Jazz – Leominster Horse Sales

Several months ago at I was at Leominster horse sales, near Hereford. Looking at the horses and ponies for sale. I noticed a pony in the catalogue and the description sounded suitable for the riding school but unfortunately the pony wasn’t in his pen and therefore I assumed it hadn’t turned up as often happens. Later I was in the sale ring when the pony appeared in the auction, having not had any time to view the pony beforehand I could only go on what I could see and what was written in the catalogue. Which was Jazz, gelding, 9yr old, Appaloosa, approx 13.2hh. The pony was being ridden by a child in the ring and it looked sound although its skin was in poor condition looking as though it was suffering from a bad case of rain scald. I bid for the pony up to £850 and decided not to go any further as the auctioneer had taken another bid when the auctioneer realised I would not bid further he brought his hammer down and said the pony was sold to me, I was rather suprised at this point as he had definitely taken another bid, but I decided to go with the £850. We travelled the pony home and rode it the same day it was well behaved and quiet. The next day it was a little sharper but ok then it wasn’t ridden for a couple of days by the Tuesday it was proving not to be quiet at all and very difficult to ride. I have my theory for that I’ll let you draw your own. I had the dentist out to check the pony a week later who informed us the pony was nearer 26 than a 9yr old. We rang Brightwells at Leominster sales who were not interested at all as the return date had passed and they stated we should have had him vetted but we did not feel that had been necessary to ascertain his age as we had his passport. Steve then spoke to several different departments and ended up with trading standards in Hereford. We also rang Wetherbys who informed us these particular dealers have a lot of horses passported with them. We found out where the vet who had passported the horse was and Steve contacted him, he admitted he had never seen the horse and when Steve questioned the legality of that he put the phone down. The dealer then rang and offered to collect the horse and give us our money back which would have been acceptable but then her son or son in law rang and said they wouldn’t and that we didn’t have a leg to stand on. By this time Trading standards were very interested and were holding some of the documents pending criminal proceeding. We were advised to write to the dealers and ask for a refund and for them to collect the horse which they ignored. We then decided to take it to the small claims court and claim the cost of the pony plus livery, shoeing, vets etc for the last four months. In their defence they claimed they had done no wrong and that the pony came from Belguim with foreign papers and they had merely transfered the information they had been given onto an english passport. Leominster Sales backed them and sent a letter in their support. Which was inappropriate as this now had nothing to do with them and they should have stayed impartial. The court case was last week in Yeovil I did not attend Steve went. The Judge did not dispute their claims but stated that it was still misrepresentation and awarded us £2097 and that they were to collect the pony the next day. One of the group the father I think said they were not going to pay. The son at this point realised that it is illegal to transport a pony without the passport and as trading standards were still holding the passport he would need it back. Trading standards knew they didn’t have a case without the passport so they insisted the money was paid immediately before releasing it. The father was even more furious at this point and made several threats about what would happen to us when we weren’t expecting it and how many people he knew who would pay us back for this. The trading standards officer was a witness to all this. Consequently we informed the police the next day as they were coming here to pick up the pony but they themselves did not turn up as they sent a driver to collect Jazz.

My family have owned horses for many years and my father was a regular buyer through horse sales and many good horses were bought and sold that way. That is not the way it is any more. The monthly horse and pony sales that I have attended now consist of mainly dealers and where by years ago a man’s word was his promise that is no longer the case. Cases of dodgy deals, doped horses and drugged horses to disguise all ailments are put through sales. Quiet to ride is frequently written because the dealers know most people won’t go to the trouble of sending it back (a dealer told me that himself) and the sales people do not make it easy. This was a dodgy sale from the start and the people that organise these sales need to up their game in order too protect the ordinary buyer rather than be in with the dealers to catch them out. Otherwise the public will learn not to visit sale grounds where these dealings go on and the sales will die a death.

Posted on Monday, November 26th, 2007 at 9:00 pm You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.