Posted: Jun 23, 08 11:29am
After much deliberation I decided to sell my wonderful dutch warmblood gelding. Having no luck myself I sent him to a sale barn @ 50 miles from my home whose owner I had known for a number of years.
In order to expose him to trainers and buyers she took him to a few shows in the area after getting him fit under saddle and over jumps at her barn.
2.5 months later she called me to say that she had a potential client for him, a 12 year old girl at a farm quite a distance away who wanted to lease him for the summer show season and possibly purchase him at the end of that. I told her that if that's what she wished to do she would have to buy him from me herself and proceed with the lease once he was hers. My reasoning, which I stated to her, was that I needed to be released from liability should the horse become injured. I said "I could send a perfectly sound horse down there and get a broken one back".
She agreed and we settled on a price and made payment arrangements. He's shipped down to this other barn so the young girl can try him out. She does and loves him, the pre-purchase examination reveals that my horse has sustained a lower suspensory ligament injury and is no longer an option for the 12 year old girl and he is being returned to her barn.
I know he didn't suffer this injury while he was in my custody but it's virtually impossible to determine exactly when it did happen. When I visit him at her barn the day after he is shipped back his leg is swollen and warm but not alarmingly so. The vet who did the pre-purchase states that this is an "active injury, not old or chronic".
The exact scenario I didn't want to have happen has. She has rescinded her offer to purchase the horse. She has admitted to me that "it's possible we stressed him here". She is willing to keep him at her farm in a stall rest and hand walking regimen with no cost to me as well as to pay for a vet to look at him.
I am sad and furious at the same time. I haven't lost it on her because at this point I doubt it would do anything but harm to our relationship. Everything is now in a holding pattern while my horse heals.
Ok, tbders, anyone have a similar experience?
