Friday, September 26, 2008

Selling Horses........................Part 3



Part 1

It should have been easy from here. But that's not exactly what happened. After a bit of time had passed since we visited my friends and their Arabian horses, my friend with the colt told the stallion owner that someone had been to see her colt. From there the sh*t hit the fan.

The first indication that anything was amiss came about when the trainer of one of the earlier fillies that had been viewed called Richard saying he'd heard that the client was also shopping for a colt. He had a colt he wanted included in this search.

Richard informed this trainer that the information that the client was shopping for a Marwan colt was inaccurate. The trainer insisted he had reliable information saying it had come through channels and named this particular stallion owner.

The owner of the colt was not happy to learn that the person she thought was her friend was out "sniffing around" her sale. She had previous hunches of such behavior before and had always shrugged them off, but nothing had ever been as obvious as this so she called a couple of her friends to talk about the situation.

The colt's owner wanted to confront the stallion owner but since this deal was still pending, her friends felt that was not a good idea. It would be better just not to talk with the stallion owner about this "deal" anymore. Hopefully the colt would get sold without any interference from the stallion owner.

This time the colt's owner stuck to it and didn't discuss the original visit or any form of information about the buyer, the agent or anything else related to this possible sale of her colt. Despite repeated attempts by the stallion owner to get information, the colt's owner didn't bite...........she kept her silence.

Despite that, within a week, I was actually talking to Richard on the phone when another call came in. He told me he'd call me back in a bit and as he hung up, he said, "I wonder who's calling from _ _ _ _ _?" As I hung up the phone, my mind flashed to the answer.................the stallion owner had tracked him down despite the fact that the colt's owner had not given her enough information for her to know who he was.

When Richard called me back, he said, "You'll never guess who called me." I immediately responded the stallion owner's name. I think Richard was surprised that I'd guessed...........but something inside me just knew.

According to the stallion owner she was calling because the client's eastern agent had called her about a particular colt by her stallion. She said the agent told her to call Richard about this other colt. Then the stallion owner asked if Richard was indeed the agent on my friend's colt. to which Richard answered yes.

Yet the stallion owner proceeded not only to tell Richard what was wrong with the colt the eastern agent had inquired about but also to tell him he really should come and look at the colt she had for sale. She would stand her colt up next to his sire and he could see for himself.......

You can imagine where things went from here. My friend was not happy to hear that her stallion owner friend was now competing with her for a sale. As a matter of fact she was quite sick about the situation, feeling very betrayed by someone she considered a long term friend.

Again she called a couple of friends to tell them what had happened. One of those friends got so mad she took it upon herself to call the stallion owner and confront her. At this point, things were just heating up.

How would you feel in this situation?

To be continued..................

Part 4

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8 comments:

  1. That's a tough one. I'd feel hurt and angry at my friend for treating me that way. Greed raised it's head and got in the way of a frienship.

    However, unfortunately, that's business. People with little integrity will always try to sell what they have and will always try to make it 'better' than what else is out there.

    If I were the agent or Richard, I would not deal with the Stallion Owner Friend. I realize that that is not how it really works, but I, personally, won't deal with someone who does not show much integrity.

    I won't tear down someone else (or something of theirs) in order to promote myself or something of mine and I won't deal with people who do so.

    As for the Lady who's friends with the Stallion Owner... I think she did the right thing by ignoring the problem to begin with. I would not call the SO up and confront her about it all, but I sure would mention it the next time I ran into her. I'd tell the SO flat out that I was done with the friendship and why. But I wouldn't seek the confrontation out.

    It's a tough one and I'm sure there's more to the situation than we know, so opinions may change with more info or stay the same. What a mess. Now I'm wondering how it all turned out...

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  2. I would have been furious. I guess I would still be mad if the stallion owner has stuck her nose in, but to deliberately try to sabatoge the sale?? That is beyond ridiculous!!

    I hope your friend learned a very valuable lesson. Don't say NUTHIN until the check is cashed!!

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  3. If I were the owner of a .good. colt, then I would make a note of the fact that the stallion owner is not to be trusted, and since I had already shown the colt....wait. If he's that good, there will be another buyer.

    However, I would not count the stallion owner as a friend. Simply an acquaintance. And she would see the coolness the next time we spoke.

    See here is the thing that people forget. Everyone has someone they trust. Very very very often those "trusted" individuals will feel betrayed on your behalf and start up a cause. I've learned from that it's easier to not say a word than to try and fix things gone wrong. So I would absolutely not have talked to friends about the stallion owner. I'd have let the chips fall where they would.

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  4. Situations like this are why NO ONE knows who may buy what from my barn. If someone comes to see and try a horse, it goes no where.

    Man horse people are bloody nuts....

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  5. I would feel betrayed and naive, and come away wiser.

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  6. Hi MiKael
    Sheesh I am not sure how I would act or feel. The dealer was pretty specific about what he wanted. This puts you right in the middle. I unfortunately have a friend who was selling horses as well last year and we had some people come over to look at our horses then hers, they had expressed an interest in our one two year old filly and made us an offer which L refused. He wanted more, I would have taken it. We then went on to my friend's and they bought two of her colts and then another mutual friends colt as well and we ended up with no sale at all. Of course L thought that my friend had sabotaged the sale and that wasn't the case, if he had taken the offer they would have taken her and in our breed (paints) with the industry as it is at the moment it was a pretty good offer, and was a great home.

    Oh well, I look forward to hearing how this panned out, it is very hard to remain impartial.

    My Dad passed away early this morning so I may be out of action today and maybe tomorrow, although I think if I keep my mind as active as I can, I wont dwell on it so much. ((((Hugs)))

    Lori

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  7. After reading this, I feel just sick. I was at the Spokane show and heard some talk of this blog and how a certain "stallion owner" was portrayed.Those of us lisenting to how are friend was being talked about could not believe it. Not wanting to jump to conclusions, I decided to read it myself. I am Appalled!!!! that someone is posting defemation like this on a the web.
    The account of this situation is incorrect from start to finish. ANd MiKael, since this is really none of your business I don't see why you feel you have any right to make this "situation" public.
    I also think that the BNT will not be happy a about being quoted incorrectly and by the way, the only reason they went to see the colt was on the stallion owners say so. From the dealings between the stallion owner and the breeder(that i have actually seen with my own eyes)i feel the stallion owner was more than generous in dealings with the breeder then to turn around and do the things you are publishing. Nope sorry don't thinks so. And as a final note (for now) wouldn't it stand to reason that if a person is looking for offspring by a certain stallion, that they just might contact the stallion owner because the stallion owner is going to have offspring and know how to contact all the breeders that have them. I don't know, sounds like common sense to me. But it is more than common sense, it is a fact and I have read the hard copy that proves that fact. The stallion owner was contacted about her colt. She did not seek this person out!!!!!

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  8. Anonymous, I have to say your logic escapes me although it does sound exactly like that of the stallion owner. The issue is NOT whether or not the stallion owner was or wasn't contacted by someone about a colt. It IS about what she did once she realized that the agent she DID contact was the one involved in a pending sale of the colt of her friend.

    At the point she realized this agent was working with her friend, did she honor the friendship of thirty years..........or did she go for the money? Not even you are arguing that issue. It appears to be perfectly OK with you that she went for trying to insert herself into this deal.

    Yet, I can't help but wonder if you were the person with the colt that had been looked at earlier, that was already being considered by the buyer, would you still feel the same way. Would it be OK with you for the stallion owner to insist her colt be considered as well. I highly doubt it.

    While there certainly may be a few people who think such behavior is appropriate, there are many many more who believe the exact opposite. Loyality is far more important than money to many. And I can tell you without any doubt, my friend felt her long time friend has been extremely disloyal.

    Also, if your logic that I have no business in discussing what happened to my friend is correct , then it would be equally true that you have no business speaking in behalf of your friend either. Yet here you are speaking up about what you believe is an injustice to your friend. However, you have no tolerance for me speaking up about what I believe happened to mine. It seems to me what you are saying is that I should keep my mouth shut while you may say whatever you wish. Double standards such as this are equally distasteful to many.

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