THERE IS NO WAY ON THIS PLANET OR ANY OTHER, that you have the eye, resources, talent, and time that it would take to spot a “diamond in the rough” horse on the track, stable it, train it, and sell it fast to someone at a high enough price point that you would actually recoup any significant amount of money over your initial investment and your losses. In the situation you’ve laid out, you’d be quite lucky to stay in the black.
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I personally hate the term “flipping” when it relates to horses. To me it equates to house flipping. A horse is not a house. Flip to me seems to indicate you really don’t care about the horse, that you have no connection. To resell horses, you really do NEED to care about them and connect with them at least on some level. Maybe it’s just me.
Anyway, good luck with your decision.
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In my experience, to do this successfully with OTTBs, you need:
A. Not pay board (IE, own your own barn, or rent out one)
B. Have the horse for less than 90 days
C. Have connections & a great eye
Once I’ve had the horse for 90 days, I’ve pretty much fed/shod/physio’d/dental/what-have-you the horse the dollar equivalent of what I purchased them for… and 90 days is not a long time, for either training or let-down – so you need to have a very good eye and connections with people, who are not going to sell you a horse that needs time off.
If you are serious about doing this, I would find someone in your state that does this as a program, and ask if you can be an exercise rider or worker. That will help you get connections, and also will help you develop the eye and experience you need, to do this down the line. It is a full-time job and not something I think can be done easily while juggling college/education.
If you’re looking instead, to “make” a horse and then sell at profit once he is no longer green… keep in mind that this model is even harder than the above, and often times by the time you sell them, you’ve spent that equivalent in feed/board/showing expenses… so it really isn’t a profitable endeavor.
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You need to map out your expenses, including everything- board, farrier, vet, supplements, lessons, etc. The model you have described is HIGHLY unlikely to turn a profit- you will be lucky if you don’t lose much money. I don’t want to sound harsh, but an intermediate rider with no experience restarting horses isn’t going to be the kind of person people seek out to buy a horse, especially not a pricy one.
I used to buy and sell young OTTBs and was profitable on all but one. Some key factors that allowed for this:
- My job gave me several free stalls (bedding, hay, and feed included). They were mine to use or lose so I spent nothing on the day to day horse keeping.
- Discounted farrier fees and good fortune with good-footed animals.
- I had in-house help from my employers for free so didn’t need to spend anything on training.
- I was an experienced rider with a lot of experience reschooling young OTTBs, at a farm with a known sales program. We constantly had people calling about our sales horses and generally had 4-5+ to show people, so I never struggled to get my horse in front of potential buyers.
My only real expenses with these horses were shoes, routine vet, and shows. The ones that I sold before they made it to shows were more profitable. I have a decent eye and had some hard rules about buying: size, color (sadly this DOES matter for resale), sex, and temperament. Sometimes you have to buy what’s saleable, not necessarily what you like to ride. Sometimes you pass on a horse you love because you know it’s not going to sell.
I was fortunate to only have one that wasn’t profitable, because he got hurt. The vet bills weren’t bad, but the layup and rehab meant I had him for a year, by the time he was recovered, competing and ready to market again. Not ideal, but I was able to absorb the loss because the rest were successful. If he had needed extensive treatment or needed to be retired, I would have had to make a tough decision.
I miss it, but I now live in an area with insane hay prices and there’s no chance I could do it here and turn any sort of profit (and I keep my horses at home). I can’t imagine trying to do it while boarding- your expenses will add up extremely quickly. My advice would be to find a good prospect and bring it along as a project, something that is sound and quiet and that you enjoy riding. Sell it if you want, but focus more on getting experience and learning than turning a profit. Your circumstances just don’t seem conducive to that.
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Have you run the numbers here? If you buy a $2k horse off the track, board it for x months at $500, plus vet, farrier, show fees to get it exposure, new tack, insurance - what number will you need to sell at to profit? Are OTTBs going for that rate in your area and if so, what are they doing? Are you capable of bringing a horse from just off the track to, say, happily jumping around a 3’ course at a show in a year?
At this point in your life - find a nice, sound, sane prospect and start to learn the process of training horses. (If you want to try to resell it down the line, make your life easier and buy a gelding that’s 16.1h or taller.) If your goal is to eventually have a sales & training business that is great, but you need to learn how to train horses first, start building your network, and eventually figure out a situation where you won’t have to pay board.
Another piece of food for thought… someone who imports and sales a lot of WBs from Europe once told me that she assumes she will never profit on a single horse. She spreads out the risk and buys three at a time, figuring that one will be a complete loss, one will break even, and one will bring in enough profit to let her buy the next three. It’s basically gambling with live animals involved.
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You’ve gotten a lot of really good , primarily negative, advice. Negative for a reason. To resell, you need to have a name, a good name, as a highly reputable individual. A great show record is very good, but expensive to acquire.
Is “Judy Big Red Pony” still posting, if so, I would love to have her weigh in.
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Took the words right out of my mouth. “Flipping” is a wretched word in relation to horses; house yes, horse no.
It depends on WHERE you are. Are the buyers close enough to bring a large enough number of them to see your product? Are the facilities top drawer? (besides what that is going to cost you, as has been pointed out repeatedly)
It depends upon WHO you are. In the H/J world, you are on the H/J thread here, the premium prices go to the places that a buyer can say who/where they bought the horse. Few people will even look in backyards. And trainers aiding clients don’t have the time to trip around doing that.
Do you have CONTACTS and CONNECTIONS. Word of mouth generates the quickest and most stable sales. It is also how you get your product. Without a STEADY supply of prospects and buyers you’d not have a business.
WHAT do you intend to access for prospects? Are you planning on flipping OTTBs? That’s a whole discussion, esp for H/J markets. Green WBs aren’t cheap.
The question seems naïve.
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This is a joke - right ? If it isn’t, please don’t come back here whining when you have broken a leg, you are being sued, people are chasing you for money, and animal control has seized your herd of starving horses.
I’m pretty sure this is Jessica Redman of Benchmark Sport Horses! She is phenomenal at what she does, and is the only person I would buy an OTTB sight unseen from. I got my baby boy from her and it was a wonderful experience. She has an excellent business model cultivated from years of knowledge and experience both on the track and with retraining.
One of the days I will write a blog post about how I got to where I am at now but even on good days I will tell you the resale business is extremely hard. I hate the term flipper but yes essentially I sell a very high volume of ottb’s (over 120+ consistently a year) and generally move them in less than a month. I am extremely picky about where my horses go to and for the $$ I ask for my horses they go to show homes. I care about my horses. I might not know everything about them in a short period of time but I won’t just sell to anyone. I always put my horses first no matter what.
You HAVE to run it as a business and sometimes that means taking the emotions out of it. I would love to buy more mares, older horses, war horses, horses with minor issues that don’t bother me, etc but they don’t sell well and horses that don’t sell take up stalls and eat up profits.
I have been at this a very long time. I know what sells and what buyers will spend money on. My goal is to clear $2k per horse on average. So that means if I buy it, ship it, do it’s feet, teeth and whatever else can I make that $2k profit after those costs? It takes the right horse to even think you will because right now the market is extremely competitive with everyone wanting to sell tb’s and people think they can find better horses cheaper somewhere else. Don’t you know you can go to the track and find something sound, big, flashy, etc for under $2k lol… Let’s just say that I have been at it for a very long time with established connections and I find it hard to find horses because horses HAVE to vet. I am not talking just be sound…they have to be pristine. No vices, no blemishes, good conformation, good feet and xray clean.
I can’t factor in PPE’s and I don’t PPE mine but I have been doing this a very long time and I have an extremely good eye for soundness. I would say 95% of what I buy pass extensive vettings with no problems so that means I get it right more often than I get it wrong. It’s just years and years of practice and reading race records, evaluating pedigrees, looking at conformation, pictures, jog videos, knowing who to trust and who to run away from and the list goes on.
Is it profitable? Yes, I do quite well but a lot of that is because I have tried to establish a business of selling top quality Tb’s that are the types that stand above the rest. I also have the marketing skills of taking pictures and video that showcase the horses ability to buyers. We do free videos, free jumping videos and ride videos. I pay riders that have the ability to showcase a horse and trust me getting on a fresh off the track Tb and making it look good is a special set of skills. We teach the horses contact, going forward, into the bridle, moving off the leg, etc fairly quickly because that is what buyers have to see to want to assess a horses potential. When you do a high volume you get very good at assessing what horses want to do, what kind of rides they want, who they suit, how they are in the barn, are they good in turnout, etc, All the little things that can ensure you find good matches and keep people coming back for more horses.
I think my business has continued to expand because the horses that I sell have done my marketing for me. That is the end goal for me because good horses and good buyer experiences will attract future customers. I have some barns that have 4+ of my horses between trainers, clients, etc and that is really cool.
Do I recommend this business for the average person? I think we all start somewhere but I will say that you have the ability to lose a lot of money very easily. It is extremely high risk. So many people have no idea what things cost. One bad vetting and you may end up giving a horse away that you had $4k into and ouch if you don’t have more money coming in then you are done. I spread the risk around by doing quick sales at high volume. Sure, not everyone likes it but that has been the most profitable for me. I would love to do more training but people don’t want to pay for what it costs. If you have to board a horse then I don’t find there is a lot of profit unless you are selling them quickly.
My niche is being the go between of the track and the sport horse world. I am going out and using my vast network to find the horse everyone wants and supplying the buyers with a bit more information to make it easier for them to make a decision. You can do that as well but how will you market and who do you market to? With facebook cracking down on sales it has really made marketing for the people starting out reselling much harder because maybe I want to buy the horse you found at a FL track but how do I find out about you?
You have to make the horses stand out. Do you have good video equipment, good cameras and a rider good enough to make a horse look nice? Marketing is the key and it takes a lot of practice to get good at it.
Anyway I hope that helps a little bit. I never want to discourage anyone because I started out doing sales in college as a way to afford school and I have just grown my business over the years. We all have to start somewhere but there is rarely a day that goes by when I don’t question my sanity. Don’t even get me started on vettings. That is a bible I could write and it just makes me not want to sell horses because the unrealistic expectations that exist.
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This is a great post. As a question to you, what was the average price you were paying off the track when you started? It’s been my understanding that number has gone up a lot in recent years so the profit margins on the OTTB market are getting even tougher unless you are very good.
Also, to the OP, most of the horses in Ocala are either in training or part of a breeding program. If you had good connections you may be able to get some that are never going to make it to the track but you won’t necessarily have the same supply as being close to an active track where the trainers sell horses at the end of a meet.
Flipping horses = paying a finder’s fee. And I and my DD would gladly pay Jessica hers!
As has been mentioned success in resales is due to contacts and connections and reputation. That’s a period at the end of that sentence 
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I can’t say that I pay more for horses now that I was paying 5yrs ago because I think the good horses coming from good connections have always been valued. I guess my answer is that it just depends. I have contacts that just call me directly and ask enough to keep their owners happy but allow me room for profit simply because they don’t want to deal with the average horse person. I think everyone doesn’t really understand that most track people don’t really enjoy working with sport horse people. You can offend them very easily by not understanding and honestly they simply don’t have time to entertain vettings, pictures, jog videos, etc.
I also think your sales prices need to be strategic. I see some pricing fresh off the track horses at $9500. What I have found is that a lot of times people buying at those prices are ammy’s not always really appropriate for a ottb. They see a pretty fancy horse and want to buy it but they aren’t repeat buyers. I want my horses to be in the price range that I am reaching the people that are well equipped to restart them. I want trainers to be able to afford my horses. I want lots of pro’s coming and and buying my horses. I have people that have bought 4+ horses from me and those are my target customers as far as pricing. I need to price mine to allow pro’s to make profit and I want pro’s to buy my horses or ammy’s doing further resale. That is good business. So sometimes I sacrifice profit to get my horses in barns where I know they will generate future business if that makes sense?
I am trying to be that person finding the horses for the people who don’t want to go to the track and are willing to pay more for an honest evaluation, chance to do a vetting, see a horse free/jump and being ridden, etc.
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Amen to that!!!
The moment most track folks hear you are a performance horse person, the price doubles (minimum). I’ve had track folks tell me $1500 for a nice horse and then find out I was looking for a performance horse and the price jumps to $4000. And, no, you don’t get to argue with them. They just walk away because they already have somebody who will buy the horse usually.
Looking for a horse literally on the track means you walk out there cash in hand (you pay the moment you say “yes,” no checks, no venmo, no “I need to run to the bank/atm”), no PPE, nothing but your eyes and judgement about a horse. You need to be willing to lose a few thousand dollars every time you buy one off the track. That is why Jleegriffith is a necessary commodity in that world. That is why I cultivate jockey and outrider friends.
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I’m not a flipper, but I’ve owned several OTTB’s, and every one of them came from knowing someone at the track.
Besides the above excellent description of what it takes…you have to be able to absorb losses. Insurance? From whom would you buy that? Very few underwriters offer it on lower priced horses, lower priced meaning established value under 10k, a few go down to around 4K. They wont pay out a medical claim for more then the horses insured value. So it’s nothing to fall back on to recoup losses and additional carrying costs until you sell it.
