Pre purchase findings when buying a new horse

Pre-Purchase Findings

A few days ago I put up an x-ray image of a foot on Instagram and Facebook stories and asked would you buy this horse or not?

It often posses a difficult question at the time of purchase how much do you place on these changes? The horse is clinically sound and no concerns at this stage for soundness…… but the horse is only 6 and has only started their career. We need to consider the future and a couple of things:

1. Warmbloods often from a young age have changes on their navicular bones
2. The presence of these changes doesn’t necessarily mean that the horse has navicular disease or indeed will develop it.

So you have to look at the entire picture and place the horse in a risk category. Now if this horse has had these changes for 4+ years and is clinically sound and shod in normal shoes with a good regular competition history then we could probably change the risk profile from a moderate to a low moderate risk profile.

With young horses often you as a purchaser want a clean low risk prepurchase exam but they may have an element of risk due to some changes that may or may not become an issue. It is important when you are buying a horse to decide where does your risk profile sit. Are you willing to accept some risk or none at all.

The take home is that some young horses will have changes and maintain soundness while others will have lameness issues and you as the purchaser have to decide where does your risk profile sit.

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