Liar, Liar Pants on Fire

Why can people not tell the simple truth? It's not a hard concept. In fact, it's one of the first things we learn as a child. Do not lie. Tell the truth.

Apparently when people get older, they forget that little lesson. And lying becomes an epidemic when it comes to hores. I learned something new this weekend about one of our horses. I don't always get the history of a horse. In fact, I only get to hear what the last owner did with the horse and that's it if that.

So it happened to be I was talking with someone this weekend and we were talking Thoroughbreds. We joked that we have the slowest Thoroughbred I've ever met. He's not registered, never raced, and I don't have any history. We're talking about Ivan.

We picked up Ivan last year the first of August. We brought him home for $100. I was worried that KB would snatch him up at that price. We were told someone else was interested and they'd been out a half dozen times but never with cash in hand or a trailer in tow. So we brought Ivan home. The only things were were told is that he has cellulitus in his man part, they rode him a couple times, and that the previous owner wasn't caring for him and that she lived in Iowa.

Liar, liar pants on fire. The only parts they had right was the Iowa part and that he had cellulitis (who knows if they actually rode him).

The person we were talking to was Ivan's previous owner.

They named him Ivan. They took him in from a gal who had lost her job and needed to place Ivan. Ivan already had the cellulitis when they took him in. But they worked with him to try and get the swelling down. The gal they got Ivan from had taken him in from someone else who had starved him. It's my theory that the person who starved him didn't bother to take him in and get his man part looked at and that's why he'll have the lasting cellulitis. I'm not sure how long the gal had him or how long the previous owner had Ivan but they gave him away in good faith. I'm not sure if there was a contract or what. I wasn't privy to that information. She gave this horse to someone who said they would keep Ivan.

Liar, liar pants on fire.

Guess what, they didn't. I've been burned with Ivan's lying owner (the person we got Ivan from). They took Ivan to the vet in February to see about the cellulitis but didn't bother to float his teeth. Why would you be concerned about one and not the other? Resell, baby, resell. Who cares about the teeth, people can't see that in a picture. I tried sharing my experience of bringing Ivan home with someone and was put between a rock and a hardspot. I will not work with the people involved (neither the person we got Ivan from nor the person who put me in that bad situation). You know why, because I was taught that if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. And I WON'T LIE.

Who knows how many homes Ivan had. I've already counted:

1. People who starved him.
2. Gal who brought him back to health.
3. The people we talked to this weekend.
4. Liar, liar pants on fire owners.
5. Borderlands Horse Sanctuary

And to think, he's already had five homes in nine years and that's not to mention the people who bred him, raised him, trained him, etc. I'm guessing he's had a dozen homes in his nine years before he came to Borderlands. Luckily he's landed in retirement. The funds aren't there to send him to a trainer this year but next year he'll go to a trainers and start from scratch now that I know his history.