Objective opinions needed

ihatework said:
The need to mention the footiness would have me more concerned than the cataract, which wouldn’t bother me at all.

I’d probably offer 3k and be prepared to walk away. If they accept use some of the savings to insure for LOU and whilst it’s sound dubious it won’t be in the certificate, C’est la vie. It will mean covered by insurance.
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an eye problem wouldn't bother you at all? So if the horse's vision becomes distorted and he cannot be ridden you will have paid out 3k (plus whatever vet costs you incur which may well be considerable) for a pet to live out it's days in your paddock. Not all horses can be ridden if they are blind or more to the point have distorted sight in one eye. Even with enucleation of that one eye you have no idea how the horse is going to ridden with the other eye only, Or you could PTS with a loss of 3k plus.


This may not happen for t he next 5 years and you will have got your 3k of riding out of the horse. Or it may happen next month.

3k to play Russian roulette is a lot of money and and the possibility of what to do ie PTS or pay livery etc to keep the problem at the end of the day

If you have never had a horse eye problem they seem very insignificant, trip to specsavers and the problem is resolved.
As for the teeth mild decay wouldn't be enough. I would want a gag on and a qualified horse vet dentist to get in there and go round everything.

Eyes and teeth can be very expensive on a horse.
 
I’m genuine baffled that a vet would not note down observed slight footiness on a vet cert 😳. Highly risky if the ‘footiness’ goes on to be much more than just that.

My mare had dental decay (in 109/110) successfully filled by a vet dentist, but until she had had a full dental x Ray we didn’t know what we were dealing with. The X-ray also went on to show two dead and infected incisors which had not been noticed by the non vet EDT, and they needed to be extracted. Bill around £1500 for the lot.
 
I've offered 5k.
94lunagem said:
Is the vet your own vet? The more you’re sharing the less confident I am in what the vet is telling you. The horse is either lame or it’s not…
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Not going to lie, I don’t think trotting them on a 10m circle on concrete is a good test and I think a lot of horses would be a tenth. Most horses are a tenth day to day from what I see…

Tiddlypom said:
I’m genuine baffled that a vet would not note down observed slight footiness on a vet cert 😳. Highly risky if the ‘footiness’ goes on to be much more than just that.
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I don’t see why it’s more risky than putting it on and having all 4 feet/legs excluded from insurance? I wouldn’t have a come back with vet or seller if it was noted and I bought anyway.

To clarify, the horse isn’t with a dealer. He was sold BY a dealer 18 months ago and has been in a loving, private home since.

This thread isn’t to pull them apart, it was to gain people’s personal experiences on cataracts.
 
IrishMilo said:
I don’t see why it’s more risky than putting it on and having all 4 feet/legs excluded from insurance? I wouldn’t have a come back with vet or seller if it was noted and I bought anyway.
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Unless I’m missing something, the vet has noted an issue (footiness = lameness) which they have verbally advised you of but the vet is not going to record the lameness on the certificate? That is irregular.

Quite rightly any lameness should be noted on the cert.

I’ve certainly heard of vets who find during the vetting that an unshod horse appears to be a bit footsore and then suggest to the buyer that they pause the vetting. Vet suggests that the vendor gets the horse shod and that they will come back and re vet in a week. Horse shod and not footy a week later and then passes vet.

It’s a presumption that all the horse needs to become sound is to have shoes on. It may be rather more involved than that.
 
paddy555 said:
an eye problem wouldn't bother you at all? So if the horse's vision becomes distorted and he cannot be ridden you will have paid out 3k (plus whatever vet costs you incur which may well be considerable) for a pet to live out it's days in your paddock. Not all horses can be ridden if they are blind or more to the point have distorted sight in one eye. Even with enucleation of that one eye you have no idea how the horse is going to ridden with the other eye only, Or you could PTS with a loss of 3k plus.


This may not happen for t he next 5 years and you will have got your 3k of riding out of the horse. Or it may happen next month.

3k to play Russian roulette is a lot of money and and the possibility of what to do ie PTS or pay livery etc to keep the problem at the end of the day

If you have never had a horse eye problem they seem very insignificant, trip to specsavers and the problem is resolved.
As for the teeth mild decay wouldn't be enough. I would want a gag on and a qualified horse vet dentist to get in there and go round everything.

Eyes and teeth can be very expensive on a horse.
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If I’m buying a ridden horse for 3k I accept it’s a very cheap horse and the savings I make on the low purchase price mean I have a bit in the bank to maintain a horse. I don’t buy the ‘could happen’….. lots of things can happen with horses that makes them valueless overnight and tbh I’d rather loose 3k on a known (low imo risk) on mild cataract! I mean I could go spend 15k and loose it overnight.
 
IrishMilo said:
I've offered 5k.

Not going to lie, I don’t think trotting them on a 10m circle on concrete is a good test and I think a lot of horses would be a tenth. Most horses are a tenth day to day from what I see…



I don’t see why it’s more risky than putting it on and having all 4 feet/legs excluded from insurance? I wouldn’t have a come back with vet or seller if it was noted and I bought anyway.

To clarify, the horse isn’t with a dealer. He was sold BY a dealer 18 months ago and has been in a loving, private home since.

This thread isn’t to pull them apart, it was to gain people’s personal experiences on cataracts.
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I have edited my reply above, my apologies as I must have completely mis read something! I think 5k is fair, it does sound like you like the horse so I hope you are successful. And lets be honest, lots of us have bought horses and they've cost us a small mortgage one way or another even after a completely clear vetting..... Let us know how you get on and put a picture of if successful.
 
mustardsmum said:
I have edited my reply above, my apologies as I must have completely mis read something! I think 5k is fair, it does sound like you like the horse so I hope you are successful. And lets be honest, lots of us have bought horses and they've cost us a small mortgage one way or another even after a completely clear vetting..... Let us know how you get on and put a picture of if successful.
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Thank you. Will post a pic if my offer is accepted!
 
IrishMilo said:
it was to gain people’s personal experiences on cataracts.
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there is a lot of info on various vet's sites iro this item. Also on horse eyesight sites.
Possibly better than on a general forum such as this where I would guess personal experience is more limited especially as you are buying a jumping horse where eyesight is important.

At the risk of losing 5k I would at least get a specialist opinion. £400 is nothing compared to the problems it could cause and the waste of 5K let alone the additional vet bills. After all if you potentially wondered if you had an eye problem you would go to your ophthalmologist who dealt with eyes every day rather than your GP.


My vet told me, after examining my horse's eyes, he would pass a 5 stage vetting. Shortly after the eye was removed so I am somewhat sceptical of general vets opinions when it comes to the seriousness of eyes and eye problems. I had 3 vet opinions on the same horse. None of them thought there was much of a problem. How wrong they were.
 
Polos Mum said:
Sorry but I'd run from that - footy = lame

Surprised a vet would OK a horse for jumping that is "footy"

Clearly you weren't able to be there for the vetting but just checking it was your vet not theirs ?

He's now gone from one niggle to three - teeth can be expensive too

You'll have a nightmare trying to get insurance with vet report documenting problems with his eyes, his teeth and his feet !!!
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Footy most certainly doesn't equal lame. It could be that an incompetent farrier has taken too much off and the horse needs a couple of weeks to grow a smidge of hoof. Could be a bit of easily treated thrush.
Whatever you do though, ignore the vet saying shoe all round. Vets are feckin useless with feet.
 
PoppyAnderson said:
Footy most certainly doesn't equal lame. It could be that an incompetent farrier has taken too much off and the horse needs a couple of weeks to grow a smidge of hoof. Could be a bit of easily treated thrush.
Whatever you do though, ignore the vet saying shoe all round. Vets are feckin useless with feet.
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Sorry but footy absolutely does = lame - on that day in that moment doing the exercise the vet requested.
Lame doesn't mean permanently lame or a horrible injury that can't be sorted.

Thrush absolutely can make them lame - so can navicular cysts or a bruise or a million other things some easy to fix and others not.

As the OP said many many horses are lame on concrete on a 10m circle in trot - and many many owners don't find that a problem.
Many of us are lame - I'm going to take ibruprophen before riding today, but I wouldn't pass a vet either.

I (slightly) object to using fluffy nice sounding words to soften the message - "a touch of lami" is another terrible example.
As someone said earlier - if the vet had said 1/10th lame on a circle - that is more specific and clear - would the interpretation from owners be the same??
 
IrishMilo said:
Vet said the lameness was so mild she wouldn't even consider putting it on the report...

My home vet also said it's not fraud if you don't know what the issue is...
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Haven’t RTFT but I’m amazed your vet advised this. One of mine overreached in the field and whipped off a shoe 24hrs before the vetting. He had a slight graze and in my vet’s view was “barely 1/10th lame, and all consistent with an overreach injury”. It was still noted on our vetting and excluded by our insurance for 6 months, only lifted with a vet note confirming he wasn’t exhibiting any lameness on this leg.

My understanding was you’d need to declare any vetting findings. Not knowing the cause is surely irrelevant?
 
Out of the three horses we've owned, two are barefoot. The Connie (sadly no longer with us) was the only shod horse and had a fair few hoof abscesses in the 13 years we had him.
My OH's cob, which has never been shod, had one hoof abscess in 15 years. One vet from the practice told us that we would 'fix it' by putting a full set of shoes on him. (We didn't as it was clearly a ridiculous thing to say).

Some vets are very good when it comes to feet, some less so - and some definitely can't get their heads around how a horse can function without a full set of shoes. Not sure if that's an issue here, but I would definitely agree with this:

PoppyAnderson said:
Footy most certainly doesn't equal lame. It could be that an incompetent farrier has taken too much off and the horse needs a couple of weeks to grow a smidge of hoof. Could be a bit of easily treated thrush.
Whatever you do though, ignore the vet saying shoe all round. Vets are feckin useless with feet.
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Footy IS lame 🤷‍♀️. The horse feels pain, so it moves abnormally.

The vet might well suspect the source of the pain is something simple and temporary like a minor foot bruise, or a touch of thrush, or the aftermath of some over enthusiastic foot trimming, but make no mistake a horse that is being described as being footy is a lame horse.

It’s a very foolhardy brave vet who observes minor lameness at a vetting, mentions it to their client and then does not note it on the certificate.
 
When I had my 2 year old vetted, he trod on a stone in the yard and was "footy". The vet was quite sure it was treading on a stone that caused it and passed him. He came home a few days later and was/is sound. He has quite thin soles so can find stony ground tricky.
 
PoppyAnderson said:
Footy most certainly doesn't equal lame. It could be that an incompetent farrier has taken too much off and the horse needs a couple of weeks to grow a smidge of hoof. Could be a bit of easily treated thrush.
Whatever you do though, ignore the vet saying shoe all round. Vets are feckin useless with feet.
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Not an incompetent barefoot trimmer must have been a farrier 😂

So barefoot trimmers never lame anything and of course vets know nothing.

Not great advice telling people to ignore the vet maybe think about what you are saying before hitting the send button🙄
 
Pinkvboots said:
Not an incompetent barefoot trimmer must have been a farrier 😂

So barefoot trimmers never lame anything and of course vets know nothing.

Not great advice telling people to ignore the vet maybe think about what you are saying before hitting the send button🙄
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I wouldn't normally tell people to ignore a vet, but the fact that the vet felt it wasn't significant enough to include in a report was the main reason I questioned it.

If it wasn't enough to report on, I don't really know why the vet mentioned it in the first place.

ETA: it's also the fact that the vet thought that putting shoes on the rear would sort the 'footiness'. I'm very dubious about any suggestion that putting shoes on will actually remedy a problem.
 
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Nancykitt said:
I wouldn't normally tell people to ignore a vet, but the fact that the vet felt it wasn't significant enough to include in a report was the main reason I questioned it.

If it wasn't enough to report on, I don't really know why the vet mentioned it in the first place.

ETA: it's also the fact that the vet thought that putting shoes on the rear would sort the 'footiness'. I'm very dubious about any suggestion that putting shoes on will actually remedy a problem.
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I get that I know alot of vets just think sticking remedial shoes on a horse will fix it.

Hey I've gone against vet advice with shoes but I did my research first and luckily it worked.

I wouldn't come on here and tell people to ignore vets as they are fecking useless.

Not all vets have the same views just like anyone.
 
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