A More Serious Topic

A friend of mine sold a horse last year. She'd owned the horse for a while, but they never really connected and she had others, so this one just went on occasional trail rides. He was alright. They had a chiropractor work on him once, which did him good, but he was a horse that seemed to lack much personality. He was quiet. Nothing much bothered him and nothing much interested him. He was a quarter horse, so maybe it was breed related. I don't know.

Anyways, last year she sells him to a couple that's retiring to another state and in need of a good, solid trail horse. My friend didn't conduct the actual sale; she sent him to someone who sold horses more often and who had more time to advertise and show him. So far, so good.

Yesterday, my friend gets a call. The horse started bucking about a month ago. No one really checked into why, as far as she knows. Yesterday on a trail ride, the horse bucked his new owner off while going through a gate. The man was wearing a helmet, but it didn't help. The man died on the spot.

We don't know any more details. My friend doesn't know the owner(s). She feels awful and would have disclosed any such issues if she knew they existed, but the horse never exhibited any problem behaviors while she had him.

So I guess here's where I'm going with this. As a horse owner, how much responsibility do you take on for horses you've sold? Does it matter how long they've been gone?