Maquignons

There is a word in French to describe dodgy horse-dealers, a word for which there is no real equivalent in English: maquignons. This word suggests people who unscrupulously rip off buyers, selling old horses disguised as young, young horses as broken-in when they are not, lame horses so drugged up they appear sound, traumatised horses as safe for children… I unfortunately encountered one of them when buying my new horse Caoimhe. I have to say, I knew that buying a cheap horse unseen from the Internet could go wrong in a multitude of ways. I knew it was fifty-fifty whether I would get the horse described in the ad (spoiler alert, I didn’t!). I was ready to take a gamble and, in some ways, it worked out. But not thanks to the seller.

That person, who shall remain unnamed (because I do not want to be accused of slander and because I am intending to make a full report to the relevant authorities), seemed to be reputable. I did some research on her, her name did not appear on the (very entertaining) dodgy dealers Facebook pages, she had a website (a website means that she’s legit, right?). I had a phone call with her and she seemed lovely. She said how much she liked the mare, how she would have kept her but didn’t have the space (she had over a hundred thoroughbreds, you see, and her husband, a farmer, didn’t want to spoil the ground, so they all had to be kept in barns, and she was running out of stables). She had wanted to breed Caoimhe (who didn’t have a name then) but the mare had scanned empty, so the seller was getting rid of her, sorry, moving her on. Because if a horse doesn’t earn its keep or fulfil human expectations, it needs to be moved on, that’s how the horse world works. The seller said she wanted to try to have her covered next year, but if she scanned empty again, she would be a year older and more difficult to sell. Caoimhe was advertised at the time as a four-year-old, until the seller looked at the passport and went, oops, she’s actually five. Who doesn’t keep track of the age of the horses they are trying to breed from?

There were quite a few red flags. One was that the seller at no point asked me any question about myself, or where the horse would go which, if you care about your animals, you should. I volunteered some information, but at the end of the day, she wasn’t interested, she wanted to make a quick sale. Caoimhe was supposed to see the farrier while we were messaging, for her feet were horrendous. That got cancelled because she allegedly got scared of a donkey. She had never seen the dentist. She had never been vaccinated. I was shown one rugless picture mid-november and a couple of jumping videos. Then all the videos were of her in a rug. Another red flag. I never saw her being led, only being shooed and urged on from a distance when I was asking for videos of her walking. I took stock of the red flags and followed my gut instinct to buy the horse. It was a conscious decision, but not one that I recommend.

I insisted that she be vaccinated, even offered to pay for that. I also asked that she saw the farrier (basic horsecare, really, and she was supposed to have done so before I paid for her). It was a while before she could be shipped to Devon. Meanwhile, I barely had any news from her, and no pictures at all. I even started to wonder if I had been scammed.

I had, in a way, as, like I have written in a previous post, the horse who arrived wasn’t the one I had bought. She looked like a welfare case. She had the worst case of rainscald I had seen, with raw, open, purulent sores. The skin above her eyes was cut and scabbed over. She had scars on two of her legs and across her ribcage. I had specifically asked whether she had had no previous injuries and was assured that she hadn’t. It was also stated in the contract I signed. And worse, this horse was traumatised. Sudden movements near her head induced terror. When I tried to pick up her feet, she shook and threw herself on the ground. The first few days, she would only eat if I held her bucket in my arms.

I took pictures of her condition and, after waiting for a day or too (I was so angry I didn’t want to lose my temper), I sent them to the seller. Her answer was that the loss of condition was due to transport. So were the wounds above her eyes, because, apparently, horses generate scabs in a matter of hours. She found it “hard to believe” the mare had rainscald, because she had been kept inside for months (not ideal since horses need movement and grazing…). As for the scars, she claimed she couldn’t see any in the pictures I had sent, just some missing hair, and I should know that on a chestnut, scars show white (she obviously had never heard of scarring alopecia, which happens when the wounds are so deep the hair follicules cannot recover). I asked her to send pictures of Caoimhe on the day before departures, without a rug, without rainscald, but with the 50+ kg she was missing. The seller told me she had sent the pictures in November (that was a few weeks prior to the departure) and that those were proof enough. She then went on a rant to say how she had lost money on that horse, how I had talked her down on the price (I hadn’t) and how it was always the people who didn’t want to pay for horses who were the most difficult. She said that if I wanted a horse in “show condition”, I needed to pay for it. Now I believe we have different interpretations of “show condition.” All I wanted was a horse that wasn’t a welfare case. At this stage, I blocked her, because I couldn’t deal with her lies. I needed to save my energy for Caoimhe and her long road to recovery.

That was my first time getting a horse from someone I didn’t know and I’ll be honest, I’ll think twice about it next time. The horse world is rife with dodgy sellers, wanting to make a profit on any poor animal. If I had been a novice, this would have been even more disastrous. I could have got seriously hurt. Caoimhe wouldn’t have got the care she needed. She might have been passed on again.

Even in the Middle Ages, authors warned about dodgy dealers. Pietro de Crescenzi, an Italian agronomist who wrote an agricultural treatise at the beginning of the fourteenth-century, mentioned people who rasp back horses’ teeth to make them seem younger (as older horses have longer teeth). Another treatise from the fourteenth century, the Mesnagier de Paris, a book in which a man teaches his young wife how to care for the household, rather more cheekily describes how to quickly fatten up a sorry looking horse you want to sell for a good price.

Putting ginger around a horse’s anus to make him/her carry his/her tail high and prompt more liveliness is also something that used to be done — and is likely still done, according to a quick internet search — by the horse-sellers of the past. Today, sellers have a large array of drugs to mask lameness and behavioural issues. It sometimes feels like no one can be trusted. Even if you do not buy unseen and go to visit the horse you want to buy, there is no guarantee you aren’t being cheated.

When I bought Québec, I had known him for years. He was already my best friend. I was aware of his behavioural issues as well as of his physical problems, which included arthritis — though ironically, the arthritis never bothered him much, perhaps because I kept him moving and, apart from a few abscesses, he was never lame. That is probably the surest way to buy a horse, to already know him. I think that if I were to buy another one, I would try a loan with a view to buy. Or maybe I would do the same thing all over again, be drawn to the sad, anxious eyes of a little horse in a photo. In a way, it is lucky that I do not have great ambitions with my horses. Competitions and the likes are not for me. All I want is to create a bond and spend quality time with them. That does not mean that the lies told by dealers are not devastating. Something clearly needs to be done, including more regulations and welfare checks of dealer’s yards. Horses are not commodities and they deserve better.

There honest people out there, though, people who have genuine reasons for selling and who want the best for their horses. People who do things as ethically as possible. But it sometimes feels like they are outnumbered by the dodgy ones. I guess that being a dodgy dealer is one of the oldest traditions in the equestrian world.