Vettings - do you have them?

Gingerwitch

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Just interested, anything less than about 4k i dont bother with, anything over that i would, - i am rather long in the tooth, i was around before horses were wormed and innoculated - so apologies for this.

I especially hate flexion tests.... as a lot depends on the vet.

What about you?
 
Yes always the cost of the horse is irrelevant to me but the time I spend on them is not.
That does not mean I don't buy them if they fail though.
 
I have for 4 out of 5 horses (all under 3k) I have purchased - the 5th I didn't and she had kissing spines and had to be retired 6 months later! However the vet told me it wouldn't have shown up if she had been vetted at the time anyway.

I have a vet I very much trust to 'vet for purpose' - he 'passed' a horse I bought who had been pin fired as a racer and had a rather crooked hind leg action but seemed sound enough for my husband to hack and play with. So far he seems to have been a good buy. But I know vets who 'fail' horses for very insignificant things.

So yes I do - its puts my mind at rest that I didn't miss something totally obvious - I am certainly silly enough to do that!
 
I did for my big WB and he flew the vetting as the best the vet had seen :rolleyes: and ended up costing the poor insurers nearly £15k in 18 months (I got LOU etc).
We did for daughter's show cob - she was iffy on a flexion being trotted on the concrete on a 10m circle - I think I would be too so we still bought her and she has been fine and sound 8 years on, except for a recent tendon problem unrelated.
I don't vet youngstock - I just bought a 2 yr old Dales and had no vetting.
 
Never have never will , I don't tend to buy expensive horses. Out of 11years and 14 horses I have only ever had the vet out twice unless it was for vaccinations. I have been lucky but also don't create problems that are not there . I would however get vetted anything over £3-4k if I felt i needed a second opinion :-)
 
I am sure someone posted on here once that there horse had fallen over being lunged on a 10m circle when it was being vetted.... so the poor seller ended up with an injured horse, I can only assume the vet failed the horse as the memory is not that good.

But i do really dislike flexion tests especially when the vet does it time and time again - i think that there should be a limit on one leg i.e twice within a 15 min window.
 
No...not for what I want them for, and for what I pay.

Its just a snapshot of a moment in time anyway.

If I were spending more than 5k I would....in fact, I think you have to for insurance purposes.And I don't bother with that either, other than for death/theft and 3rd party/public liability.
 
Apart from an INCREDIBLY expensive breeding-stallion-cum-dressage-horse, I've never really bothered and have been very lucky with all the horses I have purchased over the years. Most clients horses are though, and TBH other than picking up a heart murmur I'm not sure it's a guarentee of future soundness. X-rays are useful for diagnostics and future reference of course. I must clarify that with the fact that I am no longer buying competition horses, 'tho.

P.S. The breeding/dressage stallion went lame :-)
 
Absoultly , but then I'd always be buying a horse over the value for insurance so would have no choice. Even if I did but a cheap horse I think I'd still get a vetting done.
 
Exactly as Goldenstar says. We vetted our new boy last month, because we wanted to know if there was anything obviously wrong. We know it doesn't mean there isn't something underlying, somewhere. We just like to be prepared. Our last horse had had a tendon injury and passed the vet... and then broke down eight months later. We just aren't experienced enough to look at a horse and say it's healthy.

We only spent a "small" amount on the new one, but we'd rather be prepared where we can.
 
The first 2 I bought I didn't bother - only paid a few hundred pounds, but with this current boy I had a 5 stage done as he was a few grand & was wanted for competing. Looking for horses at the moment & will more than likely get them vetted too
 
The first and last horse I had vetted was 9 years ago; he failed and I still bought him and since then haven't bothered with vetting the 15+ horses I have bought since then.

Some have been vetted when I sold them and all have passed vettings without issue.
 
We didn't for the first two (and touch wood they've been around forever & are problem free!), horse 3 was "kind of" vetted (sales vetting, so only basic) - which he ironically passed but the vet must have received a very hefty bribe as there was nothing particularly healthy about that horse (and although we realised this when we got him - obese, sweetitch, doped?!...) we had no idea of all the OTHER issues he had, and he cost an absolute fortune in vets fees over the years as we uncovered more and more problems (plus he was the most accident prone horse I've ever met!). If the vetting had been a 5 stage one, then I'm sure a lot of this would have been highlighted (especially with the blood tests).

So in light of horse 3 costing a fortune and the vets becoming our best friends, horse 4 was 5 stage vetted and insured as I couldn't face those bills all over again! I also wanted to do a lot more with her than with previous horses , I'm hoping we'll get out and compete etc (unfortunately dodgy horse 3 wouldn't allow me to do this), so I wanted to make sure everything was as it should be. I've been around horses since I was tiny so can spot the obvious things, lameness etc, but wouldn't risk buying another horse without having it properly vetted as there are so many hidden things which a vet can pick up on.
 
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