I purchased a five-year old gelding from Ratliff in January. I knew the horse was a bit green, but he was really quiet, and since he was being shown at a neighbor's indoor arena in the middle of winter, I thought he was a well behaved and mellow horse.
Once I got him where I boarded, I gave him about a month off to get used to his surroundings. After about a month, I started working with him, and I found out he was actually a very nervious horse. I then sent him to a well-respected trainer for 60-days to find out if he was actually saddle broke. The ad had stated he was well started in the arena and was suiteable for a 4-H project. However, I found this horse to be really green, and I certainly wouldn't recommend it for a kid. My trainer confirmed my susipicions and that the horse had been oversold. However, since the gelding did not try to dump my trainer, I decided to keep working with the horse. I also called Ratliff and explained his issues, including his allergies (I'll explained below), but he claimed he had no knowledge of these even though he had the horse for a year and signed an agreement that the horse had no health issues.
I got him home, and then the farrier tried to trim his feet, and the horse was terrible. After about three trims, he started to settle down, so my farrier tried to tap a shoe on him (note: my farrier is highly experienced and respected). The horse reared up and struck me in the back. It was a close call. After that, I tried natural horse trimming, but his front feet still needed shoes, so unless I had him tranquilized, I wasn't going to get shoes on this horse.
Then in about mid-summer, the horse came down with really bad allergies. My vet came out and wanted to do a COPD (heaves) examine, but I thought it was probably the round bale hay, so I found another place to board and kept training him through the winter/spring. Then this summer, he came down with the alleriges, again, really bad, although I had him on premium hay, he was basically sick and unrideable through June - August. A real bummer if you live in Minnesota.
I finally decided to cut my losses. Although I had paid $2,500 for the horse, and invested $1,200 in training, double board while in training, vet for his allergies, and extra money for the natural horse trimmer, I decided to just sell him. I called Ratliff. He said he would take him back for $750 and would pick him up in a couple of days. He kept cancelling out on me, and finally said he couldn't find a buyer for him. (Note: This delay caused me more money in board, and my board wasn't cheap.)
I called up a horse dealer I know, and he came the next day to pick the horse up. He gave me $400. (Note: I was afraid if I tried to sell the horse to a private party outright, they would come back at me, and I would have no place to board the horse, should I have take him back.) And, selling a horse as a pasture ornament isn't easy.
Brent Ratliff sells mostly Missouri Fox Trotters on Dreamhorse.com. If you buy a horse from him, be very, very careful. Looking back, I had a bad feeling that day that maybe I should have had the horse vetted, but then the allergies were not present in the winter months. Since it's unusual for younger horses to have respiratory problems, I didn't even think of this. BEWARE — This is guy is either dishonest or doesn't know his horses, which is just as bad.
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