Advertising a Horse for Sale the Government Way

As I continue to talk potential buyers out of even looking at Buddy, I decided to run a free ad for him in my state's agricultural bulletin, a bi-monthly tabloid where you can sell your goats, chickens, $25,000 Hanoverians, manure, broken tractors, beehives, bulbs and implements I wouldn't know what to do with.

I submitted the ad online, which was a pain because of the character count limitation, but I got the ad whittled down to where it was accepted. Then I faxed them Buddy's Coggins. All set.

Except I wasn't. I got a call from the state person saying that the age on the Coggins was nine, and the age in my ad was 11. I said that I could fax her Buddy's registration papers, and she'd see that he was 11. She said I needed to get my Coggins report changed, since it is regarded as a legal document. I said I wasn't trying to claim he was younger than he was -- I was claiming he was older than the Coggins and have the documentation. The vet simply wrote his age down wrong (no doubt based on his handsome, youthful appearance.)

We went round and round on this. My vet is out of business and I don't want to add to her burdens by getting her involved. I finally suggested, "Why don't you just leave the age out of the ad? They can see how old he is when they click on the web site."

"I've had to delete your web address. We're not allowed to run those," she said.

"But it's got all his information on it!"

"Sorry, but if we ran yours, we'd have to run everybody's," she said.

"Why don't you run everybody's?" I asked.

"The dog people wouldn't understand," she said. "We run their ads as a courtesy, space permitting, and they are always upset that we give more information out about horses."

So, I'm running an ad with no age on this horse and no information that he has a web site where you can see photos, videos, pedigree, everything. But it gets worse.

"Let me read you what I've got," she says. And she proceeds to read a watered down version of what I sent her. She has whittled it down to basically "chestnut gelding, broke to ride, more or less." (Not really but may as well be.)

"What happened to 'great ground manners,'?" I ask.

"We can't say 'great.'"

"Can you say 'good'?"

"Yes. I'll say he has good ground manners," she says. "How about clips, loads and ties? That's always a good one."

"I think all of those except loading are included in ground manners," I say.

"How about 'great youth horse'?" I say.

"I told you we couldn't say 'great,'" she reminds me. So she puts just plain "youth horse."

"Can you give him a bath?" she asks, trying to be helpful.

"Of course I can give him a bath. But he does so much more than that I hate to waste the space on giving him a bath," I say.

"Stands for the farrier?" she suggests.

"He'd better stand for the farrier if he knows what's good for him. Standing for the farrier is a minimum requirement and is included in 'good ground manners,'" I say. "How about 'flashy chestnut gelding'?"

"Can't say 'flashy.'"

I give up. "Beautiful?"

"No."

"Handsome?"

"No."

"Looks like Elvis?"

Silence. Then she suggests, "What about his bloodlines?"

Now I'm on my cell phone, and I can only vaguely remember the names of his sire and dam. Is his sire Ohio Bett or Bett Ohio? And was his QH grandsire on the other side Skipping Lightly? Skip Lightly? Sounds kind of gay. Skip Light Lee? It's something like that. But I make a guess and she happily adds it to my ad.

Then I get home and look it up. I have everything a little scrambled on his bloodlines. I e-mail her the corrections, and she tells me she's made them. Scary, huh?

If his dam's name was "Beautiful Morning" would they change that to "Adequate Morning?"

We do not need the government in charge of one more thing.

Comments

[Mrs Mom]

AMEN TO THAT!

Holy cow--- the Polite Police are out in force in that bulletin eh?

Hang in there Anne. Hang in there.

[Mikey]

Oh man, the Elvis part had me laughing so hard. Geeezuuusss, what's a person got to do to put an ad up?? That's insane you can't say great, beautiful, flashy? WTH?
Government... I think the people are about to revolt.
That's some craziness... *shaking my head*

[greyhorsematters]

Ha,Ha, chuckle,chuckle... Don't you just love it!

[Anwyn]

That's disgusting. Why do they bother having ads at all?

[White Horse Pilgrim]

Bizarre - that kind of thing reminds me of Eastern Europe where barely reformed ex-communists ran the state agencies and seemed to see it as their job to stifle all initiative.

I suppose that the risk in saying that a horse has "great ground manners" is that, if he steps on the buyer's foot, you might get sued for misrepresentation.

[Molly]

Jeez. Did you look at posting on Craigs List?