Does everyone?

[Assumptaann]

Does everyone have their potentially new horse vetted? What does it actually cover you for? How much is it to have this done? Is there an alternative to vetting? As in, is it only a vet that can do it? What are they looking for? Thank you

Oh I realise that villainousbroodmare, was just so disappointed that he'd passed the vetting (my friend had 8 failures and a lot of expense before she bought her current horse!) and we've had nothing but problems. As a pp said, if you don't vet you're insured anyway, with no exclusions. I would always take an experienced friend and between us we're pretty good at spotting lameness etc. but as you say, no vet can predict what might happen - a bit like a car that passes an MOT on that particular day but something could go wrong the next making it unroadworthy. A lady we know sent us a video of a horse she bought unvetted - even we could see from the way it moved there was something wrong. Turns out (after 3 months) to have severe kissing spines and needs to be euthanised - she says a vet wouldn't have x-rayed its back so it wouldn't have been picked up, but I know for sure my vet would have spotted something wrong just from seeing it move, and saved her the heartache.

I really can't decide what I'd do next time (have had 3 vetted and one not, knew he had issues and had to have him pts after 4 years).

Larry a friend of mine has had a similar experience to yours. Went by the book, 5 stage vetting, horse has managed to suffer from everything a vetting can't predict. I think she wonders how I got away with it. My answer would be mainly luck, plus buying a horse who was known to me. I will get any future horses vetted. At some point my luck will run out!

I think the problem is that horses are very delicate creatures and tend to have a lot of problems regardless of how well you look after them. Large yards always have one or two out of work and one or two under investigation for problems, but it's difficult for the one horse owner to appreciate this when they have paid a lot of money and don't even get to ride.

My lot have had millions of problems, melanomas, sarcoids, arthritis, stifle OCD, poisoning, EPMS, etc!