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So You
Think You Know The Breeder?
Read
this nightmare and learn from this family’s experiences.
This story is told by one of the NetPosse members as she remembers
her tale of "civil" theft.
Hi all! I'm new to the list. We're
horse owners (had 8 until two days ago, when our 35 year old Morab
died of old age). And I'm a retired Veterinarian Technician.
We live near two major livestock auction houses in our area, so I
try to keep track of any "missing" horses when the
auctions are going on.
I've personally had 2 horses stolen from me over the years, one in
Oregon
in 1992. I was purchasing a Morab filly that was being
boarded (with her Arabian dam) on the Morgan farm I worked at.
The filly wasn't weaned and I was making payments on her $2000
purchase price. The agreement was that I would have her paid
off by weaning time (six months old) and then when she was weaned,
started boarding her were I worked.
I worked with her every day and had her
completely halter broken and able to be handled (hooves, hands in
the mouth, etc). When she was 5 1/2 months old, I was out of
town on the weekend and unbeknownst to me, so were the farm
owners. So they had a neighbor's son come over to
feed/water/turnout. He didn't know anything was wrong when
the mare's owner showed up with a horse trailer and took off with
the dam and MY FILLY!
I had a purchase contract, but turns out the
"owner's" name was an alias and not only had she skipped
out on months of board at the farm (which I didn't know about
either) and the stud fee that produced my filly in the first
place, but the mare was also stolen from someone else! Since
it was a Morgan farm, we hadn't heard about this Arab show horse
that had been stolen almost 2 years before she showed up on the
Morgan farm. I filed a police report, but since I didn't
know the woman's real name (and apparently neither did the police
even though they'd been trying to track her for almost 4 years),
it was a moot point. Never did find her or the woman who stole
her.
The second one was more recent in 2000.
A "friend" of mine breeds
sporthorse ponies. When her Welsh mare had a stunning silver
dapple colt by a nice Quarter Horse stallion, we bought him for
$400. We gave her the money when he was 3 weeks old (by
check with his name on the subject line of the check).
The breeder was supposed to halter break him,
have his vaccinations, first hoof trimming done, etc. We
were told not to go see him, as her property insurance didn't
cover "visitors" and she was afraid of any one getting
injured. That she would take care of all his early training.
She claims to have worked at several show barns/training
facilities when she was younger, so we had no worries about her
"training ability."
We were supposed to get his bill of sale when
we picked him up at weaning time. Her excuse was that she kept
forgetting to type it up and even when we typed one up and dropped
it off for her to sign, she "misplaced it." She gave us
weekly verbal updates on his training progress and I even
purchased appropriate sized halters for him (3 in all) as he had a
tiny head.
When he was six months old, she told us to go
get him. We arrived at the farm at the designated time and
no one was there. I called her and she said to just go ahead
and catch him and take him. We then proceeded to try to
catch him for 3 hours! Finally got him and the mare in the
barn and took another hour to get a halter on him! Turns out
he hadn't been handled at all! We couldn't get him near the
trailer.
Called the breeder again and she said she was
busy, let him go and come back tomorrow. So we let him go.
The next day, she again is a no show. We tell her we're
going to get some help to get him loaded and she says fine, but
not until we have the bill of sale. We then go through 2
months of trying to get a bill of sale. In the mean time,
she now won't let us try to pick him up.
My Mom (who paid for him as he was supposed
to be a birthday present for me) finally said enough, just refund
our money. She says fine, but never does.
That was 4 years ago.
We went through numerous phone calls and
promises that the check was in the mail, to her then accusing my
Mom of harassment to the police. Then she tells the police that we
owe her board for the colt we never picked up! We went to
try and get him again and she met us with a loaded gun and threats
that she would shoot us if we came near her property again.
She then did several weeks of drive bys of
our house waving a gun around and pointing it at my then 6 year
old son! We repeatedly reported these threats to the police
and they refused to even file a formal report! Finally just gave
up as my Mom is too afraid of this psycho to take it to court.
I later found out this is her MO. She
sells the same horse to several people (promising the bill of sale
when they come to pick the horse up) and then won't let them pick
the foal up. Then claims they owe her money for boarding fees so
the police refuse to do anything! She still has our colt and is in
fact using him for stud! Many people have tried to sue her
only to met with no response from the police (who she grew up with
by the way) and an uncooperative Magistrate. Turns out she
regularly sues people for a slew of bogus reasons and this
Magistrate always sides with her even if she has no evidence and
the other party does!
So, even when you think you are doing things the safe way, you can
still get burned. We thought we were getting a bill of sale;
we paid by check and kept all emails and letters. We had no
idea there would be problems until we tried to pick him up.
This was a person we knew and who we thought
had a decent reputation. We didn't find out her REAL
reputation until it was too late. She had given us
references, which it turned out were all relatives of hers, but we
didn't know that until later too!
Now we do cash and carry purchasing only (pay for the horse when
we pick him up) and do our own training.
If a horse does need outside training we research the
trainer for a minimum of 6 months before we actually hire him/her.
That's our history with stolen horses.
Tory
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