Tricked into leasing a lame horse

Guess I should have said 'made crystal clear to the lessee' or by the lessor. The couple or wife was the lessee. My bad.

Okay, reality check here -

The "lessee" was paying a $60/month stall fee. Not feed, not hay, not farrier, not vet, not an actual lease fee - $60 a month stall fee. You can't lease a school horse for a hack twice a month for that fee in my area. I wouldn't let you hack out my guest horse twice a month for that. So the lessee has certainly not been cheated financially in any way, shape or form. If she rode the horse more than twice for the princely sum of $60 she got a bargain.

Other than that, it sounds like some miscommunication and misunderstanding between the lessee and lessor that's escalated into something pissy. It could be as simple as the lessor thought your wife was only interested in trail riding, or that they thought they made clear that the lease was only for trail riding.

My advice would be to try to make amends with the horse's owners; ie, inquire after the horse's health, offer to help with hand walking or treatment, etc. but do not continue the lease. Being gracious and concerned at this point will forestall some of the nastiness and gossip. The sign on the stall door is classic passive/agressive behavior, the best response to that is to be direct, not to be passive/agressive yourself.

Finally, if you enter into a lease agreement again, expect it to be a real lease, with cost closer to the cost of keeping the horse, and have the terms spelled out clearly in advance.

You are kidding right?

Any medical condition past or present? Really?

Does anyone really care about the abscess that occurred six years ago?

Get over it.



I do not find the sign to be that passive aggressive. (Though it could be, not knowing the people who knows.)
I find it more to be a base covering thing.
The OP's wife has made it clear that she is relatively unknowing (with things like OMFG, I can not ride the horse at all on a trail ride if it has arthritis, oh no....) so they may have put the sign up to be sure the wife knows the horse can not be ridden. Who knows if she came to ride before checking messages, etc.

There was no 'trick' here. And there was nothing ridiculous about ensuring no one rode the horse.

Did the wife mention she intended to jump an out of shape 19 year old horse?

Jumping a foot on a normal trail ride? Ah - no.

Heaven sakes - it's $60. $2 a day to be able to ride a horse? As was mentioned, arthritis at 19 is more of a given than not.

I think the OP needs to sit down with these folks and have a talk.

No agreement was signed. No human was wronged.

Well said Maura.

Ab-you keeping going back to your abscess analogy? An abscess is a temporary impairment. Arthritis is a chronic condition. Apples and oranges. And yes, if I was leasing or selling a horse, I would reveal all that had gone on with the horseif it affected the horse's current condition. It's called disclosure..an important consideration when doing business of ANY kind. The fact that the owners didn't reveal the arthritis is a failure to disclose or misrepresentation on their part. How was the wife supposed to know the horse's condition if she wasn't told its history?

Through a handshake agreement, gentleman's agreement, informal agreement, whatever you want to call it, a lessee and lessor existed..was more my point when using those terms.

Direct communication between the parties would have been the way to go on this but that didn't happen. Hopefully with time the situation will resolve itself but I see no wrong doing on the part of the couple.

NORMAL riding to keep a horse with arthritis actually benefits the horse.

Again - nothing was signed. At the time of the VERBAL agreement - the horse was healthy and sound. And 19.

Abscess could be why the horse is currently lame. Their sudden onset of acute lameness most likely has nothing at all to do with arthritis. Hence the abscess being mentioned.


Do you really provide every person who thinks about leasing or buying from you a point by point many page document of every nick and cut the horse has ever had? If not every nick and cut how do you decide what is a pertinent injury?

There are two perspectives evidenced in this thread. One, the OP's and dop's, is a strict contract law perspective. "We made a verbal agreement for X$ for Y use of horse." The other perspective, the one evidenced by most of the other posters, and I suspect, the horse's owners, is a horseman's perspective about appropriate use and care of the animal.

The conflict between those two perspectives is what's driving this.

As far as the horse currently being lame, someone's making some faulty assumptions: 1.) that the OP's spouse's riding somehow caused the lameness, or alternately, 2.) that the lameness was known and a predictable consequence. Neither may be true. The horse may have stepped on a nail or been kicked in the pasture or have another lameness (like AB's abscess) that's completely unrelated. The fact that everyone jumped to an explanation that would allow fault to be determined is disturbing.

The things that jump out at me in these posts is the word "tricked" in the title - there's no evidence anyone was tricked, regardless of the amount of money involved AND that there's been absolutely no follow up about the poor horse. How lame is it? What's the cause of the lameness? Is it on stall rest? Could someone please act like they care about the horse?

To the OP - if you like this community, and your wife would like to continue riding there, make some amends with the owner. EXPRESS SOME CONCERN FOR THE HORSE, rather than just the value of the balance of the contract.

And to the OP and dop - I absolutely recognize that your interpretations are correct in the strictest, contract law sense. Please understand that that's not the pervading one in a horseperson's community, and don't expect a lot more invitations to ride in your persist in that interpretation.

I also see no wrong doing on the part of the lessor.

Do you agree it's possible that the OP's wife overstated her horse experience? People do it all the time.

Regardless, it seems to me that there was quite a bit of miscommunication on the part of everyone involved, lessor and lessee.

I have a 24 y/o horse with arthritis. I've retired him due to other issues not related to his arthritis. At 19 y/o he was still being ridden, and didn't seem to have any problems.

Arthritis doesn't just suddenly crop up. It's a preexisting condition that won't necessarily affect the horse adversely, unless it's being over used. If the animal truly does have arthritis and its owner is aware of it, then yes, it should have been mentioned.

However, if the owner was unaware that the animal had it and it was exacerbated by the OP's wife jumping the horse, then what I see is that both the lessor and the lessee are probably a lot less experienced than they want others to believe. Which means they point fingers at each other for the horse's condition.