Vetting...Anyone else smell a rat?

cundlegreen

cundlegreen

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Quick synopsis. I found a youngster, extremely cheap, but seemed a reasonable excuse why. I'm pretty cynical at my age, but was prepared to take a punt on her. I told the seller that I would like to get a two stage done as a precaution, especially as recently I had an eye issue with a horse I was selling. The horse is 3 hours away, so viewing booked, and I contacted a local practice (not the sellers) to arrange a vetting. I got a message today from the seller to say that they'd spoken to their vet and provisionally arranged him to come and vet the horse.
I replied that I was surprised he would agree due to conflict of interest, and that my practice wouldn't entertain such a thing. Cue message back saying the vets integrity wasn't in doubt, and that the viewing was cancelled. I've never heard of such a thing. The seller has things happening next week that have put her under pressure, but surely no excuse to get the hump over me sorting out my own vet??
 
Had the same thing. Went to buy a horse through a dealer . .dealer made it so difficult for when my vet could do the viewing . .

Anyhow . .yes im stupid . .fell right into it . .dealer said, his vet coming out to do a job lot vetting, if I wanted the horse . .went with dealers' vet . .and hey presto, horse passed . . .

Got the horse back to my yard .. Felt so sorry for him being under weight, looked like a TB with a big Irish head. . . Didn't really ride him when I got him . . When I did ride, always felt horse had a funny action . .

Anyhow, a year later, horse gradually getting fitter, turned out over the summer, horse came in lame . .i got it x rayed . . Dropped coffin joint. Suggestion of treating with til drin (sorry if spelt wrong) . .my vet suggested horse had already previously been treated with this . . .

Anyhow . .sadly was PTS . . .

So, at vetting's, if they make it difficult . .there is always a reason behind it . .
 
Four words, which I'm sure you know already:

Good decision. Walk away.
 
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Sounds as fishy as a dead mackerel to me!

Reminds me of a horse I went to see, nice little Welsh D mare. Rode her and she went nicely, got back to the yard and we discussed vetting.

Seller was VERY pushy for her vet to do the vetting and wanted to rush me into arranging it then and there - she'd got the number on her mobile and was on the point of dialling it; explanation being it would be "much easier for me as I wouldn't have to arrange anything and didn't even have to be there for it", local practice with lots of vets in the practice so "no conflict of interest"....... etc etc, then started saying that this particular mare would be better with a vet from their practice as she could choose to have a woman vet as the mare was a "bit nervous" with men.

I'd already decided there was summat up as all the wrong alarm bells were going off big-time, when the mare in question did an almighty windsuck - horrible, truly vile. Seller had kept sschtum about that little nasty, but couldn't deny it was happening as I'd have thought the whole yard would have easily heard it!

I walked away.
 
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If they're pushing you to use their vet when you'd prefer to use another practice, then I'd definitely be suspicious that something is up.

It can be ok to have the sellers vet do the vetting, but depends on circumstances. When Henry was vetted it was the sellers vet, but they've also been my vet for years (and are highly regarded in the area), I requested a specific vet who I trust and who'd never seen him and I did have the full veterinary history disclosed, which I went through thoroughly with the vet before the vetting (as there were some test results I wanted to clarify) I also had some specific things I wanted them to check, just to make sure it wasn't anything underlying. All went well and, touch wood, nothing has come up yet! (other than a couple of ridiculous injuries from him being a total idiot, he really could win awards for those!)
 
Chuffy99 said:
I don't have a problem with sellers vet doing the vetting as veterinary history is disclosed
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If seller's vet is so dodgy that they are going to pass a horse which should fail s/he's hardly going to be honest about the full vet history.

Safest is to use a different vet and to request full vet history from the owner's vet with their permission. If the seller won't accept one or both of those things, walk away.
 
I sold a horse once to a lady from outside my area and suggested several vet practices to her specifically because they were NOT my vet. Buyer couldn't get an appointment with any of them in a time frame that suited her and pushed me to get my vet to conduct the exam. I really didn't want to as I suspected my vet, who was very pernickety anyway, would be extra pernickety for fear of being accused of conflict of interest. Happily, he was completely fair in that he pointed out any issues he found to the prospective buyer, but also stated that he didn't feel they would impact on the performance of the horse. Sale went through and buyer never had any problems - all happy.
 
Chuffy99 said:
I don't have a problem with sellers vet doing the vetting as veterinary history is disclosed
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I wouldn't have a problem using the sellers vet as the history will be disclosed but ONLY if I was arranging it/ paying for it and I was then the client, in this case the sellers are still the client having arranged the appointment so it is totally unethical and will be worthless to the buyer as their name is not on the invoice or certificate, definitely something dodgy going on.
 
Smells rattier than McRat, the king of all rats wearing rat cologne on the feast of St Rats Day... walk away there are loads of youngsters out there.
 
I bought my mare from the RS I was working P/T at. I had told the YO I was interested in buying her so I was given her to care for myself for a whole month before I made the decision and had her vetted. It was the YO's vet as he did the licencing for the RS but he was the only horse vet in the area, I'd known him for years and he hadn't actually met the horse before as she had only been there a couple of months. He also had a reputation for being very thorough and you knew if he passed it, the animal was fine. I was present throughout, did the exercise for breathing and heart and the trotting up myself. Under different circumstances though I would think twice about using the vendors vet though.
 
And dont forget to tell her exactly why you are walking away. If its genuine then its a lesson learnt (not everyone knows the vetting 'rule') and if its fishy you will give her a heads up that you new something wasnt right. Either way dont make excuses for walking away, tell them the reason.
 
Chuffy99 said:
I don't have a problem with sellers vet doing the vetting as veterinary history is disclosed
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Certainly it's the best thing to do when you are buying a horse looked after by the practice you use .
I use an equine vet who is not the primary vet who looks after the vendor and only proceed if the vendor agrees to disclosure of all the records .
 
I don't agree it's fishy at all. I've known horses sold locally (to locals who've all shared the same vet). Some have passed, some have failed. Just because it's the vendor's vet, don't automatically assume scam.
 
amymay said:
I don't agree it's fishy at all. I've known horses sold locally (to locals who've all shared the same vet). Some have passed, some have failed. Just because it's the vendor's vet, don't automatically assume scam.
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It's not the fact that it's the vendors vet that's causing a problem, though, is it? Is the fact that the vendor appears to be avoiding the vet who the buyer wants that's the issue.

Fishy as fish come, for me. I wouldn't touch the horse now unless the original vet was allowed to vet it and the vet record disclosed.
 
amymay said:
I don't agree it's fishy at all. I've known horses sold locally (to locals who've all shared the same vet). Some have passed, some have failed. Just because it's the vendor's vet, don't automatically assume scam.
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That's different though, isn't it? Several people on here seem to be villifying the seller without cause. She IS a private seller with a lot on her plate, but if you want to sell a horse, then you should be prepared for a buyer to want an unconnected vet. My vet's practice has plenty of vets who have never seen my horses, but would not vet any of mine because of a conflict of interest. Nowadays it's all to easy to blame the vet when things go wrong, we've seen it on here enough!
 
I agree it sounds very fishy to me! Bit like when a friend had found what sounded like a super horse to buy, but the vendor didn't want a five stage vetting, only a two stage one. A little bit of digging on the internet found that the vendor had retired the horse two or three years ago due to some very significant (and likely to be recurring) soundness issues. Friend had a lucky escape with that one!
 
It's one thing for the seller to offer their vet as a suggestion, it's another thing entirely to practically force their vet on you.
 
I was green as grass when I bought my first horse, didn't have a vet myself and it was out of area, seller used what I assumed was a well respected practice. I had a 5 stage vetting of a horse which the seller said was 6, vet disagreed and said 7, passed with flying colours. Lame within a few weeks, full of issues for the 8 years I have owned him, and at least TEN YEARS older than vet spuriously told me. Lots of evidence of old injuries, and he's never been right. I know this now, and I also know that the vet MUST have been in the seller's pocket. The horse was not cheap, and I was an absolute gift to them, heart over head, no experienced person with me, etc etc.
As has been said, caveat emptor, buyer beware!
 
Not necessarily disgreeing with previous posts but if the buyer had asked the seller to arrange their vet to come and do the vetting and seller had said no I think you need to arrange your own vet then you would probably also be saying walk away.

There are valid reasons for insisting its your vet and valid reasons for insisting its not. There is not necessarily anything suspicious in it at all.

The plus about using the sellers vet is that if anything comes back a year later that is pre-existing then you would have a stronger claim against the vet as they cannot claim it is something that was not displaying at the time.
 
Fred66 said:
Not necessarily disgreeing with previous posts but if the buyer had asked the seller to arrange their vet to come and do the vetting and seller had said no I think you need to arrange your own vet then you would probably also be saying walk away..
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I don't agree, as both a buyer and a seller I would be perfectly happy with this. As a buyer, I would then ask for disclosure of the vet records and only walk away if that was refused.
 
"Open to any vet" used to be a thing to look for in any for sale ad, because it smacks of openness and transparency.

Getting a full vet history on any horse is very unlikely to happen and no guarantee that the horse is issue free. I use three different vets - one for routine stuff and referrals, but he's a one man band and too far away in an emergency, so I use a local practice if he's not available, but travel 2 hours to a proper equine hospital for workups and clinical diagnoses - it would be easy for me to fail to disclose something I didn't want a prospective buyer to know. Just as well I never sell anything :)

I hardly ever get horses vetted but I wouldn't tell a seller that until I was sure that the horse was open to ANY vet, should I want to do so.
 
Fred66 said:
Not necessarily disgreeing with previous posts but if the buyer had asked the seller to arrange their vet to come and do the vetting and seller had said no I think you need to arrange your own vet then you would probably also be saying walk away.

There are valid reasons for insisting its your vet and valid reasons for insisting its not. There is not necessarily anything suspicious in it at all.

The plus about using the sellers vet is that if anything comes back a year later that is pre-existing then you would have a stronger claim against the vet as they cannot claim it is something that was not displaying at the time.
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Well, spoke to the vet that I had provisionally asked to check this horse over.... When I told him what had happened, his first words were "walk away from it" then he said that the law had changed and vets were not allowed to vet their client's horse for an outside buyer. I have never had any contact before with him, but he was very blunt about the situation, and told me straight. Would certainly use him if i looked to buy in Lincolnshire again. Def a lucky escape....
 
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