Don't look at buying a horse before watching this first

so I've Googled what are the red flags to look for when I'm buying a horse and the first answer that it gave me I printed out it's about a page and a half and it's about as useless as an answer could be there was nothing in there to tell you what red flags to look for when you go to look at a horse so that's what we're going to talk about today this is Lucy of course he's not for sale but we're going to kind of use her as an example so one of the first red thing red flag I'm not going to talk about when you're looking at a video or looking at an ad I've already done several videos about that I'm talking about when you actually physically go to look at the horse what is a big red flag not necessarily means a hard no to me some of them are hard-nosed some of them are not some of them just things to consider I kind of classify everything I see as a maybe a yes A maybe or a hard no and when I get to one of those hard nodes I walk away so we're going to talk about when you go to look at a horse for the first time always always come at least 20 or 30 minutes early you don't know what that owner that person that's showing the horse is doing with the horse before if he's out riding it might be bathing it I don't know um but you want to come early whatever that owner is doing to prepare the horse you want to come while that owner is doing it or trainer or whoever it is what I want to see when I go to look for a horse when I show up 20 to 30 minutes early I want the horse to be in his stall or out in the pasture and to be dirty that is what I want to see when I get there I don't really care how dirty the horse is I especially like right now it's raining and I would expect the horse to be muddy now if I go if I come to a place to look at a horse and the horse looks like it's been spent shine polished not necessarily A Hard no but I'm definitely going to take that in consideration you would expect someone to make the horse look good but I don't want to show up and them have been working the horse if the horses and some cross ties like this relax this is okay not what I would prefer but this is okay what could have happened is that person could have got the horse out of the stall put it in the cross ties cleaned it up real good and giving it a sedative that would make it look nice and calm in the cross ties you never know that's why I really want to when I come I want the horse in the stall or out in the pasture out in the pasture is even better because then we're going to walk out together and I'm going to see how easy that horse is to catch all the way from the beginning I I want to know exactly what that horse is doing now once you get there early and you go catch the horse or first come up to the horse watch the horse's expression she's relaxed her ears are flicking around watch what they're doing with their feet how they're standing pay close attention to her four feet and how they're standing I'm going to ask her to move a little bit I'm just going to drop the cross ties turn her around and then put her back in the cross times I want to show you something let's see if she does it or not watch how she's putting her feet on the ground watch how she does a turn foreign and we'll put her back into crosstalks back up so first off let's talk about how she made that turn right there this is Lucy I mean if you've seen any of my videos that's what I wanted to point out right there see her step forward with that left foot when she was standing in the cross ties before she had that left foot forward right then she stepped forward she's sore on the left foot that's what that means that's what you need to look for when I walked her out and turned her around she told me she was sore on that left foot you should be able to look at that video and figure out if she saw on the inside of the left foot or the outside of the left foot that's the kind of thing that you want to pay attention to now a horse can be standing in the cross ties or wherever all kind of weird ways doesn't really matter what matters is I brought her back she was relatively still that left foot step forward that's a red flag that's something you need to be aware of so I got some video of her coming down a stall I'll play it right now I'll overlay it over the tape and you'll see how she moved in that video her movement is typical for navicular I don't need a set of X-rays to look at that movement and and see that that movement is navicular you need to as a potential buyer you should be aware of watching a horse move and having an idea of what's wrong with it you don't need a vet check to say hey there's navicular but what you do need to do is you need to be educated enough to know what to look out for so I mean we don't hide the fact that she has navicular she's 23 years old and a lesson horse I've talked about it in previous videos so that's an indication that that foot is sore when you're looking at the body coat overall poor body coat doesn't necessarily in indicate uh a serious problem but what I'd like to look at is I want to look at the direction the hair is laying and she I got her out of stall at brushed or anything her hair is generally laying this direction that's pretty much all lay in the same direction when I see a horse's hair lay this way and then all of a sudden the hair lays a different direction that is a big red flag for me that there is something health-wise going on with the horse if it's going the hairs lay in all different directions in my experience a large number of times that means that horse has EPM when the hair lays different directions something else to look for it's a red flag her code is pretty slick if you have a horse that's pretty slick and it just kind of has sporadic long hairs around its body that's a sign that the horse has parasites so that's something else that I look for just sporadic long hairs and uh a lot of times unless you really look close you don't even see them so the sporadic long hairs is an indication of parasites uh if a horse is standing with the back end up underneath them she's standing pretty decent let me push her around a little bit see maybe you can get a better angle there we go if she was standing with her back in further underneath then that is an indication of sore stifles something to look for you can walk a horse around and walk it back and if they kind of Camp Out Underneath again it's usually means source stifles if the feet are out in this I'm talking about quarter horses to feed her out generally you're looking at sore Hawks so just kind of some things to take note of I like to look at things like the ears while I'm walking around talking about the horse I'm going to pay attention to what the ears are doing the ears should be paying attention to what I'm doing now she's looking at the camera she is aware of what's going on around her let me walk behind her while the left ear came back when I moved her ears are flicking around a horse can be sedated and the ears flick around like this but not normally normally if a horse is sedated the ears are going to be a little dull but just because a horse's ears are dull don't mean that it's sedated either you have to take the totality of the whole picture I've talked about that in a lot of my videos you can't go by just one indication you have to look at the totality of everything just because the horse's ears are dull doesn't mean that the horse is sedated that's just something hey that's kind of accuse me in let's see if there's any other indications that the horse is sedated so that is a big help a big red flag if the ears are kind of kind of like hers are just kind of in a out position and and not flicking around that's a big red flag something's going on there sometimes when the horses are in when the ears are in that kind of position it's a sign of ulcers and if I run my hand down beside if they're sore right here that ear is going to indicate hey I'm a little sore be careful the ear is going to tell me that they're stomach ulcers same thing on this side I should get the same reaction on both sides of the horse with the ears camera's moving so she's kind of paying attention to everything else but I I know that this horse doesn't have stomach ulcers so that that's something an indication a red flag when you go to look at a horse if it might potentially have stomach ulcers I I don't have a problem with seeing scratches and scars to me that's a sign a horse has been a horse but there's a couple of places that when I see scars it kind of makes me worry a little bit then one of the places is right here on the inside of the hawk that kind of tells me that horse at one time has had a lag in the fence and kind of skin it when you get Scar Tissue growing back here that can impede how the horse moves a lot of horses will get wind Puffs right here they'll be a little swollen spot on the sides I don't really have much of a problem with that um they can throw little splints as long as their sound when I'm looking at them I don't have a problem with Splats or wind Puffs they can become a problem but if they are old and they're not a problem when I look at the horse they're probably not a problem another thing to look at we're going to pick her front left foot up and we're going to talk about what to look for when you pick up foot so when I pick up a horse's foot and look at the bottom what I'm looking for any sign of an abscess a hole any kind of really dark thing going on in here would indicate some thrust but the big thing that I want to look at is I want to look at the shape of the bottom of the foot if this foot is real flat going across here there's no little bowl that's an indication of some foot issues if right here at the point of the Frog if there's like a bump sticking out right there if there's a hard spot that's an indication of some uh laminitis issues so you want the bottom of the hoof to have a little bit of a dish to it you don't want to see any bulges anywhere especially at the point of the Frog if I see a bulge at the point of the Frog that's a hard note I would walk away from the horse that on any of the four feet but especially the front that would be an issue of laminitis she doesn't have that but that's something that I would look for she has pretty nice feet she does have some navicular in this foot but which we're able to manage now let's let's talk up a little bit about navicular you can x-ray a horse for navicular and the x-rays look really really bad and you can actually a different horse for the navicular and see it on the x-rays but it looked like a pretty minor case in my experience how bad the x-rays look doesn't always correspond to how the horse acts and behaves Lucy has pretty serious navicular when you look out on the x-rays it's actually pretty minor and easy to maintain it's not that big a deal so I'm skeptical about uh x-ray show and navicular when determining whether to buy or Not by a horse that might come into my decision as far as maintenance and whether that horse is going to suit what I want it to do but depending on what I want it to do what what for the horse x-rays for navicular may not even be considered so let's let's talk about mouth one of the big things that I want to do when I'm looking at a horse I'm going to take my hand and I'm going to rub right here not particularly hard but I'll put a little bit of contact what I'm looking for there if there is a tooth on the inside that's pointing out into the side of the horse's mouth and I rub I'm pushing the side of that horse's face into that tooth and if that horse has some teeth problems it's going to tell me that's going to hurt so let's try the other side let's see what we get on the other side she just had her teeth done not long ago I wouldn't expect it to hurt and it doesn't so that is something I'm going to do on every horse I must she must have had some food that I Jarred loose that is something that I'm going to do on every horse because that's going to tell me if there are any teeth issues any serious teeth issues it doesn't mean there's not any but uh a lot of times that will tell me if there's something in the mouth that I'm going to need to take care of that's also going to tell me if that horse has had recent tooth maintenance if by putting the pieces together and the owner says yeah the horse just had his teeth done two months ago and I rub my hand down the side of the horse's mouth and that horse gives me a reaction those two things don't add up and that's a big part of what I look for what the owner tells me matching what I'm seeing if the owner tells me that the horse had his teeth done two months ago and I rub my hand down the outside of its face and I get a reaction then I'm gonna that's gonna put some question into my mind as whether the owner is telling me the truth that's a big red flag if I find teeth issues and the owner tells me that the horse just had his teeth done probably a hard no I'd probably walk away another big thing to look for is if you see white spots up here on the withers I've had a horse in here with some white spots it's not necessarily A Hard no but that's going to tell me that horse could have a fact that I'm gonna have a hard time putting a saddle to at some point that horse was ridden with the saddle that didn't fit might have just been a poor made saddle might have been that the horse's back is a little odd and it's going to be hard to fit so that's going to tell me some answers you notice in all this process I put my hands all over this horse and the horse was comfortable with that if I put my hands on anywhere on this horse and that horse is not comfortable that's a red flag that's something that I need to take note of hey that might be an issue and that's really what I'm looking for here when I'm going to look at a horse potential to buy I'm looking for potential issues and if I rub my hands all over that horse and I get a reaction let's say I rub my hand down here and that right ear pins I've either got pain here or I have a disrespectful horse big red flag there anytime the horse pins an ear it's either pain or it's disrespect either way there's an issue there notice where her left foot is I'm gonna give her some equiox today another thing that I want to do with all the horses that I would go to look at rubbing my hands everywhere I'm going to rub my hands under here where the girth would go I want to feel for any lumps or any issues any cysts under the skin but I want to see what that ear does I want to see what the ear tells me that facial expression is going to tell you 90 percent of what you want to know the feet are going to tell you the rest so that's a big part of what I would look for when I go to look for a horse I know a lot of people say always always get a vet check I'm not in that always category every horse especially in the United States a vet is going to come up with something wrong with every horse that's that's their job and that's kind of them covering their their liability covering themselves they're gonna they're gonna tell you something that's wrong with the horse and don't ever expect a horse to come with a complete clear nothing's wrong with it if you get that I questioned The Source where it came from if a horse has been a horse something is going to show in a vet check it's your shifter weight again that's what I'm talking about she's not in a lot of pain she's don't she's not reacting as I move around but it's a little sore that's the red flag I'm talking about so if you feel like you need a vet check get a vet check but the other side of that is you should be good enough looking at the horse that you should know what that vet check would come back with there are things that are reflection tests the vet normally does when he does vet checks and you should know you should be able to look at this horse any horse and have an idea how that vet check would come back so if I know there's a lot of people that has been burned by buying a horse getting it home it wasn't the horse that they went and looked at I've had a lot of horses brought here that was exactly the situation uh put in the comments below tell me about your experience with buying a horse and getting it home and it not being the horse that you expected it to be was it was it drugged had it been rode to death before you got there and was tired and too tired to be bad behavior wasn't the same put in the comments below tell me about your your experience with buying horses so uh this is Lucy I'll put a link to her playlist I've done quite a few videos with her some lessons and things like that until next time thank you for watching

Channel: Tim Anderson Ranch and Horse Training

Views: 186,302

Keywords: buy a show horse, find a show horse, Tim Anderson Horse training, reining horse, cow horse, reined cow horse, reining cowhorse, horses, Tim Anderson, Horse Training, Reining Training, Reining clinic, buying a horse, buying a show horse, show horse, evaluating a horse, how to buy a show horse, how to buy a horse, find a horse, find the perfect horse

Id: fsnVrWwjI_A

Length: 21min 4sec (1264 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 30 2023