Buying a horse from Europe - bad experiences?

I think buying any horse you plan on riding or competing on sight unseen is a bad idea and one of the biggest drawbacks to importing a horse would be shipping/QT costs. It would have to be a very nice horse at a very good price to make shipping a horse overseas worth the money and risks involved. You also need to take every precaution you can to be certain you are dealing with honest, trustworthy people.

Well Ive only ever bought a horse from my home country, but I do see where you're coming from with this question.

Buying a horse that you havent seen or ridden etc can of course be risky, but I think that if you're in this situation you are buying a horse this way then you need to put twenty times more attention into it - I would ask for lots of videos of the horse - both under saddle, and in the stable.. maybe speak to a few different people that would know the horse, see what they have to say about it.

With regards to the behavioural change - I suppose whilst the horse might be out of sorts due to transport and anxiety etc etc, they should be pretty normal once they've settled in for a few days.

xx

There is a lady at the barn I board who told me her experience with her horse from Europe. She was looking for a horse online to import. Every time she saw a horse she like (pictures and videos) it would be taken extremely quickly. So, when she found another horse she liked, she jumped on the opportunity and bought the horse based on a video. When the horse came, it was nuts. Nothing like what she saw in the video. The lady spent 1-2 years retraining the horse with instructors. She told me that she most likely bought the horse based on looks, which is noticeable since the horse is gorgeous. After training, the horse and her make a great pair. So a horror story with a good ending =).

There is another option which I have experienced myself, about two weeks ago. I recently purchased a new horse that was imported from Europe. Instead of dealing directly with dealers across the world, I purchased my horse from a trainer in the USA who got the horse from Europe. I got a gorgeous hunter horse without the risk.

someone from my barn in California bought a horse from east coast, unseen. They had him shipped here. The lady was new and not that confident. This horse turned out to be a lot worse than they expected, it was very green. She had to re-sell him after she took a lot of nasty falls of him.

Why are you buying a horse form Europe? That is unfair to the horse. on the plane trip if he gets to excited and hurts himself then if its not fixable then you would have to put him down before you even meet him. Plus competition horses and pony are usually younger so there more high-strung so that means they are pron to accidents on the way to you. My suggestion is get a Dutch Warmblood from whatever country you live in so if he needs to ride in a trailer to get to you he won't have much chance of hurting himself. Besides their behavior almost always changes.

I just cannot think that anyone would buy a horse unsight and unseen!! If they get an idiot or one that is unsound they totally deserve it!!