This totally depends. I’m in a crazy cost area ($12k unpapered if you want it sound and started undersaddle???) and it’s cheaper for me to buy out of the middle of the country and shipping. Yeah, sucks, but… When my filly crossed the state line in 2021, her “price” doubled, minimum.
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Excel or something else? I need to probably start doing this (cries in single income)
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Excel. Supported by a completely unintelligible Notes app on my phone 
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HA!!
Yeah I really need to buckle down and do this, esp if I really actually plan on getting in small score breeding. Sigh.
I would ship in a riding horse, but if I get a more pasture puff maybe tote the hubby at the walk around the property type I’m looking at a free or very cheap horse and not going to pay shipping when there’s a lot locally that need a home.
It’s a conundrum bc I really don’t prefer to pay current market rates for a solid riding horse when realistically I’m doing good to ride my current horse a few times a week in the better weather seasons. And current riding horse is both pleasant to ride and more than well suited to my discipline of choice.
ETA the conundrum is of course that a free / cheap pasture puff / retiree type is more likely to be aged and / or have serious soundness issues and I don’t particularly want to be stuck at the end of the lead rope at the final vet appointment again in the near future.
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And leave a paper trail for how much money I’m spending on horses? I think not!
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It costs the same to feed and shelter a pasture puff as it does a riding horse last I checked.
I feel for pasture puffs but the “need” to retire someone else’s horse has left the building here. I used to want to save them all but got burnt holding the end of the lead rope.
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Really costs less to maintain a young ish healthy horse than it does one it’s twilight IME.
But I’m paying either way to maintain a horse I don’t need and don’t have time to ride. So do I drop a chunk of change on a horse over continuing to improve my facility? It’s a theoretical question of course but like most folks I don’t have unlimited funds. To make it murkier, I’ll adopt the wandering pony down the road before I sign up for anything feral or a baby. Flat out don’t have time or desire to do that again.
I keep hoping I’ll bump into the right horse. I’m sure he’s out there.
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Barn near me just started offering retirement board. I think they think those horses will be less work (living out, two grain meals a day, etc) and owners around less.
I think they’re in for a rude awakening.
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As far as hassle with owners, might be something to that but pumping free choice alfalfa and 12 lbs of high quality Sr or similar feed into a golden oldie ain’t cheap.
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And older horses need more than that, plus being looked over twice a day, not glanced at as grain gets tossed to each of them loose in a pasture.
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So true and I don’t buy any of the expensive stuff.
“Can’t jump, can’t steer, can’t be ridden in a circle, only has a left lead…TRAIL HORSE!” I guess they figure the horse won’t need any of this on the trail.
It’s like rescues that market hyperactive dogs as “great agility prospect.”
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Soaked hay substitutes! My oldie was majorly time intensive to care for. Needed much more babying than my younger healthy horse.
I don’t begrudge my old guy for the time he sucked up but I’m not keen to do it again real soon
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I was insanely lucky. I saw a CL ad for a 4 year old mustang. No pictures and a minimal description. $800. I was curious so I asked for pictures and more information. She was gorgeous! And started by a knowledgeable horse person who had no time, and wanted to pick the new owner carefully. She picked me, and I’m having so much fun training my cobby mustang.
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You know we need photos
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My evil twin immediately thinks “Ohhhhh, bet I can explain why.” 
The one that personally makes me want to throw darts at the seller when they’re a trainer or small-time AA horse flipper is:
“Needs gone before the weekend [or the day, or the hour]” and it’s close cousin “I need his stall ASAP.”
Hmmm. Shouldn’t you have maybe planned this out a little better? I understand if it’s a one-off situation where the owner of a single horse might find themselves in circumstances where an immediate sale is necessary. But that rarely seems to be the circumstances I see in ads using one of these lines.
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Or the one ad that wonders this about the fabulous horse they have for sale. “Owner needs to sell before the season starts”. And then you search and find the sales site and the horse is priced at 4x a normal person’s yearly salary. Maybe that is why you have interest but when somebody finds out the price they ghost you. Not that it is the wrong price but most normal people don’t have those kinds of funds, much less for a horse.
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Using the word “just” more than twice per ad.
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For me it’s overuse of the heart eyes emoji (
) or star eyes emoji (
). If you need those in your ad to show me how amazing your horse looks, generally your horse doesn’t actually look like much.
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