So for those of us who are selling or shopping for a horse - how does this global virus affect your search or advertising and any travel that might be involved? Not exactly the most important subject at this time, but just curious?
Well, I’m shopping! I’m staying home for the next week or two at least. When things start to stabilize, I’ll shop within a 5 or so hours drive. I won’t be flying to Florida or Europe again in the foreseeable future. I just had one fail the vet last week that I was very excited about. Maybe people will start offering their “end of season” discounts at home since there will be no one in Florida in April and I’ll get lucky.
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I have one for sale and have been looking for another to buy. Someone just contacted me this morning about the one for sale and barring any quarantines/lock-downs, she’ll be coming out next weekend to try him. Its still rather up in the air though. A lot can change between now and then.
I’ve been trying to get over to the Ocala area to look at a few horses for several weeks now and something always comes up to prevent me from going. I may put it off for a few more weeks just because of the pandemic.
I have my eye on one in Spain; not thinking that’s happening any time soon.
This year, given the travel ban to Europe, my partner and I decided to buy from a video. We trust the agent 100% to know what we like. She found the one, did the ppe, wired the money, got his travel papers and he was on his way to Amsterdam, on the day the ban started. He literally missed the plane by a few hours. This was about 2 weeks ago.
In all the confusion, they took him back to Germany to see what other arrangements could be made.
So, this morning he landed at JFK, is in quarantine until Saturday, when he will be picked up and shipped to our farm in the Midwest. I’m honestly shocked that any of this worked out!
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Well, given the current state of emergency, a friend and i have cancelled plans to look at horse at a farm an hour away, in another province. I also have a horse for sale, and have postponed having anyone come and look at the horse.
I bought one a couple weeks ago and I’m supposed to pick her up the first weekend in April (still getting fencing/barn projects completed). She’s 2.5 hours away. I talked to the breeder and we’re tentatively still on but will work out a short term boarding agreement if she has to stay longer.
Quick update. Horse arrived from Amsterdam on Thursday, was released from quarantine this morning and is almost to his new home. Cannot thank Horseflight enough for staying on top of this situation.
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I am taking this time to comb the internet and gather information so when things are back to normal, hopefully will have some to look at. But virus or not (as these ads are from months ago), it is still painful to see so many very BAD videos. Why is a 3 minute video of a 3rd/4th level horse edited 12 times? Or they have half a dozen that are 30 seconds long showing snippets of gaits. For $25,000-$50,000 can’t they do better? There are some sellers/farms who do a great job, it is just a lot of internet searches to stumble on them.
Prices have been highly inflated for some time now. I’m hoping this brings them down to more reasonable price brackets.
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I’ve been looking, then sudden lockdowns happened here, quite a few barns not showing horses (as it should be) Trip to Germany to look at horses postponed. I don’t mind. Would rather not risk myself, family, friends or anyone else getting sick. Am lucky to be in a barn where I can still ride and train. Horse shopping is a luxury that can wait.
I think it is worse! Never saw so many overpriced horses for what they are and little usable info- heavily edited videos, people who don’t even know what breed the horse is, etc.
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