I grew up riding and showing in WA. It was super fun when jenn gates bought Lillie Keenans PF overall champion (Enchanted Forest, and yes, I STILL remember this). I had a $500 pony from someone’s backyard, literally. Never beat her as I recall, but I did place very well on a regular basis! They paid $500k and that was 15ish years ago.
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Actually, I may be re-thinking that realizing you are talking about next year. It’s a tough call. It should probably show wherever it will pin best, and you as a capable teenager riding in the Childrens may get dinged by the judges. If it’s a quality pony that will look the part at Pony Finals, and you are able to put a nice Green Pony record on it early in the year, thereby giving it lots of good miles so some other kid isn’t picking up the reins 60-days out from PF with a dead green pony that got lucky in a division of 3, and you can get 4-6+ months of “Comes pre-qualified for Pony Finals!” marketing, then it may make sense to move up.
Yes, everyone wants to complain about horse prices until Bill Gates’ kid shows up to shop your heavily-invested sale horse selection :lol:
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Lol, yes. And honestly most people know you do not have to pay that much to get a winner. Rumor has it (no pun intended), that Katie Prudant found Cylana fat and doing the 1.10s in Europe. I don’t believe they paid a whole lot. Not to hijack or get off topic, but I actually hope this inspires the OP! Horses are tricky- it could go either way.
My advice, and I am not an expert, would be to sell it as ”qualified for PF”.
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I start ponies and am trying to build a lease string. Chiming in on what Dags is saying about being tied in to the “pony crowd.” It’s a very small world and upper level ponies tend to sell within that realm.
I can tell you that “ask for change” is an issue in terms of $. A pony is still considered a bit of a project unless it has auto changes. An auto change is not a good riding junior getting clean changes repeatedly, it’s an eight year old steering as best they can and the pony changes. It is worth the time and effort to figure that out before offering for sale if it’s a great mover. As many shows as you can get that pony to this year and ride it in every division you can. Schooling shows as well, and make sure you do the green division a couple of times when he’s ready to win it. Then reinstate green for next year get him winning regularly & qualified and that is really the time to sell or lease, as Dags said, proving him as a regular large is a whole new ordeal. Good luck!
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@dags is on it. We had two green larges go to PF last year. It was a very attainable goal for their owners, which they met, went to PF and had a blast. One skipped a change and the other peaked at the two stride. 50ish for both o/f. One is a very sellable CP. One is fancier but tough. Neither will be a legit Division pony. For the owners the experience was well worth the (not unsubstantial) costs of qualifying and attending PF. Neither pony’s value or marketability changed for the experience. If you are really excited about going to PF do it and enjoy. Otherwise sell as a packer “green eligible”. Broader market and less cost outlay. You’ll still need a pony connected trainer/situation. Good luck. You sound well grounded and smart. As such you need less luck.
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I think the whole green reinstatement thing is out of hand. It was not designed to make the division a two year division. It was designed to give people with extenuating circumstances a full chance. Showing in the division with the plan to bow out at the cut off is the height of poor sportsmanship.
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Hmmmm… As of right now I think I might go the Childrens Hunter route but that could change depending on how my pony continues placing at shows and if I really want to go to Pony Finals for the experience. What are some other things that I could do to make him really kid safe or add something to his resume to increase his price? I’ve been throwing some advanced beginner/beginner intermediate riders on him and he’s done well. I’m also working on bomb proofing him but hes a dream on trails. Thoughts?
A good Short Stirrup record never hurts.
But my best advice is to get good quality, crystal-clear media of pony being his absolutely best self.
Ponies qualified for pony finals are honestly a dime a dozen. There will literally be nearly 700 ponies at any given PF and they are not all high dollar ponies, in fact probably only 25% of them are. We took a regular medium to PF on a free lease… didn’t place, didn’t expect to, but we qualified it, took it to PF and had a great experience.
With large ponies, kids LOVE to do the large greens at PF because the large regs are much more competitive. If it’s an investment and your goal is to move the pony at some point next summer, either before or after PF, then you should get it out this year and get as much 2’6" experience as possible (which will be a challenge in this COVID 19 environment) and then try to qualify it early next year (Dec) for large green, but do not show more than the four shows allowed to reinstate. That way, if you have someone who wants to lease or buy it and take it pony finals, it’s already qualified but if it isn’t, it hasn’t broken its green but has shown that it’s capable (hopefully).
I guess my point is that large greens is a uniquely attractive division for many kids at PF so there is some value there. Its much easier to obtain a ribbon in the green division.
Otherwise the pricing is really going to be dependent on the quality of the pony, not whether or not it’s qualified, and the market that you are in competitively.
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@Midge I get you, and I don’t show my ponies they are leased after being started. But she is wondering how to sell a real deal green large. That is what many pony people do, because buyers want proof that the pony can actually do the job, and specifically for their kids they want as much proof as possible because they are trying to avoid their little ones getting lawn darted. YMMV.
If the only way to do that would be doing the division, I would see your point.
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So hypothetically speaking, if the pony can safely pack around a kid from short stirrup to children hunter and beyond, and place top three, would it be better to lease it out or to sell? I wouldn’t mind leasing him out and the hypothetical kid would take him to a couple shows so that adds more to his resume so when the time does come to sell he would have a larger show record. Thoughts?
I believe Newsworthy went for that at one point. No unheard of.
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Newsworthy (cant remember his barn name, Cheers maybe?) was in my trainers barn for years. The year he sold for the big bucks he was not only PF Green champ but HOTY. He showed all that year, IIRC from WEF thru Indoors, shown by trainers young child ( who is now a successful Pro). That price was not generated by just PF Green title.
JMO but OP might get best benefit by showing SS and Children’s Pony Hunter, preferably with a younger rider, and then offer it for sale as still eligible Green so buyer and new rider can get the benefit if a full Green year. It only takes one good show to qualify for Greens at PF but he needs many shows and many miles on him to really create much interest in buying or leasing him from the 90% buyer pool. And PF is, really, just one show with one, single trip over fences. Does not define careers and prices on its own. And when its over, its soon losing Green status and moving to bigger and tougher Regulars where most are no where near as competitive as they were in the Greens.
Lease or sell is a whole other topic, much discussed on here. Probably sell is best. Once they lose the Green, and have to show Regulars, an average quality Large without major wins is not too easy to sell or lease. Unless it is a proven packer for those kid oriented, lower height, classes with friendlier courses then the Regular Division.
And fix that lead change, if a kid has to ask every time or if you get to PF and have to ask around that huge, galloping, not typical inside/outside course? Its a ding in score and price. Fix what you can fix and that is usually fixable. Just takes schooling and lots of show miles over low courses.
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