Paper, Paper, Paper
/Hi all - I make appraisal decisions on the basis of many factors including paper. I recently turned away a person getting a divorce because he had almost no papers and only a week before mediation. I could have made the deadline - with documents and photos in my hands. I could even hopped in my car and driven the two hours to the farm to check on health, apparent soundness, quality of movement and so on. As it was, he couldn’t present to the mediators the statement of value he needed.
The best thing an owner can do for themselves and their horses is to keep a folder on each horse. In the folder go all the papers related to the horses. You don’t have to coordinate all this paper or categorize or even file by date. Just throw them in. Keep it current.
When it comes time to make value decisions about your horse, I need documents. If everyone did this, I wouldn’t spend a lot of their money while I sleuthed those details from sources around the world. For example, lots of people can’t find their bills of sale, their pre-purchases, their show records, their vet’s diagnoses/treatments. They have maybe 50% of the paper at hand that really makes an appraisal work.
Also, every owner, or trainer on request from that owner, should make a computer file of photos and videos for each horse. Keep this photo file current. Shoot a video once in a while of the horse just for this file. For any appraisal but, worst case scenario, if the horse should suddenly die, this photo/video file is invaluable. This file is the best record of the horse’s qualities of movement, attitude, physical condition and conformation.
Not only will I be able to spend more time on the analysis using this data, you will have an enduring packet of good memories of your great times together.
Tania
