suggest you ask for this thread to be deleted if you are planning to pursue this.

I would strongly suggest that you write out a timeline of who did what, when, and add any communication such as text and email that you had with the seller. I would also try to get something in writing from the vet.

If you keep dripping in information and apparently contradicting yourself (I do understand it is hard to keep it all straight in your head), then it may be difficult to win a legal case.

If you do return this pony and get another, I strongly suggest you get your instructor and vet involved before the purchase.

 

[Lovely jubbly]

I’m sorry this has happened to you but you don’t have a leg to stand on I’m afraid. You were told pony had failed the vet and you still bought it…that would of been a red flag for me. They were up front and told you that…you could of had your own vetting done before purchase. I would now concentrate on getting the pony sorted out with further investigation and go from there.

 

[Caol Ila]

'Failing the vet' means it came up lame/unlevel after a flexion test or after being worked (if it was a 5-stage). People who buy elite competition horses will get x-rays as a standard part of a vetting, but that's not SOP for most of us mortals. The point is that if it "fails the vet" for lameness, no one, including the vet, will know why without scans, nerve blocks, yadda yadda. I've had two horses vetted in the last six months, and the vet discussed their findings with me, not the seller. Had the vet found a deal-breaking issue (like pregnancy....oh, wait), I would have walked away from the sale. But it would have been entirely up to the seller to ask their own vet to engage in further lameness investigations. Or not. However, they told you it hadn't passed a PPE, which isn't being entirely dishonest, although BSing a legit (to an inexperienced horse person) sounding reason for aforesaid failure -- in an apparent attempt to talk the buyer into not vetting it themselves -- raises some questions. In any case, the vet who does the PPE will not be the seller's usual vet, so they won't even have access to the horse's medical history.

My point is that the horse might have failed on a flexion test or whatever, but a PPE will not identify the underlying cause of the lameness/stiffness, and the vet's client during the PPE is the potential buyer, not the seller. I have the reports from my horses' PPEs, but their ex-owners do not. If the horses had failed the PPE and I hadn't bought them, the sellers would not have had a report, failed or otherwise, to give to other potential buyers.