Shire horse for sale in Yorkshire. Anyone recognise?

Woofles

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Does anyone know (or has recently bought) this horse? Thanks for any assistance
 

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You might have to give a bit more info to get help here - is this a horse you were fond of but have lost track of on sale? Or does he have an issue you're worried might be unknown / undisclosed? Presumably you know which riding school he is / was being sold from? Depending on your reason for asking, I would probably try joing a Yorkshire shires / heavy horses FB page and making some polite enquiries on there. Someone may even have shared the sale post and then you'd be able to see comments.
 
It is a horse on which I put a deposit. The vetting raised some issues but we said we would take her but if she turned out to be not as described or the issues were serious we would return her. They are dealers so I don’t think that’s anything unusual. They are now saying she has gone lame, when I offered to send my vet, she was “at the vets for tests” and now they say they are keeping her as a brood mare. I suspect they have sold her to someone who didn’t have her vetted.
 
If you're right and the dealers have sold her without a vetting, I'm not sure there's much you can do - at least (given that you were pepared to buy her despite a few issues on vetting) it is hopefully only minor things that are up with her. Hopefully the new owner can resolve them without too much trouble. Not sure why the dealers would go to the trouble of lying to you though, there's not actually anything technically wrong with selling a horse to someone who doesn't want a vetting - or are they holding on to your deposit? If that's the case, particularly if they've told you they're keeping her as a brood mare, I would check the wording of the agreement around the deposit (ie was it refnudable) and start threatending the small claims court if they don't give it back by x date.
 
They still had my deposit, although it has now been refunded. I am out £400 for a vetting so I think if they have sold the horse to someone else, I think they should cover the vetting cost.
 
You want £400 for a failed vetting?

That's not how it works. You got your deposit back, which is as it should be, but you do not get the vetting costs back too.

If I'd paid a deposit, vetted the horse, been prepared to buy it despite a failed vetting, and then it was sold from under me? I'd want the money back for the vetting, too. Or I'd at least be EXTREMELY annoyed with the dealer and be yelling their name from the rooftops.
 
I've just re-read the oringinal post and realised that given that the specified conditions under which the OP states they were prepared to buy the horse ("if she turned out to be not as described or the issues were serious we would return her") are no more than the standard conditions under which anyone buys a horse from a dealer (ie if not fit for purpose it can be returned), it does sound like they sold her out from under you to a more unsuspecting buyer who might not pick up problems until it's too late to return. Which doesn't exactly paint them in a good light. It sounds to me like you're in the right but unless you have everything written down, from experience I think you might struggle. But if it is all clearly documented with text messages, emails etc, I still think small claims would be the way to go - it's not worth consulting a lawyer for £400. Could you set all that out to the dealers, in writing, and explain that you plan to proceed with small claims to recoup the cost of the vetting? Might be worth a try. Just make sure you write everything down really clearly.
 
It is a horse on which I put a deposit. The vetting raised some issues but we said we would take her but if she turned out to be not as described or the issues were serious we would return her.


I think this may be the problem. You were entitled to return to a dealer if the horse was not as described.

You weren't, in my view, entitled to take her knowing there were issues identified by your vet and then return her if you found those issues were more serious than your vet advised you.

I don't think you can put conditions on the sale like that unless the seller agrees to them, and clearly they didn't. I'm not sure you have a leg to stand on here, sorry.
 
I've been thinking this through more and it is a straightforward case of failing the vet, I think, even though it's the dealer forcing the issue.

Dealer says "horse is sound"

Vet says "horse has issues which may make her unfit for purpose"

Buyer tells dealer that. Dealer says "she's never had any issues while we've had her, she'll be fine, honest"

Buyer says "Vet says there is risk, will you take on that risk? "

Dealer says no, as they are perfectly entitled to, they won't take that risk on, and withdraws the horse from the sale.

So, in my view, the horse has failed the vet, you've got your deposit back, and there is nothing that can, or should, be done about that.
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They still had my deposit, although it has now been refunded. I am out £400 for a vetting so I think if they have sold the horse to someone else, I think they should cover the vetting cost.

Of course they shouldn’t. You paid a vet to give his medical advice on whether the horse was fit for purpose. That’s nothing to do with the vendor.
 
If this is the same mare I saw recently while visiting this yard ( West Yorkshire) , and there can't be too many other big, 13 year old shire mares in a Yorkshire dealers who have a riding school, even if there were legal grounds for them returning a failed vets fee , and there aren't, you wouldn't have a hope in hell of co operation from them anyway. Save yourself a lot of unnecessary hassle, put it down to experience, and, really, never buy a horse you're not sure about anyway. It's unfair on the horse.
 
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