The Prepurchase Exam
One week we had a prepurchase exam scheduled for a warmblood gelding who was being sold to a woman as a jumper for the meager sum of $150,000. We weren't told this exact amount, when horses cost THAT much people didn't generally share the specific numbers with us, we just were told the horse was a significant purchase. But I overheard a cell phone conversation with words to that effect, referring to a $50,000 check with "1 of 3" written in the memo line. When I whispered this amount to the vet I was working for he responded, "we better not miss ANYTHING on this exam...."
He was an 18 hand gelding at one of our bigger show barns. He was a warmblood with feet like sauce platters, jumping beautifully, quietly, and clearing 5'5" oxer fences with a foot and a half to spare. I'm not exaggerating. The seller, if he were to keep the horse, intended to take him as far as he could go, aiming for the World Cup. (An interesting side note: the seller used to be a very western roping cowboy who shod horses for a living, but married into significant money and currently dealt with expensive imported warmbloods rather than cattle horses). The seller had bought the horse and imported him from Canada. The gelding had a massive chest, and he moved very lightly on his feet especially considering his size. People watched the riding portion of the exam with awe, speaking in hushed tones of his athleticism.
Since it was a prepurchase exam, we went over the horse with a very fine tooth comb, scrutinizing, analyzing, and examining everything from small shin scars to slight distension of tendon sheaths, to detailed eye exams. Also a full lameness workup including x-rays of nearly every weight bearing joint in the horse's body including stifles, hocks, all four fetlocks, and front feet. When the selling price is that high, several hundred dollars in radiographs is no big deal. The buyer, a fairly wealthy woman whose dog incidentally just had $3000 surgery to replace his hip (people are so eager to share these numbers) was riding the horse on the sharp gravel driveway when we pulled up to start the exam (illustrating that money and sense don't always go together).
We went through all the particulars of the horse's history, 8 years old, well bred, etc., making very detailed notations on the form we always used. We did the assessment of skin, hooves, legs, eyes, ears, heart, lungs, lameness (none found), flexion tests, all the things the vet studies on a horse's prepurchase exam whether the horse sells for $150,000 or $1,500.
As we were doing the last set of x-rays we were all gowned up in the lead aprons, all the x-ray equipment out and set up, the horse sedated in the cross ties. Everyone was watching and discussing the beautiful animal he was. We heard the rustling of paper and I turned around to see Goaty, the barn's mascot pygmy goat, trotting away from us down the barn aisle, happily munching away on the exam form. Her rotund belly swinging side to side, pooping as she went, she squinted her obtuse eyes with happiness. I shouted, "Goaty!!" as I ran down the barn aisle after her with my lead apron weighting me down, and then the seller and I pounced on her, each of us grabbing her jaws and attempting to pry the form out of her mouth. She clamped her sharp little teeth firmly into the paper, tearing chunks out of it and gulping as fast as she could. We lost the right middle third of the paper - Goaty swallowed it. We didn't have a single prepurchase exam form from that stable that didn't bear Goaty's teeth marks. Just goes to show you a goat doesn't care how expensive the horse or his exam is.
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| This looks just like Goaty, but she had horns. |
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