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Extreme Veteran
Posts: 499
 
Location: ARKANSAS | Why is it so hard for people to be honest when selling a horse??? I just had a friend went to try out a barrel horse and the first question she asked was did he buck and they replied NO!!! Welll YEP,she got bucked off, shattered her knee and broke her hand. They did surgery on her knee and she is fine...but this is not the point...the point is if the folks had of been honest, she would have avoided getting hurt.Come to find out later the horse was a known bucker and had been passed around for that. REALLY? does money mean more than somebodys life or thier childs life??? I have NEVER sold a horse nor will i ever sell a horse that you wont know EVERY DETAIL about him...which i have not sold that many but the ones i have sold the new owners said they were just like i said they would be. The reason i have sold a few in the past is i have bought them and they have not matched my riding style or my personality, and i to bought a bucker once and i was told he was a kids horse...and i SOLD HIM AS A BUCKER!! Ok my rant is over!! |
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 Expert
Posts: 5293
| That's why you can't always trust a sellers word. You have to dig deeper and do your homework. Find out previous registered owners, ask people who go to jackpots locally to the horse etc. |
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Extreme Veteran
Posts: 499
Location: ARKANSAS | I fully agree except for checking with registered owners...again that's a joke...people INSIST they be registered but they NEVER bother to transfer them into their own name..i sold a horse once, and he was gone 3 yrs,,I had the chance to buy him back and I did..while he was gone he had changed hands SEVEN times...and whose name was he in when I got him back..yep MINE!!! |
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 A Barrel Of Monkeys
Posts: 12972
 
Location: Texas | Always, always ask the seller to ride the horse first. |
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 Expert
Posts: 1482
Location: on my horse | ahh your poor friend! Prayers for quick healing for her |
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Boot Detective
Posts: 1900
| My thoughts exactly. The truth will always come out so why be so dishonest. It's not just horses, its everything that is for sale. I messaged about a piece of real estate that is advertised to be exactly where I want to live. The more I badgered the seller about specifically where is this place, it is 2 towns and 30 miles away. Grrrh. Waste of my time and hers. |
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 To the Left
Posts: 1865
Location: Florida | Honesty is easy and habit forming. I would think lying would be extremely hard. How do liars keep their story straight? Call me naive but even as I near retirement age I can't understand dishonest people, how do they sleep at night? Of course that may be why my horse dealing motto is "Buy high, sell low" LOL
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 BHW's Lance Armstrong 
Posts: 11134
Location: Somewhere between S@%&# stirrer and Saint | Pure and simple. Greed! |
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 Reaching for the stars....
Posts: 12708
| Crazy thing - I had a kinda cold backed young gelding to sell. He was fine after a bit of exercise. Family came down from NJ to look at him. I was up front about the humpi-ness (even on the phone before they headed down to VA). We lunged the gelding and he did hump up a little. Husband just chuckled and hopped on. Spidey and him went for a wild ride! The dude forced Spidey to move forward and he (Spidey) decided it was easier to move flat than get whooped on. Wife rode next, then daughter. Even after his humpy start they loved him.
If you're up front you might scare off those who are not capable of dealing with an issue. But there are plenty of people looking for 'issue' horses. Either young and frisky like my Spidey, or those who need to be rehabbed out of a behavioral issue and put back to good use.
It is not worth a bad reputation to sell a bad horse to good people.
Many prayers for your friend for fast and complete healing  |
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 Elite Veteran
Posts: 669
Location: Central Texas | Fun2Run - 2015-07-16 8:36 PM
Always, always ask the seller to ride the horse first.
Absolutely this! I ask them to saddle/ride and do all transitions.....walk, trot, lope and full out breeze before I ever swing a leg over. Any horse I am interested in purchasing will be ridden like a full work out when I go to look at them. So very sorry your friend was injured and glad it wasn't worse. |
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 Elite Veteran
Posts: 1182
Location: Do I hear Banjos? | My horse trying rules are:
-I do NOT want the horse saddled when I get there. Preferably not even caught. I want to see what I might be getting there.
-I always ask the owner or their representative to ride first. Both because I want to see how it moves, AND because if they don't want to ride it...I don't either.
Sucks that folks like that can be willing to take a chance on someone getting seriously hurt for the sake of a sale. |
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Extreme Veteran
Posts: 477
Location: Lost in the swamps | Exact thing happened to me about 3 years ago with a kids horse, he was a crow hopper. The little girl was a sure good hand and really tried hard to discourage him, but once he realized she wasn't strong enough.... He became too dangerious. He had tried a time or two with me and I creamed his a$$ for it and never tried it again. But with her, he figured out he could get away with it. Come to find out he was sold for this reason. So We sold him with full disclosure to experienced people. |
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Extreme Veteran
Posts: 490
| SO TRUE! I met a friend that came down to try a horse. I hadnt seen her in a few years. She rode the horse and he did good. Owner didnt want to be the first one on him (Should have been a clue). She asks me to take the horse through the pattern so she can watch him. I climb on, trot a few circles to get a feel for the horse and start to trot the pattern. 1 and 2 are good. We get to 3, I drop my hand and we turn. As we finish the turn this suckers busts in half. As soon as his head ducks, Im still one handed, I am trying to get his head. He goes straight up, comes down and bucks 3 or 4 more times before Im able to get control. The owners never said sorry. I think they knew he was going to do it. It shook me up. I will not get on other peoples horses anymore. I stayed on but its not fun anymore. I cannot stand a rearer! Just be honest! |
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 Chicken Chick
Posts: 3562
Location: Texas | Fun2Run - 2015-07-16 8:36 PM Always, always ask the seller to ride the horse first.
THIS^^^
I went to go look at a horse for my non horsey husband and my son who was about 6? at the time. The first day I went to look at him there was some reason why I couldn't try him out in the arena. Ok whatever, I liked him so far so I came back another day. The man assured me this horse would be a great horse for beginner riders and kids. I asked him to ride the horse first and he did. He had him walk and trot a little bit. When he came back to where I was standing I asked him if he could get him up into a lope. He was reluctant, went on to tell me about how gentle this horse is yada yada. I told him I wasn't interested then, and as I started to walk away he finally said he would. As soon as he got this horse into a lope he broke in two. I'm glad it wasn't my butt hitting the ground. He came back and said "So I guess you aren't interested in him?" No, not at all. Thanks for trying to kill my kid and husband. I didn't tell him that but I wanted to. lol
Honestly though. If I am selling a horse and there isn't anything wrong with it. There is nothing stopping me from riding the horse before the buyer. If I am selling a bucker, you are going to know that it is a bucker, and you are also going to know that I'm not interested in getting bucked off to prove it... you will just have to take my word for it lol. |
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 Elite Veteran
Posts: 929
| TrailGirl - 2015-07-17 5:49 AM
My horse trying rules are:
-I do NOT want the horse saddled when I get there. Preferably not even caught. I want to see what I might be getting there.
-I always ask the owner or their representative to ride first. Both because I want to see how it moves, AND because if they don't want to ride it...I don't either.
Sucks that folks like that can be willing to take a chance on someone getting seriously hurt for the sake of a sale.
This!!! And I also want to tie and groom the horse for myself and then have the owner get on. Not just because I want to make sure if it's going to do something that I can see it, but what if the owner cues it different, has a completely different riding style, etc. Maybe it's something I can deal with, maybe it will be too time consuming.
There is a girl in our area who has a lot of horses for sale but has a mixed reputation on what you are getting. Personally I will straight up tell you that this is not the horse for you after speaking to you on the phone or if you come out and I show you the horse and see either: A) you are not as experienced as you said you are, or B.) you said the horse was for you but you come to try a barely broke 3 year old and then tell me it's for your 10 year old daughter who can barely saddle an old pony. I want people to be happy with their horse, and because I don't generally sell my horses, if I do have to sell, I really want the horse to be happy and stay with the new owner instead of being swapped around.
Maybe this is why I don't sell horses?! |
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 Underestimated Underdog
Posts: 3971
Location: Minnesota | I agree with the others above. I want to see the seller do everything I will be doing. Everything from grooming to cleaning hooves to saddling and riding. When I bought my gelding I asked the seller to do all these things and he did have some problems but at least I knew going into it. I still bought him and we worked through the issues but at least I knew about them coming into it. |
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 Expert
Posts: 1857
| Fun2Run - 2015-07-16 8:36 PM
Always, always ask the seller to ride the horse first.
I never get on one with out the seller riding first... If they won't get on, I'm darn sure not getting on!! |
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Boot Detective
Posts: 1900
| Trail Girl has some great points. I like to show up early to try a horse too. I learned this by accident. Me and a friend flew to another state to try a couple horses for sale. Both horses were at the same barn. One had a respectable win record but had fallen off the radar for several months (another red flag). We were so busy talking we honestly forgot to call and let them know we were about an hour away. We arrived about 45 min before they thought we possibly could and they were obviously surprised to see us and not so happy about it. They didn't want either of us to ride these horses from the barn to the arena (maybe 150 yds across their pasture) and both horses rode like complete idiots in their own home place. The proven horse was scared of the parked tractor, birds, everything. he was also not sound. The longer I rode him, the more it became obvious. The other horse would try to run sideways when you started to step in the stirrup and was a hand full to say the least. He wanted to buck and my friend (great horseman) used a lot of skill to prevent a disaster on that colt. Both horses were priced above $20,000. When we took horses back into the barn to unsaddle, my friend noticed the large bottle of drugs sitting out. We were both totally convinced if they had of known we were close, those horses would have been drugged/sedated and the unsound one would have rode sound with the right pain meds. We lost a lot of $ on plane tickets, hotel, and rental car but we saved a fortune and saw some pretty country. |
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 Expert
Posts: 1440
Location: Texas | I am so thankful that the girl I bought Lips from was completely truthful about his bucking. He can be somewhat cold backed and she told me that. If he is off for a few weeks he WILL buck. She told me all I had to do is longe him for a bit and let him get it out and then he will be fine. He was just recently off for a month and when I got him back up he went to town!! Was never so glad she had been honest! |
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 Sorry I don't have any advice
Posts: 1975
Location: Sunnyland Florida |
Some real good advice in posts on this thread so far. Here's one more. When you're PONY shopping for your kid, ask the seller to put THEIR kid on first. When their kid starts bawling and won't get on it - you can get in the truck and go home. True story, this happened two times!
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