Holy macaroni its carnage out here in the horse buying world. So much of the market, no matter if its green, successful or has a terrible record on USEA is at least 40k. How does one stay optimistic in finding quality even when you yourself have a “decent” budget?!
I feel you!! I’ve been eyeballing the market since I’ve decided when my current horse retires I’d like to buy something already established at minimum Novice. I’m tired of making projects and don’t want to start from scratch anymore.
The market’s definitely going up and I don’t think it will go down. The prices finally reflect what these horses really are: a limited commodity plaything for the upper elite. The days are gone where we can get a nice Training packer for $20k. There are fewer breeding farms producing them, fewer riders making them, fewer affordable show avenues to campaign them, etc. Lots of economic driving factors at play.
WOM is more important than ever. I’m seeing some nice quality horses changing ownership without ever having a sale listing. Get connected, if you can, with trainers in your network. Dreamhorse pipeline is a thing of the past IMHO; the bulk of transactions are happening WOM or from very short lived FB posts.
Don’t be afraid to follow ISOs of other riders. Sometimes you can find a diamond in the rough that’s passed over for cheap in FB responses.
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Dang, I thought you were going to have some magical potion or something that would make a 40-year old feel 20 again. If you do, I’m begging you… I will pay 
I bought an OTTB in July for $2,500, which is about the same as what I’ve paid in the past for an unsuccessful racehorse if you account for inflation. (Of course the horse cost the owner/breeder at least $10k to even get to 3 years old and racing, so they are taking a loss.)
With board, shoes, feed, lessons etc. I’ve put about $5k out and increased training so that she’s now green broke instead of track broke. That does not reflect any compensation for my time, training, or risk.
$7,500 as the “minimum input cost” for a green broke horse without a WB pedigree explains a lot about the price of purpose-bred, well-started horses with competition miles.
I was looking for a green broke sound horse last year and everything in the $6-10k range was far less suitable than I expected. I wasn’t planning on an OTTB but I guess I felt happier going that route than paying the higher price for a horse I wasn’t excited about. My 40-year old a$$ hasn’t been quite as happy though 
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I seriously don’t understand how people can afford these horse prices.
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I wish I knew how to do that too! I just turned 40 and now I have back aches for the first time ever. Probably caused by the previously mentioned horse market!
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I don’t understand how they can afford it and why they are paying that! 50k for a horse I saw recently…irish horse scores in the 40s on the flat, rails everywhere.
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Some are extremely wealthy and the cost is just a drop in the bucket. Some people save for years and years to buy their ‘dream horse,’ and probably many more then advertise take on loans.
Home equity loans have been easy to come by along with cash from the refinancing craze of the last few years. Horses have gotten so expensive they are now up there with all of the other toys (motorcycles, boats, airplanes, vacation homes) people just expect to have to finance to be able to play. The difference of course, is that horses have ongoing care expenses and are prone to breaking!
Now, if horses are worth those kind of prices is a different question but that’s how people are paying for them.
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I’ve seen so many cute grade horses that are average movers and green but willing over fences with no USEF records being sold for 20k. Is this the new price for an Ammy friendly horse? Ad BN experience and they hit 40k
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Hol’ up. You got a new pony??? Deets?
It’s just becoming more obvious to me than ever there is a huge wealth gap between people like us, and the people who pay to play in this sport! Nothing against them, all the more power to them – but dang, most of us are priced out.
Not to totally side track this thread, but while we’re on the topic… prices are only going to go up.
I have a trainer that I’ve ridden with peripherally for the last 15 years. Just last summer their trainer returned from Europe with two new horses for a mother/daughter client. One of the horses is gorgeous, confirmed to Training but quirky - I was told $80k. The other is a cob-type pony that I wouldn’t have picked out in a crowd until he moved, similar resume, $60k. So I would only assume prices are going up.
It blew my mind because I have a long way to save lol.
And it seems like now it’s saving money to go to Europe right away versus look state-side for these horses.
ETA: Just saw a really nice Training level guy with 2* experience in mid-5s listed on the Area 1 FB page. If anyone wants the link DM me.
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Obviously there are the people to whom it just doesn’t matter at all, and to whom the cost is insignificant. But at least in some other cases, choices. And luck. But also choices.
I don’t mean the “skip the avocado toast and Starbucks latte once a week and suddenly wind up with enough money to buy a mid-five-figures animal a year later” kind of choices, either.
I grew up in a firmly middle-class household. We drove ten-year-old cars into the ground and ate out (at a chain restaurant, for a special occasion) a couple times a year, at most. There was nothing in the world I wanted more than my own horse, and from the age of three I was pestering nonstop. They scraped up the money for a weekly group lesson, a helmet, and rubber riding boots (which I hated so much, because they were freezing in the winter and steamy in the summer, but never said a word against); I worked in the barn for everything and anything else. I rode the feral school ponies, who bucked and reared and stopped dirty, and I didn’t get very far: the sum total of my childhood riding accomplishments were to get around a 2’6" course and stick to some of the horses others couldn’t. I never leased, or owned, or even rode in a saddle that fit me, until I came back to the sport as a re-rider in my thirties.
Along the way I made choices.
I had two potential careers that I found interesting and valuable. One paid well and the other paid, to borrow from McSweeneys, late and in unusual currency, if at all. I picked the one that would let me afford horses.
I suffered through a college experience that I hated because I needed it to get my foot in the door, while working, and when I did get my foot in the door I worked my Velcro butt off to get to the point where I had the money.
When I finally had the money, which I had thought was the end of the road, I realized I didn’t have the flexibility. So I reprioritized and pivoted and traded the freedom of my off hours being real off hours for a job where I had the flexibility to lesson in the morning sometimes but where I might also wind up working for 24 hours straight (knowledge work job, not shift work–I have done shift work too, and a 24 there is very different) with very little notice.
My daily driver, a modest economy sedan, is nine years old and has a hundred and eighty thousand miles on it, and I have no plans to replace it. I still wear pants I got in my teens.
And now, in my mid-thirties, I’m starting all over again–in this market–because the very fancy horse I bought (on whom I got a screaming deal, to be fair, due to a known defect) broke, almost immediately, as I knew she would (but, to be clear, not because of the known defect.) Because horses.
And in the meantime I get up at 5am every morning (28 degrees today!) to go feed my now-retiree and hack a friend’s generous loaner around at the walk in two-point so I can try to be strong enough to actually ride the horse I want to buy.
But I’m in a position to buy that next horse. Even at these prices. Because I’m staring down 40, and if I’m going to go after the dream I’ve had since I was a small child, it’s now or never.
A lot of the above is luck. I was born to parents who taught me well. People gave me opportunities along the way. I had the entering behavior and and aptitudes and circumstances to be able to ruthlessly make these choices. I had the right skin color and mannerisms to be able to claw my way in. My partner grew up genuinely food-stamps utilities-turned-off poor and is now in a similar tax bracket to me through a similar series of choices, so we have two incomes and no kids together, and he’s incredibly supportive.
But a little bit of it is what’s important to you, and, consequently, the choices you make.
I’d go look at that horse if it was a cross-country packer with the scope for Prelim. Dressage can be improved. As Wofford says, no one ever died from getting a 4 on a leg yield.
Yeah, I think it is.
I’m looking for something that genuinely likes and can teach me XC. Doesn’t have to have a record, doesn’t have to be fancy on the flat, doesn’t have to be a robot (I like forward and my trainer calls me brave… maybe not smart, but brave), but has to have schooled enough to know if it likes the job. Also has to be able to take a joke, repeatedly, while I learn. I don’t have any breed preferences but I do want it to have the scope for Prelim.
My budget is in the mid-fives.
I’ve definitely seen a few lovely animals in this category (nothing I liked, but that’s my own fault because I am picky about the ride and I want a mare), but I think you’ve described the market pretty well with the above.
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I think it’s good prices are going up. Maybe barn owners can start charging enough to board horses and then staff can actually get paid what they should and care can improve. I am not one of these people who can spend a lot on a horse, but it doesn’t bother me the market is fire.
Owning horses is a luxury, and if you want it bad enough there’s definitely a way to make it happen without unlimited funds.
Maybe barn rats and working students will return when parents can’t afford to buy kids horses anymore lol
I think horses who are AA friendly and can get around eventing easily are worth the money. It takes a lot of time and effort to get them to that point.
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I bought a horse yesterday. Technically it was my 30th anniversary present and my husband bought him for me: a horse my adult daughter can ride and go eventing with me. (Which makes for a really wonderful gift!) She’s an intermediate rider that has competed several Starters and ridden one BN. I thought our budget was more than adequate, but it looks like people are expecting 30K and more for something that can safely bebop around and maybe get a pastel colored ribbon on an especially good day.
Before this on we had 4 horses spectacularly fail the PPE. (We aren’t even that picky.) A 5th horse passed but we ended up passing on him as he was very old and the one we purchased showed up at the same time. So it took SIX (6) vettings!
I ended up with a cute as a button coming 5 year old draft cross that’s been ridden both English and western that hasn’t jumped much but had a spectacular xc video that shows he is game as all get out with a not very experienced rider. He’s never done dressage. He is 2,000 miles away and we bought him off a video. (Perfect PPE which I didn’t think was even possible.) By the time we pay to ship him to Florida for a month of training with my trainer then ship him home we’re going to be into 20k. And the horse has never evented. And it doesn’t count the extra PPEs.
I might be crazy.
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Congratulations on your new horse and your anniversary!! I hope you keep us updated with your new boy. Photos??
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I saw one on FB yesterday that was an off breed but packing around BN for $7,500. Safe and Ammy friendly.
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… Where?
NW Sporthorse Party. HIs name is Jakermeister, 2008 paint/QH gelding, 15.1 hands
Love this so much Roo! Totally correct.
Honestly- if I could afford an 80k packer that had bad dressage scores but experience prelim or higher I would be all over it in a heartbeat. I do not begrudge the people who make it work at all. Our sport is dangerous and sometimes scary, and I see a lot of people putting the time and effort into something that may not have the ______ (scope, heart, courage, brain) because the cost is high, or they are determined to make it work. My husband wants to jump the moon, and it turns out I have higher aspirations then I thought I did, so yeah. I would take a bad mover in a heartbeat if it gave us experience over the bigger fences.
That being said -I also understand why they cost! We brought on our TBs ourselves. They did not go into full training at any point until this past year (they were already going novice, and my mare was in training with her previous owner for first rides off the track) when they did a month with our coach because of our work schedules. Even still-I would not be able to afford a horse like where they are now.
We have had a lot of people ask to purchase my spouses horse. They assume that because he is riding it (only been riding seriously for 4 years now) that it must be a Saint and a packer. We have had people ask if I think about selling my mare bc of her terriboe dressage scores .
I have two horses that can hack out alone or in a group. My mare goes bareback in a halter after a months vacation. They travel and load well, stand for the farrier, ground tie, live outdoors 24/7 but go in stalls for shows. Anyone can ride either of them for a trail ride and a beginner lesson. They both easily jump 3’6 courses, my mare has auto changes, my gelding is getting them. They both LOVE cross country. My husbands gelding is actually really incredibly fancy for a a TB and in the future will probably be able to go up the dressage levels.
I could not afford what my horses are worth. And I made the sacrifice jobs that were talked about up there. My spouse and I have made countless sacrifices to have the income we need to be stable and enjoy a good life (currently both Majors in Canadian military, with no kids but we bought a farm to move home to!). But I am not willing to bankrupt myself to buy a going horse either. I am always so happy for the people who can though. And knowing what it’s cost to bring two horses to the novice/training level (mistakes along the way) in a healthy manner with strong horses… I wouldn’t sell mine for less then 30k either. Which is a moot point bc they are never being sold 
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I really think a lot more people than we know are taking loans/early withdrawals on their 401ks, home equity loans, etc.
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I took a loan on m 401K to buy my current horse. I also took out a bank loan many many years ago to buy my first OTTB.
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