Negotiating Horse Prices

[Beam_Me_Up]

@mlayton

Negotiating prices while horse shopping…
Do you negotiate directly with the buyer? Or do you let your coach take care of it?
When should you bring up a lower offer? Before or after seeing it in-person, or after PPE? I know PPE results can sometimes be leverage for a price reduction in some situations.

That depends - if you are shopping with your coach and paying commission, typically they would handle the negotiations. Make sure you understand what sort of compensation your trainer is expecting (% commission, hourly rate). There have been many threads on this board about people assessed a commission when they didn’t expect it.

There might be situations where you would bring up a lower offer at any of those points:

• If a horse is out of your budget but negotiable you would want to disclose that to the seller before making an appointment to avoid wasting either of your time
• If you like the horse but feel it is overpriced you might make an offer after trying it
• The PPE might bring up additional negotiation concerns

In your case, if you like the horse but feel he is overpriced for not being restarted you could ask the seller if the price is firm and go from there, probably starting on the higher side of your range if she is flexible. (If you said you weren’t willing to pay more than 8K for an un restarted TB, then all you can do is make the lowball as politely as possible and hope for the best, but if you are willing to pay the asking price you don’t want to alienate the seller if she is firm).

I agree with other posters that being a 6-figure yearling does not dictate the OTTB price (esp for geldings). However, it’s not clear from your description whether this horse has “let down” because he is 100% done or whether he is worth that price to race, which might influence the seller’s pricing.

[Unfforgettable]

When I bought my current horse he had been on the market for quite some time. I’d seen videos and thought he looked nice, even though it was clear he’d been lunged for quite some time to wear him out before being ridden. Turns out he was quirky and a difficult amateur ride making him hard to sell. Being a retired pro myself, quirky doesn’t bother me much as long as it’s not unsafe.
His price was way beyond my budget. The owner wasn’t desperate to sell him but also wanted him off the training bill as they had other young stock coming up. I talked with the trainer extensively. Came back and made an offer of just over half their asking price, and even that stretched my budget.
They accepted and the horse was mine. In this case it was a matter of the right buyer, an owner who recognized it was a good way to move the horse on, and their trainer who agreed.

Nothing wrong with haggling on some things. Cars, real estate, horses, stuff on Craigslist or Facebook…I price stuff like that accordingly and build some haggle room into the price.

[mlayton]

Update:

Seller & I came to an agreement. Lower price on the condition I pick the horse up the weekend coming up and wave PPE. I said we can do this weekend but i’m not passing on a PPE that is not negotiable. We did the PPE today and horse turns out to be dead lame in the fetlock, stifle, and hock in his hind leg. I thought maybe he had stiffness from being out of work when I saw his videos and rode him, no limping or anything just stiff. But after flexions it was apparent that it was very off. I ended up stopping there per my vet’s advice and coach’s advice. The vet got real and levelled with me saying he was not hopeful for a good outcome from the x-rays. He said it’s a large price tag to bring home a dead lame young horse, and it will not have a healthy life or ability to do what i wish, even if he is rehabbed it will be unlikely that he can do anything but dressage or more than cross rails. Extremely disappointing, I was quite upset because this horse was perfect in every other way.

I really appreciated this experience. You learn something new every day. Above all, I mostly appreciate the vet being extremely honest and candid with me. I will definitely be using this vet again.

[BatCoach]

sorry he didnt work out. Thank god you had a good, honest vet who saved your bank account and heart from lots of disappointment & pain.