I never thought it’d come to this. Sitting in front of the one person who would declare how the rest of our life would be. Would we have to start living on food stamps? Or would they rule in our favor and our lives would be fine. I never thought we’d be here.
It all started with a simple ad on KSL. A beautiful dark bay with a lonely white star in the shape of an upside down heart on his forehead. He was sixteen-two hands, which was mostly leg. He needed some meat put on his bones since he was obviously underweight. Besides that though, we saw potential in his chocolate-brown eyes. This leggy, “lurpy”, skimpy thing they called Indy. His current owners said he could well become a wonderful “hunter jumper”. We’d soon find this statement false and us left hopeless and in tears.
There were plenty of red flags from the moment we first saw him. It all started off with him already being tacked up before we even arrived. We believed it was because they were in a hurry. Later we’d find out it was to hide his skinniness which was even more apparent in person. Then it was the current rider only tracking left. We didn’t think of this until later when he had issues cantering right. Another red flag was not receiving his papers, which his current owners said were in another state with her father. Later they’d say they lost them.
There were plenty of red flags though. So many that it would take an eternity to write them all down. Yet I’ll tell you the two biggest red flags of all that we were so naïve to miss. If only we could have saved ourselves the trouble.
We decided to yet Indy vet checked to see if there were any problems. His sellers insisted to do it on their own. After all, we did have to travel two hours there and back. So we went ahead and let them do it. We’d regret it later. Turns out they’d take him to a small animal vet, and the veterinarian didn’t know anything about the four-legged animals. Before that even happened though, his sellers had asked us to take him before he was even vet checked. We thought that was odd yet we decided to still go through the buying process. We should have stopped there. We knew something was up, but we decided to brush past it. We went through with the buying process.
Indy came home with us on the following Sunday. It was strange how he already had formed some sort of bond with me. It was only about the third or fourth time he’d seen me yet already he was right there at my side.
I let Indy loose in the arena so he could start getting comfortable in this new place. He seemed to already feel at home. We never saw any hin of something wrong… yet.
The next day I had decided to go ahead and give Indy a test drive in an English saddle. Everything seemed to go well until I started cantering. It wasn’t as obvious tracking left, but once we started tracking right there was something obviously wrong. It was as if he’d never cantered before in his life! He kept almost rubbing me off on the rail and not moving off my leg. It was like he didn’t know where to put his feet. Little did we know that was the problem.
I was in denial. I didn’t want to believe it. You see, we dealt with this on a horse previous to Indy. That was hard enough. I felt stuck. I knew my trainer wouldn’t be happy, and she wasn’t.
When my trainer first arrived from her vacation she immediately said there was something wrong with him. He was too skinny and the more weight gained, the more the problem was apparent. I still didn’t wasn’t to believe it.
It’d been a couple of months with no change and my trainer had decided to take us on a trail ride up the mountains. I was quite excited to try Indy on trail. At first it started out well. There were seven of us and everyone was having a great time.
We’d arrived at the lake and took a little break before decending the mountain. That’s when things got a little interesting. I could tell something was wrong. As we were heading down the slope Indy kept crow hopping and giving little rears. I’d called ahead to get my trainers attention. That’s when it happened. Indy gave out a big rear and fell backwards on top of me. I’d blacked out for several minutes I was told, buy for me it felt like a few seconds. I had opened my eye’s and finally believed that there was something wrong with Indy.
After the incident we’d declared Indy dangerous. He was friendly and gentle mentally, but physically unsafe. There was no way we could sell him, so we decided to board him at a cheap private home. We’d board him there for quite awhile before another issue arose.
It was an early morning when we’d receive a phone call. Indy’s legs were swollen so bad that his skin was actually cracking and weeping. He had a hard time walking buy really didn’t show any pain we’d have to stand for hours running waster down his legs and walking him around.
It finally all clicked. There wad something wrong with Indy. No wonder he bonded so fast. Horses that had something wrong with them usually knew and were clingy to their owners. Kind of like asking for help. He was skinny because it covered up his problem a little bit. All those red flags we had missed purchasing him. We were so naïve.
Our trainer and our boarder decided to take Indy back. We were scammed and wouldn’t go without a fight. They’d take Indy back and we’d end up in a place we’d never thought this would lead to. Luckily we would hire and expert to plead our case.
It was a chilly fall morning and there was snow on the ground. Everyone around us seemed happy and cheerful except for us. We headed up the building into the large room which could easily seat two-hundred. All there were though was the previous owners of Indy. We took our seats as the defendants and wait judgment. The judge arrived and the first people to go up took oath. Then it began. The battle pressed on and on. The plaintiffs kept entering evidence after evidence. None of it mad much sense. They were charging us on board for Indy for nearly two-hundred dollars a day along with pain and suffering matters. It’s not what the case was on though, but they just kept going.
Around noon they had finally gone through “their case” and it as our turn to speak. All of a sudden though the plaintiffs quickly spoke with the judge and the judge said that the plaintiff’s mother had been in a car accident and would like to post pone the case since her mother was in the hospital. We immediately got ticked and said lets finish it after we eat lunch since we had to travel two hours there and back. The judge ruled in our favor and after a quick lunch we were back at it.
We started with questions and after getting the plaintiff tongue twisted and tripping over their own words, we moved onto the ad. This is what would let the judge rule in our favor, false advertisement. There was a problem though. We didn’t have the ad. All we could say was it was false and Indy wasn’t a sports horse. We didn’t have the proof so we just crossed our fingers. The battle was ugly till the very end. Then it was time for the ruling.
The judge seemed to keep going back and forth between no ad and evidence that seemed to be pointless. In the end she ruled us not to be charged but to pick up our horse from the plaintiffs property. That was fine with us. We were just happy to not have to give a nickel to the scam artists.
After the trial we called the plaintiffs a few days later and they said Indy was missing. We knew that was bull but at least we didn’t have to worry about it.
All those red flags though. We either ignored or missed the: the vet, the canter, the health of Indy. We never thought much of them.
Now with me, this incident has shaped me the way I am because now I watch out for red flags and warnings. I never do something without questioning it before. If I do follow through though, I hold onto evidence and listen to my instincts. There are scam artists out there and you have to keep your eyes open for them.
