Loss of use?

Hi there ,
I have just purchased a hanoverian gelding and he has LOU , the owners said that the people before they got him (a barister) was bought for her to do grand prix dressage on and they claimed on their insurance saying his head carrage was too high and his gait was not right to do it , so they claimed most of the 25K back that they bought him for. Therefore he was stamped with an 'L' to show loss of use. Years after that he had 5 stage vetting and x-rays and it proved nothing was wrong with him at all.He has since been doing bsja and BD elementary dressage!

But now I have brought him back to my livery yard a lady has said that she thinks there must of been something 'wrong' with him because he can't get LOU for not being able to do grand prix dressage which was what he was intened for (which was what I thougt some cases of LOU could be). So anyway , what do you guys think?

Thanks! Georgia

I have no Idea..... Did you have him vet checked lately? Sorry, I'm not much help, I haven't encountered a LOU before.

Does he move good? Does he have any kind of pain or swelling? Does he have any bad behaviors? Such as bucking, rearing, kicking, excessive tail swishing, bad attitude?

He seems absalutely fine! Just like a normal healthy horse , he was vetted with his last owners about 2 years ago and the LOU was done in 2006 so if anything was wrong with him it should of showed up in the vetting but we have seen the vet report and he had passed with flying colours!
Thanks

I agree that LOU for not being up to the job he was bought for sounds unlikely for the insurance to pay out but, the previous owner was a Barrister and he could well have known the legal twists to getting the insurance to pay out.

Yeah , she probably could have twisted the truth somehow with being a barister

Loss of use usually means the horse sustains some sort of injury that keeps them from being used for the stated intended purpose. An insurance compnay would not pay out for loss of use unless there was some medical proof, x-rays/MRI etc to prove the horse was unfit to be used. A too high head carriage is NOT a reason for loss of use unless it is related to something other than a training problem.

If the previous owner's insurance company paid out for an LOU due to training problems, I would say the insurance company got cheated.

Just to state before I say anything I am a show person and have worked with lots of show horses.

It could be that the owners didn't like the way he had his head carriage and claimed that he couldn't be trained. I know its a little off topic but with certain kinds of show dogs if they even have one little, almost non visible flaw they are sold for cheap because they are "not fit" to be a show dog.

Some people just want to have the most perfect horse they can find, but if you think about it, no horse or animal or person is ever going to be perfect. I think you lucked out and came across an amazing steal!

Makes me wonder if that particular insurance company had their lawyers re-write the LOU clause to be more specific as to just what a loss of use actually entails.