Budget for a 3' packer?

[skrosenthal]

Can I make a radical recommendation? Lease this horse, and save up for the next one along the way.

As you’ve seen, there’s a correlation between the number of jokes the horse needs to take and the amount you’re going to pay for it. I assume at least part of the reason you’re looking for something that’s more of a “packer type” (and God, I hate that word) is that you’re coming back as an adult or you’ve just got other stuff going on and you want something confidence building (correct me if I’m wrong here). Which is great! But you might not need that in a year, or two years. Or not need as much of it. Or end up being someone like me, who needs something not insanely dramatic to jump around, but you’re willing to tolerate some amount of cold-morning spooks or other forms of … opinion expression. At least where I live, the horse who does his job over fences but has a few quirks to be around, or maybe needs you to be a little bit tactful about thing XYZ is a radically less expensive proposition than the horse who has zero complications whatsoever and can jump over 3’ (and granted, I live in California where the answer to your question is somewhere in the low six figures, so, if you live in some real place where people pay not totally stupid amounts of money for horses, your dollar may go further). But if you lease, maybe you can get something at the nicest end of the range you’re looking for, or maybe you can take one that’s a little older and might be a gold mine for your confidence but not face the retirement questions on the back end, etc., etc., etc.

Just a thought – that may not work for you for a variety of reasons, but at least around here, that horse is readily available for lease with way fewer issues re vetting, age, etc etc etc than if you were trying to buy it for a reasonable sum of money.

[173north]

@Madison

For what you want, I would absolutely expand your age range into the early teens. There is a jumper at my barn still taking people around the 1.0 at age 22 (we don’t tell him that’s how old he is, he has no idea!).

Agree with bumping up your age range a bit; my lease horse is still packing me around the 3’ jumpers at almost 20. He was still happy at 3’6 when we got him three years ago. He does NOT know how old he is, we have two others in the barn who are exactly the same.

A scenario I see often is someone buys a mid-teens packer to step up to the 3’ or the 3’3 or the 3’6. Once that horse reaches late teens and wants to step down, and/or rider wants to step up, the horse is leased out (often in-barn) for a slightly easier job. The late-teens schoolmasters in my barn literally have a waiting list of people ready to take them for year-long, in-barn full leases. The older horse that can pack a nervous ammy around 2’6 or 2’9 (and get a ribbon) will always be in demand even if they’re a little creaky. I wouldn’t assume you’ll be on the hook for full retirement at age 18 or 20, these days a lot of horses are very useful for years beyond that!

[Linny]

When you get the horse, do you plan on hopping on and doing 3’ fences right away? If not, a horse who has demonstrated 3’+ scope but isn’t actively doing it could be an option and might save you some money. A friend who was leasing an older packer and doing 2’6 was shopping for what you want and they had her jump 3’ on a horse in a test ride and my friend was terrified! She was hoping to move up to 3’ over the next year or two (while having trainer jump him higher.) She didn’t buy him for other reasons but she revised her search and found a nice local horse who had done some eventing/hunter pacing before finding his way to a H/J barn. The horse was only 8 or 9 but had done a lot. Not a rated show horse but a local 3 ring type. When she tried him, she had her trainer take him up to about 3’3 and he never batted an eye but he wasn’t advertised as a 3’+ horse. He doesn’t have a flawless A show lead change but he swaps when he should, he doesn’t have a perfect jump but he always jumps and because of him, my friend did her first hunter pace this fall. A show record is nice because it proves that a horse went and jumped a certain height at a show but it doesn’t say how easily he did it or if it required the best riding ammy in the state to do it. Shop for the best attitude you can get more than extreme aptitude. A second the poster who suggested a lease. You can get more horse for the cost and you might be able to find something dropping down and get a nice deal because the connections want him to have a nice place to be with an easier job. He might get you to a point of confidence at 3’ that will make a less easy horse a candidate as your next one.