I really didn’t find her FB post all that bothersome. Yes she has a following, but that is also her personal FB page. Yes, she mostly posts related to the business but not exclusively (also lots of cats). She didn’t share it to the Benchmark Sporthorses page nor did she go on some lengthy tirade about being wronged. Sounds like she had a crappy start to her week separate from this thread and it’s not like she hasn’t expressed frustration about the “people” side of the business before. Maybe I’m just so accustomed to absolutely unhinged behavior from a lot of folks that her “rant” didn’t even faze me.
I’ve purchased one horse from Jess, in 2019, and am happy with the purchase. The horse I bought was one who didn’t fit well into her program (cute but very “young” for a 4yo and nervous, needed time to grow up and just wasn’t loving the sales environment). She was brusque in communication but represented him extremely honestly and gave me a killer deal on the price. I can see how someone could interpret it as being brushed off (I think her first message in response to me was “that’s a long haul” when I said I wanted the horse and where I live) but I just interpreted it as “busy af and used to tire kickers.” I will likely reach out to her as my first port of call the next time I’m shopping.
I don’t think her prices are even remotely unrealistic or high–if anything I am surprised they’ve stayed as low as they have. But I am on the West Coast where there are horses being listed for $5-7k still on the track. You can certainly find them cheaper, but not often the types of quality horses that Benchmark sells, and definitely not with the benefit of having someone ship it, stall it, clip it, get new shoes on it, put a ride on it, etc.
Having watched her business explode over the last decade, I understand that there are aspects of it that would be offputting for folks. It’s definitely different from a program that spends 6-8 months+ with the horses developing them, and I think she’s pretty darn up front about that. I think she also comes very much from a “pro” perspective of what is fixable or not or what is a big deal or not vs what many of us one-or-two horse amateurs can live with or fret about. I do think that if she knows about it, the buyer will know about it. But there is stuff that can and will come up and go totally undetected or seem super minor until it isn’t. And at the end of a day, it’s a sales program, not a rescue or rehab program a la some of the CANTER programs, MAHR, ATR, etc. One of the more ethical sales barns I’ve ever seen, IMO, but nevertheless her business is selling horses. Part of that is seeing potential and trying to express it to buyers in such a way that they can possibly see it, too.
I also empathize with the folks who wound up with horses that were unsound or unsuitable in some way. Horses are heartbreakers and buying any horse is a gamble, but often those of us buying horses like the ones Benchmark lists are buying based off hopes for what we can accomplish with the horse. It’s a hard pill to swallow when those hopes go belly up, whether very quickly or years later, and it’s easy to second guess everything that led up to it.
Ultimately, I would gladly buy another from Benchmark and hope to do so in the future. But I would also go in being clear in my communication that I am ready to buy NOW, be willing to ping her a couple times, and expect honesty but not a lot of chit chat. And knowing that if the horse showed up and had an unexpected issue down the line, I would be the one footing the bill–some of my more affluent friends have purchased from some higher-end (add a couple zeros to the horse prices) programs that allowed them to return the horses when something unexpected came up within a few months of purchase, but that’s not the program Benchmark is. Good luck to your friend while she shops!
Who has been disappointed and saddened 
