Fair enough and good point. When you basically have infinite money you’re not gonna care about true value, it’s all about the status symbol.
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csasper58, you underestimate the elite horse world.
MANY trainers with names have been know to misrepresent the price of a horse and be the “middle man” for the sale, pocketing the $$. That’s wrong. But hey, they’re a big name so wouldn’t you believe them?
MANY of the buyers are very wealthy and paying $$$ for a horse with the qualities they want (showing, rideability, whatever) is not a big deal for them. BP is known for this. It doesn’t mean she should be sold overpriced horses. And no, no one I know who buys 6-figure horses uses an appraiser. “Sub-par” canter or tempis could be due to fitness, the rider or the trainer. That can be fixed. Or not, if the buyer doesn’t care that much and wants a horse s/he can ride and show and learn on.
Caroline should be ashamed of herself if this is true, because she’s misrepresenting a sale. I don’t care how common that might be given her peers. That’s my opinion-ethics and responsibility count. There are plenty of people in the elite show world who would argue she’s doing what she should be doing - making herself money. I think that misrepresentation is wrong and should be prosecuted. My opinion. Horse sales, especially “elite” horse sales, should be transparent to the seller and buyer.
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Peslar apparently doesn’t show much. According to USDFScores, her last outing on any horse was in 2014, and before that, 2009.
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Btw, earlier this year I called around hunterland asking for a nice type, good mover (A circuit quality), not a dumb size, don’t care if it’s broke or not but the budget is 10-15k.
When I call around I don’t necessarily reveal that I am a pro or drop names.
One Irish trainer flatly mansplained that what I was looking for DOES NOT EXIST for less than $25-30k and has not for the last 25 years.
HHHHHHHHHAHAHAHAHAHA oh sweetie did I not mention I am a pro and what I bought and sold my last horse for? You can save the smoke and mirrors for someone else.
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No, the Peslars are well mounted but they choose not to show much.
I have never underestimated the potential for dishonest behavior in matters of horsetrading.
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So perhaps what the buyer wanted was a top horse and perhaps the horse was not performing as she thought it might, or questionable in some way so perhaps she got in touch with Alice and did some tracking on her own, and perhaps she told Alice what was going on and also what she paid, and to whom she paid it, and perhaps that’s how this whole thing came about.
That’s how I found out, in my case. Except leave out the performance part. Just substitute standing around talking st a show.
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As others have mentioned, this kind of stuff is not uncommon in the horse industry, even with the highest levels of elite riders/trainers. I can think of at least two VERY, VERY high profile riders/trainers who perfected it to an art form (they are both household names amongst the dressage crowd). One sort of set the pattern back in the late 90’s and following years - and got away with it because the defrauded sellers either never went after him legally or they settled out of court to avoid public scandal. The other one defrauded a client in a sale to the tune of $1 million, but got “discovered” after the deal because the trainer for the new owner ran into the previous owner at a show and they got to chatting. The seller’s trainer was trying to make a U.S. team and when he was threatened with lawsuit by the defrauded client, his very wealthy sponsor stepped in and paid the $1 million out-of-court settlement to avoid an uproar in the dressage world and at USET/USEF.
As for the buyer - she may be a “professional”, but she was showing in Brentina Cup in 2009. That is for ages 16-25 - if she was 25 in 2009, she would have been 31 when this deal went down. Some people at 31 are pretty mature - and some are not. If she falls in the second category - and had unlimited funds to burn - then I can totally see her getting hoodwinked into paying $900K for a 6 year old that had not shown for two years. And especially so if she had the bit in her teeth about making a big splash in the show ring and the dressage world in general. But if I was her, I would be going after Ots (her agent). If not outright complicit in the fraud, he was certainly not acting in his client’s best interests. I mean really - convincing a client to pay $900K for a 6-year old that hadn’t shown in two years? Just wow - he is certainly not a paragon of virtue, is he?
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This ^^ The more I think about this mess, the more I wonder what Ots’ role really was…Yes he was BP’s agent/trainer, but also had a close connection to CR. Have to wonder if his pocket got greased along the way? Did he talk?
As to the $900k, there are more than a few people who will pay that for an unshown, big moving 4-5 yr old WB. Look at the numbers that come out of the PSI auction in Germany every year. And there are people who will buy two at a time. Because they can.
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Another point of potential value for Faberge is that she is a mare. Future broodmare potential. That could certainly factor in to someone’s willingness to pay top dollar.
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How are we to interpret that ?
From the other posts I think that means this buyer is not one to do much showing so not having a show record is not an unusual thing.
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I totally cannot comprehend paying $900K for a horse that you don’t even intend on showing. There aren’t plenty of good $200K horses out there that you can ride and not show??? Different world indeed…
If this is true, I’d be surprised at Alice Tarjan being bamboozled. Isn’t she an attorney herself? Likely she knows the law and how to protect herself in a sale.
how hard is it to have buyer and sellers plus their agents sit down before finalizing a sale? Or have everything disclosed as to who is paying what?
In view of this suit, perhaps she has not been bamboozled.
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If she wasn’t bamboozled there would not be a need for a lawsuit because it never would have gone this far, if it is in fact true.
There are a lot of honest people in this industry, but a few bad ones give us all a bad name! Seems like the more MONEY involved, or the more horses they turn over, the worse the ethics are. But I know a lot of small breeders, and several trainers who are totally open and honest about the horses they are selling. Please don’t paint everyone with the same broad brush.
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This post would work in every horse industry, not just dressage.
:lol:
or Perhaps it didnt happen until it happened.
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None of us know the nature of the relationship between Alice Tarjan and Caroline Roffman. For all you know, Alice thought Caroline was a close friend. And if that were the case, Caroline may have very well acted like a close friend would (calls just to chit chat, birthday gifts, dinners etc) to make Alice feel like a friend. The best scam artists know how to get their marks to trust them. She clearly thought Caroline was doing everything in her best interest because she took her advice regarding to $300k sales price.
Just look at how many people are defending Caroline right out of the gate, as if it’s absolutely impossible for someone as perfect as Caroline to ever do such a thing. There are some people who will refuse to believe it, regardless of the outcome in court, short of Caroline Roffman privately admitting it to them.
She had sold other horses for Alice and lots of other very high end clients so she likely has a good reputation outside of this incident. Also the fact that she is so high profile, you might assume that someone who is that wealthy and with that kind of visibility would never do something that underhanded because the risk of ruining her reputation wouldn’t be worth it. Imagine if this were Akiko and Steffen.
It’s the same reason so many people got taken by Bernie Madoff. Being an attorney doesn’t mean you’re not human.
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