Not So Hot News, All Around.

So my vet came out yesterday to see my horse, Sabor, for an overdue checkup and to look at a spot on his eye, a teeth floating appointment, and a sheath cleaning. I just bought this big sweet fellow in June. The vets first great news was he found a scar on the center of the back of Sabor's eye on the lens, a cataract though not typical. He said it probably occurred secondary to a trauma or uveitis. :(

Then he told me my 15 year old horse is actually over 20. The big finale was that he has Squamous Cell Carcinoma (skin cancer) on the penis. (Lovely sounding, right?) The good news is that I am told the cancer shouldn't kill him, but will require close watching and some treatment to keep him comfortable. The eye isn't treatable, but probably won't grow any larger and he is somewhat used to it, though he is very anxious when working on that side. He's in excellent health otherwise, age withstanding. And I love him so no way he's going back. But it really made me boil all day. I have a hard time believing nobody knew any of this, especially the age before I bought him.

Anybody else have this kind of experience(s)?

A girl at the barn where I ride bought a gelding out of a pasture who was supposedly a proven barrel horse. Owner said he was only 11 and was just on pasture because she was busy. The girl paid $2000 for him and passed on the PPE. Two months later he comes up severely lame so she has the vet out.

The horse is 22. (Vet knows him). Has navicular, bone spavin and is beginning to get a sway back. He was also overloaded with worms and has severe intestinal scarring. Her barrel dreams, and her money have pretty much gone down the drain with this guy.

It's crazy what you can avoid with a PPE :/

I've had something similar. I bought an 8 month old stud colt, only to find out a few months later, when he hadn't dropped, that he had already been gelded before we got him. NOT cool, since we were looking for a stallion with the temperament of my moms last stud, and thought we found it.
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All older horses will have little heath issues. So the skin cancer/eye thing wouldn't shock me as the last owners might not have been aware of it. Heck, I have a friend whose horse had a "bean" the size of a walnut in his penis and the friend never saw it until I pointed it out. The age thing would make my temper boil though!

I had a similar thing happen and the horse turned out to be outstanding for me, so you might just have to look past his age and love him anyway.

I went to buy an ex-broodmare who was supposed to be 11 years old and not in foal. She was to be my next trail horse. She ended up being 15 on her papers when we went to actually pick her up, but at that point I already agreed to buy her and didn't want to back out of the deal. I was sort of thinking of her as my next horse at that point. If they would have told me she was 15 I probably wouldn't have test rode her. I know that doesn't sound like a huge age difference, but I told myself I didn't want to look at anything over age 10 because I already had two oldies at the time.

So I bought her and love her to death. Although we couldn't get as much riding in that first year as she was also pregnant. Sigh! A very happy accident for me I guess. I love her baby (who is now a 2 yr old) although I sometimes wish I didn't have to go through the whole young-horse thing with manners and training. I only paid $500 for the mare and I probably have around $2500 already in training the foal, who just bucked me off and makes me want to tear my hair out.

You sometimes get little unexpected surprises when you buy a horse.

I also had a gelding (Paint) with cancer on his penis. He died at age 28 of unrelated causes. I had some luck with treating the lesions with blood root salve so you might want to ask your vet about that.