04/08/2026
Forwarded post from a veterinarian:
I had a young horse come in a while ago for a prepurchase exam. It was four years old and was being purchased to be an athlete. I always ask clients what they are purchasing the horse for, how long it has been doing what they are buying it for, and how much money it is costing them.
The reason for these questions is because what one does with a horse matters on what is or is not acceptable to find on a prepurchase exam. It is not my job to fail or pass but to look at and give facts as to what I see and then it becomes the buyers choice as to what they decided to do. I ask how long it has been doing its job because that is going to tell me if the damage I see is normal age related hard job having or if it has been pushed really hard and everything is fixing to fall apart. And lastly I ask how much it costs because what is acceptable in a $5,000 horse is a lot different than what is acceptable in a $25,000 horse etc.
This young horse was being purchased to be a rope horse. I then ask for clarification as to what end because head horses have different lamenesses and issues than heel horses. This particular horse was supposed to be a head horse. In my opinion size matters for a head horse because it is an incredible taxing job and small horses with small legs are not meant to log off dragging some 500ish # behind them. I will absolutely have an opinion on that and give it to you free of charge because I do not care as much about your ego and feelings as I do the horses quality of life. This horse was good sized and would have no issues being a head horse.
When I asked how long it had been roping the buyer said, “two years.” For those of you who were taught common core math let me help you out and just tell you without any diagrams that four minus two equals 2. That means that they took a very young and skeletally immature horse that was barely broke and started roping on it. I have a problem with that and for those of you who take babies and start roping on them because you are too cheap to feed them for two more years and too impatient to wait for them to fully mature, shame on you. That two year old that you are asking to go out there and log a steer on is equivalent to asking your seven year old kid to go do your physical job. They are not skeletally ready for such stresses.
The vertebral column in a horse does not finish maturing until they are around 7 years old. Everyone wonders why kissing spine has become such an issue well use your brain that God gave you and ask if that soft and immature boney process is not being stressed and damaged because you have to take your young horse and go and rope or run barrels on it with your ass in a saddle and that vertebral column has to try and figure out how to hold the horse together and bear up under your weight all while doing an incredibly taxing job. Maybe take and put a 50 # ruck bag on your back and go and run barrels or chase after a steer and try to log it off and do that several dozen times for weeks and see how your back feels! Want to not have kissing spine? Let your horse mature before making it carry you and do a hard job!
I know that horses are expensive and I know that they are big and I know that they can but just because we humans want them and can make them is it really what is right for them? When I graduated from vet school most people would not make a horse a rope horse until it as four or five. When I did prepurchase exams for rope horses they were almost always over 7 or 8 years of age and most of the time between 10-12 years of age. They were big horses and fully mature and they did the job and held up under the demands for a long time because they were allowed to grow up before someone made them go to work doing a demanding repetitive job. They worked at sale barns and on ranches and in feed lots and they were just a horse until they were good and broke and solid and then someone started using them in roping arena. Now, now we take the green baby with soft joints and bones and make them work like a full grown man.
I was listening to a podcast today and the interviewee said that to get to the answer you have to ask at least three why’s. Why are horses requiring so much maintenance today? Because they are really inflamed in their joints and soft tissues. Why are they so inflamed in their joints and soft tissues? Because we humans start making them do hard jobs while their bones and joints are still immature and their tissues not strong enough. Why do we humans start making them do hard jobs while their bones are still immature and their tissues not strong enough? Because we are greedy and selfish and choose to remain ignorant to what we are demanding of these animals that we claim to love.
Just because they do it doesn’t mean that it is best for them. It is like the child s*x offender saying that his addiction to a child is not bad because he can make the child accept what he is doing to them. Everything we ask the horse to do for us comes at a cost to the horse. Just because you can make them do it doesn’t mean that it is good for them or right to do. This four year old horse had radiographic changes already starting in its lower joints with side bone lesions and spurs on the navicular bone, at 4 years of age! Just because they can doesn’t mean that they should! Just because we can “maintenance” it with injections and treatments and all the fancy things, doesn’t make it right.
Do not tell me that you love horses and then go out and act like what you are asking your young horse to do is what is best for it just because you can get “maintenance” done to keep it going. I would suggest to you that if you need maintenance in any young horse in order for it to do its job, you are the why! Is the horse truly so disposable that we are ok using them up and passing them off to someone else to care for and baby because every single step they take is painful all so that we could enjoy using them up for our glory and a little bit of money?
