Does anyone know (ballpark) what a year lease on a 18/19 year old U25 horse should be? The horse is sound and has been showing at that height for the last 10 years, with a different rider every year or 2/3.
Too many variables… Leases have pushed closer to 50% of purchase price in recent years, so I’d say probably around $100k for the year for one that can do that job safely and well.
What?! Are 19yo U25 horses really going for 200k now?
Just looking around just now I found a few proven jumpers (1.2m+) for sale in the 16/17yo range for 45k-50k. The 50k one was a 3-ring horse. That’s quite a discrepancy, especially given OP’s horse is 2 years older.
U25 horses jump 1.35-1.50m. Huge difference from your average three-ring type. And, of course, I’m not saying that this horse’s owners could turn around and sell it for $200k. They probably couldn’t. But that’s why leasing out horses like this is so lucrative.
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Aren’t the U25 classes run concurrently with the 1.4-m GP?
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50k for a 1.20 horse that isn’t (insane/very hard to ride/not sound/etc) is a pretty affordable lease where I am (east coast). That is what you’d pay for a 1.10/big eq type, not a 1.40 GP horse for a young rider… (edited to add: I saw you said for SALE for $50k…yeah, absolutely unheard of in my neck of the woods. To buy a sound safe honest 1.20+ Horse you would probably spend double that to buy at least).
I would agree that a real U25 horse - as in, is jumping at minimum 1.40 but probably more like 1.45-150 -is absolutely going to be closer to the $100k a year range. Use your imagination for ones that are winning, brave, and easy.
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Yep. If I were to full lease mine, that’s exactly what I’d be asking and while he’s awesome, he’s not a U25 horse.
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Fair - In my brief search, couldn’t find any horses in that age range jumping higher than that, so I just settled for as high as I could find.
I’m uh… not in the tax bracket to buy a horse like this lol, so I usually don’t keep up with what the higher end of the market is going for to avoid the “gimmes”.
You’re not going to see horses of this caliber advertise online, much less with pricing info publicly available. Here’s a younger one in that range: https://www.proequest.com/horse/tapalpa-ls, but for a lease, age is not going to impact the price as it would for sale.
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I remember an article/interview a couple years ago on COTH. I don’t remember who it was with but one of the real big names, McLain or someone, and they said the single most expensive horses out there were the U25 horses. They have to have basically FEI Grand Prix jumping scope and then be rideable and forgiving for someone maybe a little nervous the first time on really bigger tracks. That combo is just a unicorn, there are very few horses alive that are capable of those two things.
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Thank you ! It’s not my horse! it’s a very well-known horse my friend is looking into leasing for her son. I thought it sounded like a lot @ 150/ year but sounds like it’s in the right ballpark. And yes U25 (at least in FL) is 1.50
Considering most true U25 horses (as in jumping the WEF U25 series~ equivalent of 2*/3* GPs) are going for a minimum 1 mil+, if you find one for less than 150k a year it is probably not doing its job well anymore, for a variety of potential reasons.
As mentioned above they need to be able to jump 1.45-1.50, take a joke, be careful enough, and sound enough to pass an FEI jog + no showing on NSAIDs. Even at 18/19 if it is still doing the true U25 job that means its a pretty sound creature so its price doesn’t really need to reflect its age that much.
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150 a year for a real U25 horse with solid experience frankly sounds like a bargain. Agree with @onlyTBmares here that these are true unicorns.
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