Then they need to charge more for their services. Because they would get zero dollars if the client up and moves the horse - unless there’s a “parting ways” fee. 
A trainer is only a sales broker if they do the sale. If the owner sells the horse they weren’t part of the transaction, and if not for being mad about the money part of the equation, they have no skin and no risk in the game.
Umm no, it is a business transaction. I don’t care if the new horse will make all the child’s dreams come true, or it’s just the 20th investment horse for a client who never steps foot in the barn. Same transaction, same professionalism, same lack of emotion.
I would never spend major money with a trainer who thinks of their job so emotionally in relation to their clients bills. Hard no- I pay you for a service, you preform that service to the best of your ability. I’m not happy I leave, I drive you nuts you ask me to leave. Simple, clean and makes for long and successful partnerships.
That doesn’t mean I don’t highly value my trainers time and effort, I’d just never debase that by making it emotional- that leads to parents expecting trainers to run themselves into the ground just for their special princess.
Yes, there are highly emotional moments in our sport, but the business end is not where they belong.
Couldn’t follow this interesting and informative discussion due to uninvited house guest named Nicole taking out my power and eventually internet for most of yesterday until 200 AM this morning. Power came back on to TV revealing houses falling into the sea 20 miles away and hundreds suddenly informed they are now homeless to avoid joining the buildings. Its all relative.
Anyway, if you know anyone dealing with Classic cars, Car racing, Race boats, Luxury Yachts or Airplanes ? The horse business is not the only business operating with this type buy/sell set up involving agents.
Have an acquaintance who financed their child from a kid to a ranked athlete in that sport with appropriate coaching, equipment, travel and ultimately resident training in coaching center. They once shared what they spent. 
No, horses are not a unique environment.
But does the agent get butt-hurt if the owner of the classic car decides to try and sell it on his own?
You bet and it’s a small community.
Well color me educated, and laughing. It’s my property, if I want to send the damn thing through an auction I can.
Even more so for your examples, because it’s not an animal. And because I assume the agent is not over at the house petting the car daily.
Edit: Also, FWIW, I am pretty involved in the local collector car and drag racing scene. I don’t think I have EVER seen a car sold through a broker. It’s all word of mouth, because the world is so small. A broker would be a massive waste of money. In one rare case the car was a super niche item, and the owner listed it online himself.
No idea the age of kid, but Big Eq makes me think kid is at least 14 as 12 would be absolute youngest and kid must’ve been competing for a couple of years to have a $200k Big Eq horse, but that is totally an assumption.
@SmilingHorse - how old is junior? Are they moving to jumpers because the aged out of Big Eq?
Not always “local”.
When my father died, I had to liquidate 7 cars and 44 motorcycles (most vintage/classic), with values ranging from low 3 figures to mid 7 figures. You better believe I used a broker, and he more than earned his commission, even though 4 of the buyers were people I already knew. While some of them were sold locally (Northeast US) some were sold to Australia, Europe, California, etc. where I had no contacts at all.
Thank you so much for making this point! Whenever these conversations come up, I am alway so shocked by the reflexive defense of our industry’s comission structure, and all the weird arguments people make to justify it. Some examples: This is compensation for developing the horse, even if the horse has only been on the property for 30 days, even if the horse is being sold because it burned out of the trainer’s program. That it’s compensation for the trainer’s connections, even if the amateur did all the marketing and negotiated the deal herself. That it’s compensation for the losses associated with the board business, even though no one told the trainer to take a loss on that service.
The reality is that the OP is right that these high commissions on both the buy and sell sides make it extremely expensive to change horses. And they create weird incentives among horse professionals to want their customers to buy and sell horses all the time, to move quickly on horses in their small network, and buy a horse at the very top of the budget, rather than do more work to negotiate a better purchase price. (I also think it really disadvantages both buyers and professionals when the horse budget is small, because they often have to do as much work–or more–for a smaller paycheck.) I do not think pointing this out means you don’t respect your trainer or think they shouldn’t have a nice car, or whatever.
As a side note, I find it borderline offensive to suggest that the OP shouldn’t care about an additional cost of $60,000, just because she can afford a $200,000 horse. That is an absolutely enormous sum of money, even if the trainer did develop the horse, did buy and sell exclusively through great personal connections, and did negotiate the deal of the century on the purchase price.
I make all these complaints, but then will say. Sigh: This is the industry norm! And I always pay my commissions. But I would much prefer to live in a world where my trainer made a living wage on training services, and billed me for their time spent looking for horses or buyers, not one in which their main source of income is a percentage of my transaction price.
For a 20% commission I would make sure to have a very explicit contract on what is expected from the trainer to earn their commission. It shouldn’t be a blanket “industry standards”. If they do not live up to the terms of their contract the commission fee could be reduced. it seems to me that with social media more sellers / buyers are doing most of the leg work and trainer is just stamping their approval on the purchase. Many don’t do nearly the work as a realtor.
I would also check w/ your CPA about whether or not you need to 1099 the commission. Nothing like owing the IRS a good chunk of that 20% commission.
True - they can be liquidated in that manner. But my guess is - if you had your father’s connections I doubt you would have needed a broker.
If a horse owner has (or does not need/want) connections themselves, there should be no “moral” or “shame” obligations to sell the horse through the trainer. What if it was sold to one of the owner’s friends, without any trainer involvement at all? I’m sure boatloads of ponies could be moved around the rich families, especially well-known ponies with parents on kid #2 or better.
If I want to sell my 200k eq horse on DreamHorse, that’s my prerogative as the owner. If you wanted to list 44 motorcycles on Craigslist, that’s your prerogative as the owner.
And wanted to come back to this, too. At most barns, it is not optional whether your trainer is your sales agent. The commission is required as a condition of boarding with that trainer. So it’s not like most buyers and sellers even have the ability to buy the training fees and handle sales themselves.
Commissions make more sense to me in situations where the trainer’s service is simply to be a the sales agent, as in a sale barn. But in that case, there was not “blood, sweat, and tears” invested in a child’s happiness by the seller.
A horse trainer/coach is a horse trainer/coach, not a sales broker or agent.
But in some cases they are, obviously. Unless it’s in the boarding contract, you should not be shamed/guilted into selling through them - they should be offering such a good service that it’s a no brainer to use them as needed.
The whole thing is bizarre, to me - the person who has never purchased a horse for more than 4.5k and likely never will broach the 5s on a purchase.
Can you just stop arguing with the facts here? As multiple people have explained, the arrangement here is how barns like this function. These are not just “boarding barns;” they are programs in which every aspect of the horses’ lives is managed. Clients know this going in. What you would do or are comfortable with has zero bearing on the reality of the situation.
You don’t know the exact arrangement of the OP’s boarding/training situation. You’re assuming, based on the price tag and commission ask.
Here is another added value to consider, in which a trainer’s commission is worth every penny.
As someone who has both shopped on my own for a horse, and later with a trainer, it blew my mind how much more protection I got as a buyer while under my trainer’s auspice.
I was shopping at the low end of the market, where there is more likely to be horses with “quirks”. I would find ads for horses that seemed lovely and were advertised in glowing terms, only to have my trainer call her connections and find out “that horse has bucked off every good pro in the area” or “that horse falls down in the trailer and stops at fences. It really should be retired but the owner is determined to eeek out every last penny from it” <<< Two ACTUAL scenarios that took place in real life.
Even though I was a very small fish in a very much larger pond, no one was willing to screw my trainer, as she is always buying much larger priced horses for other clients. I was afforded protection as a buyer that I would not have received, had I been shopping on my own.
I’m gonna say with nearly 100% confidence that there are zero barns dealing with $200k horses that don’t keep those horses in a full program, from soup to nuts.
I can honestly see the allure of a trainer as a buyer. Someone to weed out the wheat from the chaff.
But as a seller, assuming my horse isn’t a whackjob that only 1% of people can ride, I really don’t need trainer help. I can get the horse marketed with the shows I went to (and paid for), with the photos taken (that I paid for), etc. Unless the trainer is telling me “let me list your horse, and I’ll get you 30% more for him”, I’m not interested.
I know of a 6 figure horse (not quite 200k but VERY well on his way there) living in someone’s back yard (along with several other high 5s she owns), and she meets her trainer for lessons and shows.
Does she owe him commission?
It’s just that that isn’t how it works at a show barn. Yes, you could technically sell your own horse. However, you would be perceived as screwing the trainer, and you would destroy the relationship. It’s just part of what you have to accept and buy into, if you are part of that lifestyle. If you can’t accept it, then it just simply isn’t for you (and by you, I mean the general “you”, not you personally).
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