PrePurchase Vet Exam

[Rides 2 Far <rides2far@juno.com>]

A few of my experiences with pre-purchase exams:

Sold 2 ponies to a rich man. He read in a book he needed a vet check. He
preferred not to use a vet I recommended.  The vet he called was a small
animal vet who had actually helped vet one endurance ride.  He took their
pulses, made me get on those bareback ponies and trot them for 5 minutes,
then he checked their recoveries. Then he recommended to the buyer that
he put shoes on them as soon as possible. This was a pony I'd marked 25
miles of mountain trail on barefoot. He'd never had a shoe.  :-P

Took an endurance horse to UT for a (thankfully) former local endurance
rider.  This horse was back at the knees, and very overtrained.  The vets
diagnosis was:  lame in 4 legs.  Tendon inflamed almost ready to bow,
sore back, a chip in the knee and pathetic fetlocks.  They recommended he
be rested on flat pasture, then perhaps used to lead small children
around.  Instead the owner gave him a few months off, then did the  A
National Championship 50 (Long time ago, not the recent series...1990 or
so?) which I think he won, I'm pretty sure he got BC. Then he sold the
horse to another rider (I didn't know or I'd have warned them). 
Apparently they didn't see his x-rays though because he went on to do
100's.  Nobody told the horse he couldn't do it.

I took my horse to the best lameness vet around here (and he is good)
when he was having a very faint lameness..(turned out to be a slow
abcess).  He made the comment, "Well, this horse really isn't built to
stay sound.... (something about his knees which I think are beautiful)  I
said, "This horse has over 2000 miles" and he said, "Nevermind".

Took another Arab in for a prepurchase.  Vet commented that he didn't
think he'd have much speed because of his conformation, cowhocked and hit
on the outsides of his rear feet.  We said, "He top 5'd several of his
50's the first year of competition", ...again he said, "Nevermind".

I had a 4 year old ex-racehorse App/TB. for sale. The vets at the
university said she had arthritic rear hocks and she didn't pass.  We
kept her and as a 9 year old she did a mountainous 50. She never had any
trouble with her hocks her whole life.

I've had one horse I considered to have near perfect conformation.  It
was so beautiful...functional...and he started 5 rides and pulled 4 times
for lameness (squeaked through the other grade one).  He was never lame
except in competition.

Equus once did a study where they followed horses who had been x-rayed
for navicular in prepurchase exams.  They found that the diagnosis on the
x-rays had no correlation whatsoever with whether the horse stayed sound.
 Some that looked bad stayed sound. Some that looked good didn't.  If I
were getting an ex-racehorse I'd get those feet x-rayed, but I'll admit
I've never paid for a vet exam on a horse I was buying.

Angie


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