Cost of elite hunter? Is it really $750,000+++???!!!

[ynl063w]

@GoodTimes

I board my hunter and I split the cost of keeping my semi-retired guy and the young horse at my parents farm. My mom rides too and enjoys having the horses at home. I’m not sure why that’s relevant?

Your previous post in this thread where you described how you keep/show your horses was a little tone deaf. Most people don’t have parents who own a farm where they can buy a weanling/yearling and let it sit for a few years to grow up at the low total cost of $15K (do you really not know this?). Do you really not recognize how lucky you are to have an inexpensive place to keep your semi-retired horse along with your weanling, so that the only full board you seem to pay is for your other hunter? You are also lucky to live in an area where you have B show circuits - those are largely non-existent in the US. It’s very nice for you to be so privileged that your parents are able to allow you to participate in your hobby to a level that is not only satisfying but also affordable for you, but to imply that the reason that others are not as successful as you are at achieving their goals is because they just aren’t as smart at it as you are is insulting, narcissistic, and ignorant.

Another poster upthread seemed to say that it cost her $100K per year to maintain and show her green horse, and that was with her doing most of the training and showing herself. I hope I misunderstood that because that is as insane as Goodtimes thinking that everyone should be able to do horses the way she does.

[GoodTimes]

@ynl063w

Your previous post in this thread where you described how you keep/show your horses was a little tone deaf. Most people don’t have parents who own a farm where they can buy a weanling/yearling and let it sit for a few years to grow up at the low total cost of $15K (do you really not know this?). Do you really not recognize how lucky you are to have an inexpensive place to keep your semi-retired horse along with your weanling, so that the only full board you seem to pay is for your other hunter? You are also lucky to live in an area where you have B show circuits - those are largely non-existent in the US. It’s very nice for you to be so privileged that your parents are able to allow you to participate in your hobby to a level that is not only satisfying but also affordable for you, but to imply that the reason that others are not as successful as you are at achieving their goals is because they just aren’t as smart at it as you are is insulting, narcissistic, and ignorant.

Another poster upthread seemed to say that it cost her $100K per year to maintain and show her green horse, and that was with her doing most of the training and showing herself. I hope I misunderstood that because that is as insane as Goodtimes thinking that everyone should be able to do horses the way she does.

Oh good grief, my post was an example of a different way of doing things. I was pointing out that I’d rather support local breeders with nice horses and bring them along myself vs searching high and low for an expensive horse or importing one. And while I’m lucky that my parents have a farm now that wasn’t always the case. I spent many years working off board, and I still braid and clip to offset costs. My boarded horse is currently on outdoor board because it’s cheaper and he’s a horse, he doesn’t need to stand in a stall for 16 hours a day for my “convenience”.
Of course there are areas where basic indoor board are more than the average ammy can afford, I’m in no way suggesting that my scenario is doable for everyone. But in an area where outdoor board is only a couple hundred dollars a month it is a realistic way for an experienced amateur to end up with a nicer horse than they could afford right out of the gate.

I didn’t grow up showing on the A’s, there are people on this thread who are much more privileged than I. I got my foot in that door by working in the trenches. Working at a local breeding and training farm as a junior to get some skills, and then I spent several years grooming on the A’s in Ontario and Florida to make connections before I went back to school to get a job that allowed me to afford to ride and show my own horses.

P.S. I think you missed the part where I said that my mom rides too. That semi-retired horse is just as much her horse as mine. He wouldn’t be happy by himself. Buying and selling babies allows him to have a friend that benefits everyone. And I still pay my parents “board” for said baby, it’s just slightly below market price since it keeps my mom from needing to buy a second horse.

I apologize that this got the thread so off topic. I’ll reiterate that I don’t believe the high cost of elite hunters is anything new. I haven’t seen the trickle down effect that others mentioned in horses from weanlings to 100k hunters. And imports are losing their prestige among the people that I know, as local breeders have been producing hunters that are just as nice and are more affordable for several years now. I also don’t believe that the cost of the horses themselves makes showing at different levels unattainable. It costs a lot of money for the real estate, staffing, equipment, etc to run a show. The average person’s income hasn’t kept up with these jumps.
I can understand the frustration in areas with no B circuit, unfortunately I don’t have much of a solution for that.

[GoodTimes]

@SnicklefritzG

That is not it at all.

It has also been said on this thread that the rising prices on the top horses has trickled down and is impacting prices for horses shown on the lower circuits. this contributes to making showing more difficult for everyone.

I’ve been pondering this trickle down bit and I’m thinking aloud here. I’m wondering if this is partially bounce back from the 2008 recession? We weren’t impacted nearly as much in Canada and while the horse market slowed a bit, prices didn’t change much, and have stayed fairly constant in the ten years before and after that time. So I’m wondering if it’s both regional based on the cost of keeping and showing horses from area to area, as well the global economy. So in this particular scenario, did the price of American horses drop significantly in 2008 and now you’re noticing that 10 years later prices have gone back up or surpassed those prices? While in Canada our market stayed fairly stable through all of that?

[IPEsq]

@GoodTimes

I’ve been pondering this trickle down bit and I’m thinking aloud here. I’m wondering if this is partially bounce back from the 2008 recession? We weren’t impacted nearly as much in Canada and while the horse market slowed a bit, prices didn’t change much, and have stayed fairly constant in the ten years before and after that time. So I’m wondering if it’s both regional based on the cost of keeping and showing horses from area to area, as well the global economy. So in this particular scenario, did the price of American horses drop significantly in 2008 and now you’re noticing that 10 years later prices have gone back up or surpassed those prices? While in Canada our market stayed fairly stable through all of that?

I don’t think the drop in the economy changed horse prices at all. What it did do was make some businesses suffer and really spurred a decline in the working amateur competitor. Fewer horses sold because there were fewer buyers. Those still in the game seemed to be spending the same money they were before. I think the biggest uptick in pricing since that time has been the price to show, although we had already been seeing the trend toward the mega circuit by that time.

[dags]

The economy crash absolutely did slash horse prices and they are regaining those losses like mad at the moment. One caveat though: The Real Deal, True Blue, Top Quality horse never lost its value. The huge drop in prices across the market came from average horses no longer claiming crazy numbers. You no longer got six figures just because it could make it around a 3’6" course without eliciting gasps from the audience. People were much more hesitant to spend high 5s & low 6s on a young pre-green horse with an unknown future. Solid Ch/AA Jumpers were practically being given away 'cause it turns out you don’t need $50K (or fancy, or a warmblood) to find one to blast around the 1.10m and win.

The market is pretty hot right now, and prices have gone back up accordingly. In that sense it is very similar to the housing market and tends to mirror it.

Ultimately, the culprit is the loss of the B circuits where riders got a reasonable return on investment with ribbons & recognition for a good trip on a respectable athlete. But that went the way of the dodo when trainers realized they could take all 30 horses to the week-long show that now has levels to accommodate novice riders, and thus no longer have to split the barn up to send newbies off to the local circuit with the asst. trainer. Which costs double in set-up, staff, and horse trailers, and runs risk that assistant trainer will get big in her britches and decide she could just do this in her own name.

There seems to be a desire that a competitive hunter should be within reach of anyone, and that any horse should be able to be competitive in the hunters. Fundamentally, this is just not possible. It’s a genetics game. The core talent of a top hunter cannot be fabricated. The standards are definite and 90% of horses will not match up. The problem is there’s nowhere for that 90% to go show and be in like company.

[fourfillies]

#dags nailed it. Says part of the 90% feeling like I have nowhere to go.

[MrsFitzDarcy_amp_Feliks]

I guess the days of bringing along an OTTB and getting respectable ribbons at A shows, even the Capital Challenge are gone.

[AliCat]

@IPEsq

I don’t think the drop in the economy changed horse prices at all. What it did do was make some businesses suffer and really spurred a decline in the working amateur competitor. Fewer horses sold because there were fewer buyers. Those still in the game seemed to be spending the same money they were before. I think the biggest uptick in pricing since that time has been the price to show, although we had already been seeing the trend toward the mega circuit by that time.

Here is an article about prices dropping after the economy fell. They do mention top horses were not as impacted.

https://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/29/b…3/29HORSE.html

[AffirmedHope]

@fourfillies

#dags nailed it. Says part of the 90% feeling like I have nowhere to go.

Well, I have my schooling shows… they at least have pretty ribbons…

[AllOverFarm]

I’m noticing that jr hunters seem to be declining in numbers. Most of the Jrs. in my area have one horse… so, they have to choose to do the hunters, jumpers or equitation.
Most have chosen the equitation or the jumpers. The numbers in the children’s hunters & Jrs hunters is very low in my area. In fact, the last show we went to my daughter had a children’s hunter she was going to show, but she had to do the ushja hunter division, as there was no enteries in the children’s that week. Only 3 in the ushja hunter. The big eq had 6 & the jumpers were 15+.

[Tiramit]

@dags

There seems to be a desire that a competitive hunter should be within reach of anyone, and that any horse should be able to be competitive in the hunters.

I don’t think this is an accurate statement overall and not reflective of this thread. It would be ludicrous to think ANY horse could be competitive, although that would make for much more colorful and interesting classes, lol. And horses and horse showing will never be within reach of ANYONE. It’s an expensive sport and always has been. The difference is that it’s now become so very, very expensive that the pool of people who can show in our country is smaller than has historically been the case, and seemingly shrinking.

The ever-widening gap between the typical horse owner who rides and boards and the ones who can still afford to show regularly is the issue. We’re different from other parts of the world where horses and showing are still within reach of most horse people. Yes, our best hunters are rare and special, but they’re neither new nor the problem. It’s the rest of the industry that used to be available that, for many, is now financially out of reach. Reading the results in magazines like Horse & Hound where rescue horses earn championships and people regularly win on homebreds or inexpensive horses is enough to make anyone wonder what the heck has happened here at home… and can it be corrected?

[ExpialidociousOTTB]

@MrsFitzDarcy&Feliks

I guess the days of bringing along an OTTB and getting respectable ribbons at A shows, even the Capital Challenge are gone.

I really hope not! I got my TB with the intention of doing a little bit of everything, but I’m sure my Trainer knew he’d be a lovely hunter from the beginning… I’ll never have the show budget to get us to the Capital Challenge, but I would like to pursue some A shows.

[Dooner]

Questions:

If I ask the guy bathing the $750K horse what his employer’s 401K match is, what is the answer going to be?

I knew someone who owned a barn (that catered to the merely rich rather than the obscenely wealthy), who told an employee who lost 2 fingers and a thumb in an accident that he needed to choose 2 digits to have re-attached. Thoughts?

IMO, over the last 15 years the economics of the sport have drifted from skewed to immoral. I lost interest in showing about 8 years ago when I realized that, as an upper-middle-class equestrian who could only afford to spend 5 figures on a horse, I was really just serving as a set-piece in the theater of the wealthy.

[rockonxox]

@ExpialidociousOTTB

I really hope not! I got my TB with the intention of doing a little bit of everything, but I’m sure my Trainer knew he’d be a lovely hunter from the beginning… I’ll never have the show budget to get us to the Capital Challenge, but I would like to pursue some A shows.

You will be fine. We have had other threads about this as well. Plenty of OTTBs here are doing great at the rated shows. At the AA level you aren’t really going to see them as much if at all, but at the A rateds (at least here) TBs can hold their own.

[Sunflower]

I saw a photo of a winning hunter and rider. I won’t name them, as it is not my intent to single any one horse or rider out. I have to say the horse looked shocking. He was so fat that he looked like he had two necks. He had a giant roll of fat on the top of his neck, a crease, and another roll of fat all down the neckline under the crease. The horse was obese. How it jumped, I cannot imagine. The rider was laying with their head nearly between the horse’s ears, prone across the top fat part of the neck. The reins were looping down below the lower part of the neck fat. This is a winning hunter horse and rider. :ambivalence:

Exactly what the skills being rewarded here are beyond me.

But this seems to be the ideal people are striving to in the upper ends of the hunter world.

Showing creates a parody, even a perversion, of something once functional. You see this all the time with some breeds of show dogs, where the features are so exaggerated the dogs are deformed. In the horse world, this seems to be taking place in the hunters. No one would field hunt an obese horse, I should not think, or at least it would not be the ideal as it would lack the fitness to hunt. And no one would field hunt laying their head around the horse’s ears-- field hunters tend to ride in a more backward seat, not ejecting themselves up the line of the horse’s neck. For good reason. The ear ride would get you thrown off in a heartbeat.

So what is being rewarded with an obese horse and a very precarious rider position who has lost all contact with the mouth of the horse and has no release at all is hard to say.

But it has taken the show world by storm.

It is not an ideal I admire, aspire to, or even understand.

[Lord_Helpus]

@MrsFitzDarcy&Feliks

I guess the days of bringing along an OTTB and getting respectable ribbons at A shows, even the Capital Challenge are gone.

Nailed it. The increase in prices (that cannot be avoided) has occurred because the ready supply of $3000 tbs is still there, but people aren’t buying in great numbers anymore. Eventers and fox hunters still want tbs, but the hundreds of cheap horse’s that fed the hunter world have been replaced by young horse’s that cost 10x as much.
I would love to find a big boned tb and bring it along to jump like a wb (slow across the ground and almost stalling out on take off). But that way of going is not natural to the breed, so it would be trial and error before a competitive one could be found. By then I would have spent $20k and 5 years in the effort.

[Atlas_Shrugged]

@ynl063w

Your previous post in this thread where you described how you keep/show your horses was a little tone deaf. Most people don’t have parents who own a farm where they can buy a weanling/yearling and let it sit for a few years to grow up at the low total cost of $15K (do you really not know this?). Do you really not recognize how lucky you are to have an inexpensive place to keep your semi-retired horse along with your weanling, so that the only full board you seem to pay is for your other hunter? You are also lucky to live in an area where you have B show circuits - those are largely non-existent in the US. It’s very nice for you to be so privileged that your parents are able to allow you to participate in your hobby to a level that is not only satisfying but also affordable for you, but to imply that the reason that others are not as successful as you are at achieving their goals is because they just aren’t as smart at it as you are is insulting, narcissistic, and ignorant.

Another poster upthread seemed to say that it cost her $100K per year to maintain and show her green horse, and that was with her doing most of the training and showing herself. I hope I misunderstood that because that is as insane as Goodtimes thinking that everyone should be able to do horses the way she does.

I am talking about paying for truck, trailer, shipping, barn, feed, vets, lessons and trainers at shows, entries, shoes, entries, hotels, stabling, insurance for all of the above - It is easy to spend that much

[RugBug]

@dags

There seems to be a desire that a competitive hunter should be within reach of anyone, and that any horse should be able to be competitive in the hunters. Fundamentally, this is just not possible. It’s a genetics game. The core talent of a top hunter cannot be fabricated.The standards are definite and 90% of horses will not match up. The problem is there’s nowhere for that 90% to go show and be in like company.

Can I agree and disagree at the same time?

I don’t think that a top competitive hunter should be within reach of anyone. I also don’t think that any horse should be able to be competitive in the hunters, top or not. Good hunters are born…then made. That means there is going to a naturally more limited pool available.

What I balk at:

1. The prices at the top affect the prices in the middle and bottom. And prices are out of control* and the market is controlled by a very few. so the chances of Budget Betty being able to buy young and sell high is limited because by definition Budget Betty just doesn’t have the contacts/exposure. She has to settle for getting what she can and then letting someone else (more than one of those someones?) flip up the ranks. .

2. Where there is some room to disagree is that “the standards are definite.” They are fixed right now, but they aren’t permanent. And there are some issues with those standards. Issues that artificially narrow the market of competitive horses. Do we care to address them or do we just charge ahead with the ever narrowing status quo?

As for costs - I don’t want a world beater, I just want something that I can walk into the ring of a mid level show with a legit chance if I don’t ride like a monkey… I also have a hard time with $200 stirrups and $500 helmets, etc. In the push to have the newest and “best”, we’ve allowed prices to become ridiculous. If our culture wasn’t so elitist, we wouldn’t be seeing these prices. when you can buy the same product marketed to a trail riding crowd for $10 less, the most logical conclusion is that we are suckers. What’s even worse is that we defend it…“because horse are expensive”

[WildLittleWren]

When I read how expensive A shows are I am glad that I only have local schooling show aspirations!

[OneGrayPony]

I think a lot of it is also perception. People will always pay for perceived value. Which means that the unknown $5k horse from the unknown barn may have oodles of potential and talent but will never bring the top dollar that a winning (or even not winning) animal in a big name barn will have. Does it mean that they are genetically lesser? Not necessarily, but they are a safer bet for the person with money.

I remember thinking a $250k pony was ridiculously high priced in the early 2000s, now the prices have escalated dramatically. If we’re in the $50k region just for a prospect, then things have certainly changed, and I doubt income has shifted that dramatically to compensate. That DOES price working Amateurs out.

The older I get, the less I care about that (I’ve also switched to a more affordable discipline), but I am wondering exactly where all of that money is going Because I live in a metro area, and estimate one horse’s annual expenses at ~20k, showing next year will add another say…20k…which is a lot of money, but half of what was estimated previously for bringing a young show horse up through the ranks (and now that I’ve added that up I feel a little green around the gills quite frankly).