Who to trust?

So, the next installment in my selling/buying melodrama unfolds. Assegai is about 90% sold. He goes on trial on Monday with the lovely young girl who came down to try him out a couple of weeks ago. He'll get a vet check before he leaves Canberra and he'll go to a Pony Club rally while he's with them. If they're coach gives the thumbs up, he's found his new home. I'm really please - but the fat lady has yet to hit the high notes so I'm not relaxing yet.

I have found a horse I want to buy, and the offer I made on price has been accepted, though not without some anxious waiting and discussion. New problem. I sent a video the owner/breeder made of him as a 4yo after limited work to the bodyworker who's done so much with Assegai, and now Rose with her fractured pelvis. I really value this person's expertise and opinion and I thought it would be prudent to see what she thought.

Next day I get a frantic call from her telling me not to buy the horse - that she'd seen a locking stifle at least once in the video. I watched it with her while we talked on the phone and I could see what she was talking about. His right hind toe was dragging, he did a little hop when she asked him to canter to the left, he seemed to be uneven or 'bridle lame' to the right. My heart sank. I really wanted this horse to be the one. I'd driven 10 hours to ride him and he felt like the most amazing cross country machine. Like sitting on an old-fashioned steam engine. Power horse-onified!

But I do not want an unsound horse, especially for the amount of money I was about to fork out. Who does? After doing quite a bit of research online, looking at vet sites and reading papers on locking stifles in young horses, I decided I couldn't buy him. The articles seemed quite clear on the fact that an intermittently partially locking stifle (it has a fancy name but the acronym is UFP from memory), ie one where the ligament that pulls the hind leg forward just 'catches' across the head of the femur, is notoriously difficult to diagnose, especially when the horse is not in any pain at that moment.

I called the breeder, perhaps stupidly and naively, and asked her if he'd ever been vetted before. Emphatic 'No.' Had he ever had any problems with his stifles? 'No, never.' I told her what the bodyworker had said and, understandably, she got quite upset and pissed off, as I would have too, but I was expecting that. After a long discussion, which got heated and emotional, we agreed I would wait for the vet check on Tuesday and both of us would accept the outcome. I would buy the horse if the vet was positive there was no stifle issue and she would accept I wasn't going to take him if he couldn't pass the horse. The breeder even promised that she would allow me to return the horse and get my money back if he developed a stifle lock down the track. Gonna get that in writing, I think!

So, I may have bought a horse. And he is truly lovely. Everything I want. I went back online to do some more research, especially after I sent a more recent video of the horse to the bodyworker who replied that there was no locking or hopping, no toe dragging, but just the slightest of shorter steps. I found an article last night presented to an American vet conference specifically on stifle problems and it said that there was no clinical evidence to support the idea that watching a horse move provided any diagnostic assistance in identifying stifle issues. That confused me - how could the bodyworker be sure it was stifle lock? He was not reluctant to back up. He did not seem uneven when I rode him, after 6 weeks without work (considered a prime time for locking up). And on and on....who to believe? Who to trust? Even if the vet passes him will he have a problem?

Stay tuned....5 more sleeps....