Pre-purchase: Check It Out!

Summer: days lengthen, swimmers splash, ice cream trucks riddle neighborhoods with notes from “The Entertainer,” and the equine game of ‘hot potato’ begins.  Buying and selling in the horse world ramps up in the summer.  Teenagers go off to college, and mom and dad realize that they don’t want to be stuck paying board on a show-jumper turned hay-burner.  The show season is underway, and horses may or may not make the cut.  Foals are weaned. 

In recent years, the horse market has been stagnant (distressingly stagnant) in many regions of the country.  However, if (and this seems to be a big if) the economy is improving, sooner or later people will resume the horse trade dance. 

In a depressed market, one area of the new horse purchase that seems to be bypassed is the pre-purchase exam, also known as the vet check.  From a certain angle, the logic makes sense.  Why spend $200-$500 having a vet evaluate a horse that you can get for $1000?  However, this view neglects a critical reality of horse ownership.  The purchase price is a fragment of the total cost of the horse.

In order to understand the value of a pre-purchase exam, it is necessary to understand what it is, and what it is not.  A pre-purchase is a comprehensive physical and soundness examination that evaluates the suitability of the horse for the intended purpose, and is intended to ferret out potential problems and the likely requirements for managing those problems.  Note the key words in that sentence: “suitability,” “intended purpose,” “potential problems,” “likely requirements,” and “managing.”   The pre-purchase is not a black/white checklist with a pass/fail grade.  This is not a guarantee of a sound or problem-free horse.  It is an assessment of the horse on a given day.  Sadly, no vet has a crystal ball.

Ok, so if a vet-check won’t guarantee me a sound horse, what good is it?

1.      It shows the horse’s behavior in a new light:  Temperament is critical, particularly for horses intended for novice riders or children.  A horse that may “try out” fine under saddle in his home arena could be an entirely different animal in strange surroundings or under the ground-handling pressures of a veterinary exam.  This is a great opportunity to see exactly how “bomb-proof” your 5^th grader’s new horse will be.

2.      Less obvious medical conditions may be revealed:  I have found cataracts on pre-purchase in horses that had appeared sighted in the familiar surroundings of their home ranches.  Midline scars from unreported colic-surgeries have been discovered during pre-purchase exam.  Wouldn’t you like to know these details in advance?

3.      Lamenesses that are not obvious at regular work can be detected:  High level performance horses (such as barrel horses) may over-ride pain to perform with significant injuries.  Lameness that may not be easily detectable at high speeds while the horse is doing the job he loves can show up on a lunge line or in flexion tests.

4.      Evaluation of conformation and muscle symmetry may reveal pre-disposition toward problems, or even old injuries.

5.      Information beats ignorance.  You can better manage a horse if you understand his needs and requirements for comfort at your desired level of performance.

Should the seller’s vet do the pre-purchase?  As a rule, no.  There may be special situations (only one doc for hundreds of miles) where this is necessary or even desirable, and as long as all parties are on-board and comfortable with the practice that’s fine.  However, the pre-purchase exam should be performed on behalf of the buyer.  The buyer pays for the exam; the buyer is the client; and only the buyer is legally entitled to know the results of the exam.  He or she can permit the vet to release that information to the seller, if he chooses, but the seller is not automatically entitled to a copy of the record.  The vet performing the pre-purchase needs to be able to evaluate the horse objectively and to act as ‘devil’s advocate’ if needed.  This role is more difficult if the vet and seller have a pre-existing relationship.

The value of a pre-purchase exam lies in understanding the point of the exam and in obtaining as much information as possible from it.  “Saving money” by skipping the pre-purchase is a bad deal that may haunt you down the road.