We have been wondering if there is an active underground market. We are very careful with our equipment, but still some of our most expensive items disappear, even after re-purchasing.
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If you are securing your stuff then it seems like if it is still disappearing that it has to be an insider to your group that is causing things to vanish.
Used tack sells all over the place, is that what you mean by an underground market?
In today’s society I assume anything of value that I leave not secured has a good chance of not being there when I return for it.
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If the same items are disappearing over and over, the smart thing would be to label them and secure them. Or get a decoy, put an airtag inside of it, see where it goes when it walks off. There are a million places to sell used tack, and it’s pretty easy to unload if it’s trendy, high end, or desirable. Some people may also take stuff to use for themselves.
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This!
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My last few trainers have recommended bringing saddles home each day of the show. It’s a pain, sure, but less liability for them and more security for me.
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I hate to say this, but I agree with @trubandloki. It sounds like this is an insider situation because of the repetitive nature of the problem and also because this is happening despite you carefully securing your items, and because it seems to be the same type of item. This is such a tough issue because proving that an employee or client is stealing from you can be very difficult. I would label things in an indelible, potentially even obnoxious manner, and etch or otherwise permanently label items in non-obvious locations. Also consider the use of cameras and AirTags. Over the years I have experienced two cases of insider theft–one was a client who was caught red-handed by another client, another instance was an employee. I had no proof other than he was the only employee at that time who had access to the storage shed the items were stolen from. I dismissed him for other reasons and changed the locks and farm entry codes and the thefts immediately stopped.
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Thank you for your feedback. We always take our saddles home or to hotel. Ours is a multi show employee situation. We have just recently air tagged everything possible.
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Do you have a tack trunk? Lock the rest of your things into your track trunk.
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What are we talking about here? Martingales that get taken off in a hurry and tossed aside for the hack and then someone else picks it up and walks off with it by accident? Or saddles stolen under cover of darkness from tack stalls?
It’s easy to misplace generic-looking and/or small things, even expensive, at a show. Everyone’s black gloves look about the same when crumpled up on a bench. Everyone’s black crop looks about the same. A plain navy fleece cooler looks roughly the same as everyone else’s if you’re not inspecting the tag. I think this kind of stuff “walks off” by accident fairly innocuously. I’ve come home with someone else’s martingale or fake tail and had to go on a scavenger hunt to find the person who accidentally swapped with me. And I have certainly lost my fair share of generic looking things I left out and didn’t take care of. I don’t think that’s all that nefarious, it’s just sort of the way it goes. If that’s what’s happening, label everything and be more careful about putting things away.
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You could get a small electric branding iron (hobby shop might have one) that you can mark the inside of your leather bridles, martingales, and on your brush handles etc.
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FB marketplace and CL are so chopped up by geographic location that if you sold something on a site for another city under a different name, likely the victim of the theft would never see their lost item posted.
It’s not even an underground market. It’s just second hand tack. There are so many vendors with “as new” tack, they might buy manufacturers close outs or odd lots, it’s clearly not just their own excess gear. And I doubt it’s all stolen 
but the odd stolen piece could swim past.
I wonder if venues should have a central place to report stolen tack, to see if there is a pattern? Is one person nabbing similar thingies from multiple competitors or is one competitor facing repeat internal thefts?
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I had a $25 plastic ladder /step stool stolen out of my tack stall at a show. A lady 2 stalls down from me had a new nylon halter stolen.
And we were stabled on the busy side next to two busy rings.
Anything I don’t put in my truck for overnight I lock in my horse trailer and I also keep my tack stall locked if no one is around it.
I realize that can be difficult if you have a large barn at the show, however, there are combo locks and other ways to secure it and protect expensive equipment .
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we had a rare saddle stolen from our home that we had our farm name Stamped in the backside of a leather flap, the police said that was go for ID but worthless in getting the saddle back as it most likely had already gone through some horse auction in a state far away
Also at a later date our two horse trailer was stolen from our driveway even though it had been chained to a steel post, police were not encouraging that it would ever be found, which it was not.
Today’s trailer has multiple AirTags in and on it
Daughter had her horse’s halter stolen at Morgan Nationals, halter had horse’s and farm name on it so it was not just a mistake of some one just picking up the wrong halter… our guess was a vindictive exhibit walked off with it.
As for finding expensive stuff at shows we usually are in the last to leave but always walk the stalls to pick up the stuff left behind by others, which is considerable. We get enough Himalayan salt licks to last our seven head for a year, the show barns just leave them behind
At a hotel local to a show nearby a lot of trucks were robbed - mostly saddles
Make sure you regularly change your trunk/vehicle lock combinations. So many barns leave them the same for years and years, and every former employee or client knows the code.
We had, years ago, like an entire fleet of bikes/scooters stolen from the Hampton Classic, and the cops were just like “well there’s this group that does that”
. But I’m still sad about my favorite lead rope that got taken off my stall front at the VA horse center, and I have a friend that never forgave me for setting her cooler down on the wall at the barracks for it never to be seen again… unfortunately you can’t keep track of everything all the time and if someone is dishonest enough to take it they will find a way.
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Yeah you can’t leave it in the car either - that’s why it’s a pain. I either lock stuff in my trailer tack room (saddle) or trunk (bridle, boots).
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A few years ago, my kid’s bicycle that was won in a horse show association auction was stolen, and we were bummed, partly because the grounds were big and hard to get around. It was not an expensive or flashy model. It was replaced with a lesser bike, stolen again, replaced, stolen yet again over the course of several horse shows and over the course of months. It was always locked and placed in areas that seemed safe. Each time replaced with progressively cheaper and more nondescript bikes and bigger locks. (I even wrote a curse on one of them to whomever dared to steal it ha ha) Didn’t matter, barely got through a show without one going missing. One time, one of the succession of our bikes was found among a stash of others in a vacant bathroom on the far edge of the Showgrounds where presumably they were all waiting to be picked up and whisked away. Finally gave up and didn’t get any more bikes. Behave, people!!
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Certain items that walk regularly I purchase as ugly as possible. If you see me with a neon orange bath bucket/sweat scraper/lunge whip/wheelbarrow/whatever… now ya know.
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I’m willing to bet it’s rings of professional thieves and not horse folks.
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And many may end up missing catalytic converters parked at motels near shows. Show personnel should be strongly communicating with the local police about show schedules. Or have someone sleep in a rear seat overnight.
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