Have you ever consigned a horse with a farm or trainer? Are you a trainer who takes horses on consignment? How does such a program usually work? What are the monthly fees in addition to board, what percentage is taken by the farm, etc? Bonus points if you can point me to a consignment contract.
People don’t do this much any more, I hear. However, I have done it before with a great deal of success for both parties. Basically, I said, "I want $X for horse. Anything else you get, you can keep."A circuit trainer took point and shoot C/A jumper and sold it for a good bit more than X in a couple of weeks. Both of us = very happy.
These days I would have a very clear contract, back then we did this on a handshake! and it worked out very well. But it could not have, if something went wrong.
Used to be a popular way to sell, owner paid nothing, upkeep costs and any training rides came out of sale proceeds. But that was back when costs were 30-50%+ lower then today and horses sold much quicker with far less formality (no trial periods, simpler PPEs with much less diagnostic equipment available, leases were uncommon).
Today, sellers expect to pay board and for rides and schooling to keep the horse saleable at most training or dealer barns, deal with requests for trial periods, PPE holds and lease offers.
The business has changed and straight consignment arrangements have faded into the past. Just takes too long to sell and they run up too much cost too fast to be able to recover out of sale proceeds.
TBH the person most willing to take something like that on in these days is a junior or young pro that needs something to ride, but doesn’t want to drop the money to buy it on their own, but can afford to free lease it for sale and market it.
You generally pay a bundled “training/board” fee. The “training fees” I have paid in the past have been calculated by multiplying the dollar value of a training ride by how many times a week the trainer will ride the horse, and then multiply this number by 4 (for full weeks in a month). Most trainers will not charge the same amount they would charge for a single training ride when it is calculated into coming up with this number. Most trainers will slightly reduce the training ride rate (by like $5 or $10 bucks) to create an incentive for you to go with the monthly rate vs pay for individual rides.
I feel that the problem with consignments is that if you are paying a hefty training fee every month, regardless of the % of the commission, there is not an incentive for trainers to sell the horse quickly if they have no need to sell the horse quickly. If you tell a trainer upfront “you have 6 months to sell my horse”, you are basically saying that you have already budgeted 6 months training/board for this, and are willing to spend that much money on training. So if you were the trainer, why would you bust your butt to sell the horse in the first 3 months if the seller just told you they can pay you for the next 6 months? For the trainer, it’s best to wait until month 4 to really start advertising the horse because then you can collect as much of the training/board as possible PLUS get the ending commission when you actually sell the horse. Meanwhile, as the seller, your pay day = the selling price of the horse minus the 10-15% commission minus the money you paid the trainer for training.
Especially if there is no way to verify what you’re paying for, it can be stressful as a seller. (I had a consignment contract say that my horse would be ridden 5 times a week, but when I visited him once he was only scheduled to be ridden 4 times that week on the tack room whiteboard. No idea if it was just that week or if he was being 4 times a week all along.)
I’ve had two training/consignment contracts in the last 9 months with my horse with small barn trainers. One was with a BO I knew very well (boarded with her for 5 years) and the other was with a new young trainer in my area. I completely trusted the first BO and knew what to expect. I changed consignors though because I wanted my horse to go out more (shows/x country schooling), and I knew that the younger trainer was more focused on this. So I took the plunge, and came out very disappointed in the end. The contract we had was airtight in terms of riding and care, but it did not specifically cover anything about what the trainer had to do regarding selling/marketing the horse. If I ever did this all again, I would put some of the marketing plan IN the contract with dates so that there was no confusion about what needed to happen by when.
I bought my first horse from a strict consignment barn (NO training) and kept my horse boarded there for a few weeks while I found a barn closer to me, and that BO moved horses like lightening. She only charged board and her kids would ride most of the horses once or twice a week to keep them fit-ish. She did not get on any of the horses herself and was 100% focused on selling. That lady was always on her phone or inside her office at her computer.
Some people are good at riding, some people are good at selling/marketing. Both are very different talents, although it is not impossible to find someone who can do both well. Something to consider when you pick a consignor.
If you do a consignment, talk to the trainer/BO’s past clients about their experience. But also, know your contract inside and out and don’t be afraid to ask questions or negotiate parts of it. It sucks that we have to be like this, but it sucks even more when you are writing checks for a grand+ every month and you’re unhappy.
I think we have a different definition if the term “consignment”. To me and,I think, fordtraktor, it’s paying nothing on the horse with all costs incurred coming out of sale proceeds, no additional commission. Used to be common, worked well if you could sell it quick.
My last three barns, including a really active buy/sell operation, would call what you described “sale board” with seller paying a package deal including board, schooling and any sale prep and presentation. Trainer gets commission. This is what most are doing in today’s much higher priced environment where it takes a looong time to sell them.
