ALWAYS LOOK A GIFT HORSE IN THE MOUTH!
With the move came what looked like opportunity when my daughter was invited to groom for her new trainer. The job description was simple - grooming. Somehow the conversation did not include that while at horse shows she would be expected to clean up to a dozen stalls, lunge and bathe the horses before the trainer arrived in the morning, do morning and evening chores, tack up horses for the trainer, care for wounds, and administer medications. The trainer was excellent and goals were being met or exceeded but the job was exhausting.
In about 2002 the trainer called from California to ask if I would be willing to help her husband purchase a promising young jumper. They asked me to pay half of the purchase price and I did. The partnership was structured to guarantee that I would recover my investment in full and possibly show a profit. It did not escape me that appearing in the ring on wonderful horses would help these young trainers establish their business and I wanted to be a part of that. All agreements were verbal and based on trust.
And so the story begins . . .
This was the first of a series of partnerships that we shared over the years, and it established a pattern where the horse would be sold without profit, the trainers would not have quite enough money to pay back my investment and would approach me about rolling over the unpaid balance into another partnership in an effort to recover my loss. This caused each partnership to flow into the next. All agreements remained verbal.
In about 2005 we imported the third or fourth of our partnership horses from Europe. This required a larger outlay of cash than any of the previous ventures due to the cost of transportation and quarantine. After the horse arrived we became aware that there were soundness issues and the price was set to represent his defects. My partner located a buyer and during the pre-purchase veterinary exam additional infirmities were revealed that I was told made the horse virtually unsellable. I was told that fortunately the buyers had become attached to the horse and were willing to purchase him for a greatly reduced price - less than my “break even” point. My partner told me that if I didn’t accept the sale price I would have to purchase his investment and take full ownership of the horse. It was represented to me that this horse had a very short or no future in the show ring. This horse’s performance records have recently been made available on the USEF website and the public record now shows that post sale this horse was successfully campaigned as a jumper, hunter and equitation horse on the A/AA circuit for six more years, with winnings over $18,000. Feel free to draw your own conclusions.
