The one I hate the most is “Trail Horse Deluxe”. Such an overused and usually inaccurate description and the video shows them trotting around an arena.
I was watching a sales video the other day for another “deluxe trail horse” the phone/camera was clearly on a post as the horse was going around the arena, would go out of the frame, ten full seconds later, comes back in the frame. Couldn’t the seller find one other person to hold the camera to record the entire circuit?
Oh that’s a good one.
I also dislike “bombproof” when attached to a 3 or 4 year old. The horse isn’t old enough for you to even know how it handles Life yet!
Yes! And the one that goes along with that: “He’s only 4 but he has an old soul.”
Sometimes I see that phrase with horses I’d actually try if I were looking–like squarish 14.3h unfancy horses (often mares) who seem sane and sound but just don’t check any obvious “discipline” boxes like jumping/dressage/Western stuff or whatever. Or are a little fugly. Just a decent grade-type horse that doesn’t draw people’s attention.
But more often than not, it’s a wildly overpriced horse that the seller has somehow convinced herself is a rare diamond because she bred the horse/ feels she put a lot of training into it/ doesn’t want to sell but has to. Like others have said, not necessarily a bad horse, but not what is really “there” versus what the seller believes she has.
went through this in the 1980s, if today is to be like that period (unlikely as nothing today is like anything from the past) but the horse market then changed forever from one where it was common for a horse to be owned. This was just after the period where a person could order a pony for the family from Sears
Today, I just do not foresee the Equine market returning to historic levels.
The horse ads I look at are from breeders I know. There is one weanling filly I really would like to have until I look out at the herd we have and just can not justify the long term expense of a even a very nice filly
This is so true.
I keep a spreadsheet of horse expenses, and while my salary has doubled and tripled in the last decade, so have the horse expenses. And everything else.
I went from scraping by but happily owning one horse (while working entry level jobs) to scraping by STILL owning one horse while working a corporate “real job” (according to my parents 
). Frustrating.
Hence why I window shop and critique sale ads 
the new income to be “middle class” is now $300,000 per year
There most likely will always be those who own horses but those numbers will be fewer as the cost increase.
Even owning a Dog or Cat who once was not a burden since they were fed scraps from the table or nothing as they hunted their own food, today our Pet dogs and cats eat more expensive food than I. Their vet care now is the same cost as we formerly paid for horse care (we had a GSD last year have emergency surgery … $15,000)
Hunter barns that think their burnt out, used up horses are automatically Dressage prospects.
May I quote you? That’s brilliant. I once told a client that leasing an aged horse was like a game of hot potato. Everyone want to use the wonderful, experienced old packer, but no one wants to end up holding the end of life hot potato.
Normally I’m ok with your sources…. But the idiot that wrote that article is so out of touch with reality. He’s nothing more than an overpaid software developer. Ignore him and quit giving him clicks. 
Certainly.
Truthfully, I recently was holding that lead rope for a horse I had for only two short years. I’m still heartbroken over it. I wish it could have been different, but I did everything possible. It was just too little too late for my poor boy. I struggle with bitterness too. Things might have been different if he had come into my care earlier in his life.
He was a good horse and I’m glad to have known him, but I’m hesitant to put myself in that position again. I’d like the odds to be better for enjoying a new horse for a longer period of time before breaking my heart and wallet again.
I console myself that dearly departed horse was well loved and cared for here and went easy at the end here at home.
omg, THIS. Those are the ads that truly baffle me–when they post a photo or video of the horse jumping, and the ad says the horse can’t jump anymore but would be great for dressage. Has the horse ever ridden a dressage test? No. Have the seller or owner ever ridden dressage? No. But because the horse can’t jump anymore=dressage.
“Look! His head’s down!”
As the horses jogs by on his forehand, dragging its hind end a zip code behind
Actual comment.
My favorite is “potential to be a great field hunter!” is usually code for not quiet enough for the hunters, not scopey or tidy enough for the jumpers, no dressage schooling for eventing = great field hunter!
It may never have been out of the ring or ridden in company, but in the sale ad, it’s a field hunter prospect.
Real story: someone posted a 2 year old stud, with 90 days training, for sale that was “kid broke” in a FB cow horse group recently for $100k. I hoped it was a joke - it wasn’t. I died a little inside. 
IME, “kid broke” can either mean a kid broke it, or it broke a kid, not necessarily that it’s gentle enough for a kid to ride.
Hahaha! Yes, it often means that it’s been led around with a kid on its back–which is way different than a horse that can actually, you know, be steered by a kid!
I see this with horses that won’t/can’t make it in the “arena disciplines” too - they automatically are “great trail horses”. Uhhhh… no.
I would argue it takes more training and more… everything to be a good trail horse, not some reject out of some program of some sort.
Oh nooooooooooo
if you don’t laugh you’ll cry. “Kid broke”? You mean the last kid who rode it, broke?
Or when “endurance prospect” means the horse is so hyped up and BSC that you have to ride it for miles before it has any brakes beyond running it into a tree.
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