It does not have to be an auction. With regard to the world equestrian games, I said sales barn. If you can’t get people to come look at your horses, then bring your horses to where the buyers are. I have heard an estimate of 100,000 people attending the world equestion games in 2010. A lot of the people will not be from the US so they probably will not be buying. But since this is a first for the US, many will be traveling from all over the US. I would bet some enterprising person with the appropriate facilities in Kentucky would be happy to get the business of hosting the sales horses.
[QUOTE=nhwr;3337970]
I have a gelding that I need to move to make room for the new mare I want. I am advertising him and he is very well priced for his quality and training (1st level & 15K). But I am not getting a lot of activity on him. I would love to have an auction situation that I could place him in.[/QUOTE]
That sounds very reasonable for a good guy like that…ouch. I would be pretty frustrated, I think.
One of the things they do in Westfalia that is great, is they have a “market place” on the 3rd Monday of every month, I think. The Verband posts info that owners submit about the horses they want to bring but any member can just show up. They just haul their horses to the facility and work them for a bit. It is a great informal way to look at horses and the breeders/owners get to hang out and chat.
YL, it is frustrating. Too bad you are on the wrong coast, you could help me market him 
Ok, I made a mistake in saying 100,000 people are expected to attend the games in 2010. It is 600,000 to 700,000.!!! Now wouldn’t a sale (or auction if you would prefer) be more appealing?
http://www.thinkkentucky.com/cednews/Apr2007/enews_apr07_weg.htm
http://www.regardinghorses.com/2008/01/30/fei-world-equestrian-games-2010-coming-to-kentucky/
[QUOTE=nhwr;3338064]
YL, it is frustrating. Too bad you are on the wrong coast, you could help me market him ;)[/QUOTE]
Forget marketig him…what about me, me, me! ; ) I try not to buy geldings, though. My riding horse is recovering from an illness, my mares are pregnant, and the only one not pregnant or recovering is my yearling, so nothing to ride right now :(. But seriously, for the price of a good foal, someone should be very lucky to have him.
AHF used to organize a super nice annual Mid-Atlantic Hanoverian Breeders sales event at a very good facility in my area, but people just didn’t come. It was the hugest mystery to me, because I thought it was a great event. Any ideas about how to get people to actually come to these things?
Hmm similar boat. Two babies, one retired, one child’s pony and one riding horse. Riding horse on stall rest. How can I own five horses and have nothing to ride? 
give away free gasoline.
Luring buyers…
YankeeLawyer, I’m a software designer, so maybe since I’m holding a hammer all problems are nails :winkgrin:, but I honestly think a key part of the solution is a SINGLE, very well managed web site for North American sporthorses (either bred here, or imports already on US soil) with a templated presentation of each horse that facilitates comparison shopping. For example, each listing should have mandatory information including appropriate conformation shots, videos, pricing, breeding, experience, size, geographical location and so on so it’s very easy for buyers to get a feel for everything available with certain characteristics.
So, for example, let’s say I could somehow express my search criteria like the following since this is how the user (buyer) is thinking:
-
Price: would prefer to spend < $40k with the horse in the barn (most people have some magic number in mind, and usually that number needs to include any commisions, vetting and shipping)
-
Age: 3 - 8 (4 is a hard minimum since I don’t want to deal with an absolute green bean, but let me know if there are horses a little older who may be an awesome fit since the top end is a little arbitrary!)
-
Experience: Dressage, training level +. Don’t require show mileage. Don’t require jumping skills.
-
Hacking: Want a horse who is willing to condition outside the arena either alone or with others
-
Gaits: I want to see floaty and elastic with a free shoulder and active hind leg. Don’t show me fabulous hunter movement, for example, or a correct mover who doesn’t have lots of suspension
-
Disposition: Kind, forward-thinking, strong work ethic. Don’t mind a horse that gets a little hot or spooky, but don’t want something a hair’s breath away from a full-on melt down on any given day
-
Common Vices (rearing, chronic bucking, biting, won’t load, won’t tolerate clipping, won’t stand for farrier): Don’t want to deal rearing, chronic bucking, biting. Would consider working through the other stuff
-
Soundness: No known soundness problems (so, don’t show me something that requires hock maintenance, for example)
-
Breed: don’t care but have a preference for Hanoverians
-
Gender: not stallion
-
Size: don’t care. More important than height since I’m not super tall: width of back and barrel. I have a 16’ mare in the barn that is actually a bit wide for me, but I also have a 16.3 TB who fits me beautifully even though I’m only 5’ 5" ’ cause he has a classic paper-thin TB build
-
Location: don’t care. I’m willing to look anywhere in the USA. But, I would look to see what’s in my backyard! For buyers, might be nice to say within driving distance of “X airport” or “X major city” so people can orient themselves without having to know where Podunk, VA is
So, imagine I could somehow express this criteria (and further assume the horses are reliably represented without too many fictional embellishments ) and find even 15 - 20 horses that look like really good candidates. Even if the results were located over a large-ish geographic area, if each and every one of those finds looked like something I’d like to try – and my heart is telling me to CALL THE SELLER NOW BEFORE SOMEONE ELSE SNAPS UP HORSE X – now I’ve forgotten the apparent smorgasbord of horses from Europe.
Now, further assume I’m in two minds about what I want: do I want something really young and talented, or would I lprefer an older horse to teach me some upper level movements that I have yet to experience myself (maybe my next horse is going to teach me something more, and then I get a young horse who is capable of going any farther???) I would do another search with completely different criteria and explore an alternative approach.
Then, after doing both searches, let’s say I narrow it down to 5 younger horses and 2 experienced campaigners within a 20 hour drive of the Washington DC area? Even without speaking to a seller, I have all the information I need to plot a course of action for a very focused buying trip. All I need to do is start making phone calls, and I haven’t wasted any of my time or the seller’s exploring horses that aren’t a good fit.
And coming back to YL’s question about sales events, if we started with something like this web site (which would require far less investment from sellers) if it really proved itself, it would be a logical marketing launch point for sales. So, the site becomes like a catalog for regional sales, and may even be a tool for figuring out if you have enough potential buyers in an area to make it worth it. These sales would also need to be advertized in other places, but if the site is bring the buyers to the sellers, it’s a great place to begin. Since this is cross-breed and doesn’t target people deeply involved in the breeding business, seems like it could be a win-win.
Now, I’m starting to envision a design in my head… :lol:
Luring buyers…
YankeeLawyer, I’m a software designer, so maybe since I’m holding a hammer all problems are nails :winkgrin:, but I honestly think a key part of the solution is a SINGLE, very well managed web site for North American sporthorses (either bred here, or imports already on US soil) with a templated presentation of each horse that facilitates comparison shopping. For example, each listing should have mandatory information including appropriate conformation shots, videos, pricing, breeding, experience, size, geographical location and so on so it’s very easy for buyers to get a feel for everything available with certain characteristics.
So, for example, let’s say I could somehow express my search criteria like the following since this is how the user (buyer) is thinking:
-
Price: would prefer to spend < $40k with the horse in the barn (most people have some magic number in mind, and usually that number needs to include any commisions, vetting and shipping)
-
Age: 3 - 8 (4 is a hard minimum since I don’t want to deal with an absolute green bean, but let me know if there are horses a little older who may be an awesome fit since the top end is a little arbitrary!)
-
Experience: Dressage, training level +. Don’t require show mileage. Don’t require jumping skills.
-
Hacking: Want a horse who is willing to condition outside the arena either alone or with others
-
Gaits: I want to see floaty and elastic with a free shoulder and active hind leg. Don’t show me fabulous hunter movement, for example, or a correct mover who doesn’t have lots of suspension
-
Disposition: Kind, forward-thinking, strong work ethic. Don’t mind a horse that gets a little hot or spooky, but don’t want something a hair’s breath away from a full-on melt down on any given day
-
Common Vices (rearing, chronic bucking, biting, won’t load, won’t tolerate clipping, won’t stand for farrier): Don’t want to deal rearing, chronic bucking, biting. Would consider working through the other stuff
-
Soundness: No known soundness problems (so, don’t show me something that requires hock maintenance, for example)
-
Breed: don’t care but have a preference for Hanoverians
-
Gender: not stallion
-
Size: don’t care. More important than height since I’m not super tall: width of back and barrel. I have a 16’ mare in the barn that is actually a bit wide for me, but I also have a 16.3 TB who fits me beautifully even though I’m only 5’ 5" ’ cause he has a classic paper-thin TB build
-
Location: don’t care. I’m willing to look anywhere in the USA. But, I would look to see what’s in my backyard! For buyers, might be nice to say within driving distance of “X airport” or “X major city” so people can orient themselves without having to know where Podunk, VA is
So, imagine I could somehow express this criteria (and further assume the horses are reliably represented without too many fictional embellishments ) and find even 15 - 20 horses that look like really good candidates. Even if the results were located over a large-ish geographic area, if each and every one of those finds looked like something I’d like to try – and my heart is telling me to CALL THE SELLER NOW BEFORE SOMEONE ELSE SNAPS UP HORSE X – now I’ve forgotten the apparent smorgasbord of horses from Europe.
Now, further assume I’m in two minds about what I want: do I want something really young and talented, or would I lprefer an older horse to teach me some upper level movements that I have yet to experience myself (maybe my next horse is going to teach me something more, and then I get a young horse who is capable of going any farther???) I would do another search with completely different criteria and explore an alternative approach.
Then, after doing both searches, let’s say I narrow it down to 5 younger horses and 2 experienced campaigners within a 20 hour drive of the Washington DC area? Even without speaking to a seller, I have all the information I need to plot a course of action for a very focused buying trip. All I need to do is start making phone calls, and I haven’t wasted any of my time or the seller’s exploring horses that aren’t a good fit.
And coming back to YL’s question about sales events, if we started with something like this web site (which would require far less investment from sellers) if it really proved itself, it would be a logical marketing launch point for sales. So, the site becomes like a catalog for regional sales, and may even be a tool for figuring out if you have enough potential buyers in an area to make it worth it. These sales would also need to be advertized in other places, but if the site is bring the buyers to the sellers, it’s a great place to begin. Since this is cross-breed and doesn’t target people deeply involved in the breeding business, seems like it could be a win-win.
Now, I’m starting to envision a design in my head… :lol:
warmbloods-for-sale.com is a pretty good site to search for horses by breed, bloodlines, discipline etc, probably location too.
Someone start a thread on this in the Sporthorse breeding forum. I would, but I am not sure how to title it. Maybe “Marketing your horse”? Then we can leave this to be about the article the OP presented.
talloaks – thanks, I look at warmbloods-for-sale all the time. It is a very useful sight.
But, I should have added, in addition to the site itself, I think the key criteria for success include:
- Consistent presentation of full details for each horse, including mandatory videos
- Includes sellers who today just rely on word-of-mouth, private sites or other ways of reaching buyers
Why start a new thread when this thread is about buying horses and not just from breeders, but horses in preformance??
I strongly disagree that this is a breeding discussion since people who sell are not necessarily breeding the horses. Some may be importing them, other reselling. I think it relates to the OP’s article in the sense that we’re talking about the process of buying horses. Going to Europe, as decribed by the OP is one way, and it seems like a darn good choice given the marketing of horses here. I think this discussion evolved because any talk of buying in Europe seems to generate frustration on the part of sellers, and I’m trying to say to sellers: find a way to market your awesome US horses to me, or I will do exactly as the OP described 
Well, I thought you might get input from buyers/sellser whose interest is not in the dressage enviroment and thus might not visit this particular thread or board.
The thing is, have you ever tried searching on some of those WB websites using a search function? The usefulness of the search function is heaviily dependent on how the seller describes the horse. If you input “dressage,” for example, it seems that any seller with a horse that can walk trot and canter without falling flat on its face is suddenly a “dressage” horse. One person might think their horse has great x.y,z, but 10 others will vehemently disagree. You still would have to weed through a whole lot of horses that in no way have any of the attributes you are seeking. When I look at sites like warmbloods-for-sale.com , I will literally go through every single ad for a Hanoverian, if that is what I am looking for. The only search limitations I might put in are age and bloodlines, otherwise most of the time the results are both over- and underinclusive (i.e., the filter screens out horses I would want to see and catches a bunch that don’t meet my criteria).
The reason that the auction websites are useful and interesting to look at is that the horses presented are selected from among many others to be part of the auction. And all horses are presented the same way in video clips (ironically, which do not show 80% of the things some posters insist are essential to a sales video) – they each are W-T-C on a straight line in the same indoor arena. That is it. But, it does make it easier to do a side-by-side comparison.
Speaking of auctions in Germany, in case anyone is interested, the vidoes are now available for the Hanoverian summer auction in Germany.
Just thought I’d mention that three horses in my barn right now were purchased directly from or indiirectly through other COThers, whom I initially “met” here :).
You know, page3girl, I think you’re on to something… One of the questions is who could we find to sponsor the expense associated with putting on such a site? It would require quite a sales effort to get the major registries to contribute (if at all), and I don’t think that the USEF or USDF would even look at it. So it comes back to the sellers to put up a certain amount of money in order to have their horses listed, and the sad truth is that without a certain history of success it’ll be hard to convince them to ante up, especially given the number of “free” sites that will give them “exposure”.
Without some heavyweights behind the site, how difficult would it be to get sellers to comply with the video requirements? And I do think that everybody should have to do the minimum requirements for that.
Lots of questions, but I definitely think that something like that would be “doable” and actually be quite useful. The website could have several regional sub-sites that would cover the geographical issues…
I see that you’re in MIddleburg… maybe we should talk?
