Business ProfileforA Step Above Stable

The owner of A Step Above Stables sold me a horse that did not fit the description posted. He claimed the horse was "kid-safe & anyone could ride." She was significantly older (seller claimed 14 yrs... and vet confirmed 20+) & she spooked at everything. The seller agreed to trade horses, but refused to give us back our money. The seller said the next horse was $3,500 more, so we reluctantly paid more & also paid to ship him to **. When the new horse got here, he was severely malnourished. Our vet checked him over & found that he had an issue with his front feet (history of founder/laminitis - revealed by x-rays). The seller agreed to give us a portion of our money back, because he wasn't worth the price, with a significant health issue. It took us a couple months to get him healthy enough to ride... both our vet & trainer worked closely with us to monitor his **************** to carry a rider. After we got the necessary weight on him, we had his riding assessed & he too was not safe for our kids to ride & he is completely green. His training does not line up with what the seller told us. I reached back out & asked if we could return the horse & get our money back. The seller again refused. He offered to find us a new horse, but we would have to pay to return this one, return the portion of money that he had returned due to his poor health, and also pay an addition $2,000-$3,000 for the next "kid-safe" horse. We told the seller originally that our budget was $8,000 for a kid safe horse. We have now spent over $14,000 on 2 horses that have not been healthy or kid safe. I asked if the seller would simply help us ****** the second ********** refused. He is only willing to trade for another horse, but states the "caliber" of horse we are wanting will cost more. If the seller was honest about the training/health of the horses, we would have never bought them. When our vet heard the sellers name, she called him a scammer, from her previous experience with him.