Welling Point Equine

09/12/2025

Ride the horse not the X-rays…

*** Why we must stop looking for the perfect horse ***

From an orthopaedic point of view, no horse is perfect. We must stop thinking that if we look hard enough, we’ll find the perfect horse. He/she doesn’t exist. All that happens is that we miss out on the “not so perfect” horse that actually would have been the perfect horse.

If we look hard enough, especially with our X-ray machines, we can find something wrong with every single horse. We will find some kind of change in a joint of most horses over the age of six or seven. Before anyone starts, that’s not because they have been started too young. I spend some of my spare time looking at the radiographs provided publicly for auctions, and I can always find something wrong. These are often unbacked 3 year olds.

I have posted before that X-ray changes often don’t correlate with pain, or even future pain/lameness.

In my opinion, X-rays should be used to plan what help the horse *may* require in the future, and not to write a perfectly sound horse off. And for the record, I’d never medicate the joint of a sound horse, based on radiographic changes alone.

I often hear people say that they’ve had 5 horses fail a vetting, and that the “perfect” horse must be out there. Actually, you’ve probably just missed that perfect horse. Obviously a horse that is lame at PPE (the vetting) is an absolute no. But a horse with some hock arthritis, or some close DSPs (“kissing spines”) that is currently out competing and has an uninterrupted competition record, may well have been your perfect horse.

I bought Johnnie as a 9 year old with significant hock arthritis. I took a chance, as his X-rays were very bad. He went on to be the most exceptional Event horse I have ever sat on, going from Novice to Advanced in two seasons, and then subsequently popping around 4*s like they were 90cm. His back X-rays were just as bad. He was the perfect horse.

X-rays are useful, but we must be incredibly careful with their interpretation. We must also be incredibly cautious when deciding if a horse’s behaviour is due to that pathology found on the X-ray, or whether it is just a sharp, fit horse. I am a vet, so will always question if a certain behaviour is due to pain, but I am also a horsewoman, so I don’t agree that every buck, rear, spook and nap is due to pain.

Photo of the not-so-perfect, yet absolutely perfect, Johnnie.

01/12/2025

Our horses are incredible

17/11/2025

Something to consider when going to look at a horse.

Let’s talk viewings…

I signed myself up for them when I took on sales as a job and that’s ok it came with the job description. It seems it’s expected I am available 24/7, public holidays and weekends are the prime time to view and late evenings to fit in with people after work is a given. What shouldn’t be expected from me and seems to be currently is not respecting when I genuinely can’t fit you in at no notice, coming for free pony rides when you aren’t actually in a position to buy, disappearing off planet earth never to be heard from again and absolutely thrashing the horses in the name of getting a feel.

If you have ever watched a professional try a horse you’ll notice the large majority get a quick feel on the flat, jump a handful of fences without breaking any height records and give the horse a nice experience without working them into the ground and leaving them a lathered mess. A viewing is not the time to see how high a horse can jump, push every button you think you can find and leave the horse overwhelmed and feeling a bit pressure cooked from the experience. Remember it’s also their first time meeting you.

A viewing is meant to be is an opportunity to see if you are possibly going to work as a partnership in the future, to see if you like the feel you get from the horse and then it’s up to you to decide if it’s something you would like to continue to develop heading forwards.

If you are going to be viewing a horse any time soon here’s a few tips.

- Be respectful of peoples time, show up when you say you are going to and send a text if you are going to be early or late or not come at all. We have plenty going on in our days without you turning up randomly 45 mins either side of the appointment time.

- Don’t pick the horses to pieces, we are aware of their shortcomings and we really don’t need to hear you list everything that’s short of perfect with them just to justify why you might not want to buy them or with the thought you’ll make us drop the price.

- Make sure you are actually in a position to buy. Please don’t come if you have a horse to sell first or need to sort the finances unless we have had a conversation prior.

- Be fair to the horse. Have a good enough ride you get a feel but you really don’t need to trot 72 circles, canter 50 laps of the arena and jump 200 fences to get an idea.

- Communicate. Fairly self explanatory but surprisingly not well done… We don’t care if you don’t want the horse but have the decency to flick us a quick message and say thanks but no thanks. I’d be lucky to hear back from 40% of the viewings that come through here. Usually the ones that are trickiest to work in with are the ones you never hear from again afterwards and people wonder why I’m starting to get fussy with my time!

- Be realistic about your abilities and what you are looking for. Don’t show up to try a green 6yr old and then pull it to pieces when it goes like a green one. If you are a nervous nellie don’t come and look at a quirky one, if you want a world be**er don’t turn up with a 5k budget 🤷🏽‍♀️

This is a topic I could go on about for days but I think that’s enough of a ramble to get started!

Welcome to share but please don’t copy and paste and take my words as your own!

16/11/2025

What is Fun and the seal thinking of each other? 😂🤷‍♀️

A whole different kind of “between the ears” ❤️ 🐎 ❤️ 🦭

12/11/2025

Accurate!! 😬😫😫😫

12/11/2025

One foal is a filly and one foal is a c**t, can you guess which is which?

09/11/2025

True or not?! 😂😂

26/10/2025

❤️❤️❤️

26/10/2025

We don’t rise to the standard when people are watching…

25/10/2025

This!!