Selling my horse

I had a private party client who stopped me when I was concerned about him spending $50k to update a system… he said he appreciated my concern about wasteful spending
But “I made $186 Million last year, I can afford the $50k cost”

(But after talking with him to fully understand just what the wanted I was able to make a field adjustment to his system to make preform as desired…but he had no qualms about dropping $50,000 into his system )

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I made this same commentary on another thread and people ROASTED me over it, LOL. Wealthy (my definition) does not care about small (to those wealthy people) $100k+ transactions and fees when they’re bringing income of the hundreds of millions a year, lol.

The argument is that wealthy people have a threshold of what they “think about” vs spend without thinking. Famous financial gurus (I have a CPA license) are quoted saying things like “wealthy care more about increasing revenue / income streams than they do about savings - it is the proportion of income to costs that is prioritized and they care about closing those deals that make them $186m a year vs spending $400k on their kid’s Big Eq horse.”

folks got super butthurt that I implied that there are people in the world that don’t give a single second thought to spending $100k as it is less than 1% or a fraction of a single percent of their annual income

Too many forget that there are people in the horse world that really do make hundreds of millions and buy 6 and 7 figure horses like we buy this season’s summer shoe, LOL.

My old barn a junior had at one time 5 Big Eq and Top Hunter horses averaging about $275k+ each. Yes, a 16 year old had $1.4m worth of horses all were sold to her via private treaty from her trainer and other top trainers / breeders. I’m close with the parent and they didn’t view a single sales ad for the purchase of any of the 5.

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while we were talking about did he really need to spent $50k he noticed he did not have his briefcase, made a few calls to find he had left it at the terminal in the Cayman Island, calls his pilot to see if they had put the Falcon away, No, OK I need you to fly back to the Caymans to pick up my briefcase.

I asked was it That Important? No not really but my pilot and his co-pilot needed some flight time we are to fly to China next month and I needed my briefcase . Which lead to…doesn’t that Falcon have an average flight cost of about $6000 per hour? And that will be a round trip of about six or seven hours? (he knew I was once an air traffic controller and he was a pilot himself so e talked airplanes often)

Yes, I can afford it

He was in a different world than I

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That is not what people were butthurt about on that thread, but go off. :roll_eyes:

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Yep. That is not at all what people were ticked about.

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Yeah yeah I know it is why I am not in politics.

I am not good at helping the proletarians understand they are proletarians and that the system of the bourgeoisie (the wealthy of those making 7 figs/year +) continues to widen the gap and there is no amount of bootstrap pulling of the proletarians will bring that gap closer for MOST.

late stage capitalism doesn’t have normal folks as winners

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Ok it’s been a while since I read that thread, but I remember you were describing the 7-figure + income bracket as kind of a monolith, like, “Take it from me, I know people who make 7 figures a year and this is how they think about money.” And then when anyone tried to point out that not all 7-figure-income households operate that way, you doubled down that you know people who make 7 figures and anyone who disagreed with you was just salty because you were speaking frankly about finances.

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Not going to dox myself but if you trace my internet activity and find my identity (shouldn’t be too hard) you can guess where my authority comes from.

I personally am not wealthy (I bring in less than 500k year from my personal income streams), but let’s just say I have an excellent sample size given my professions and my blood and legal relatives.

Sure I shouldn’t talk in absolutes (neurodivergent here) but the representative sample size I have in generations younger than 55 yrs old (GenX and younger wealth) is large enough to support my generalizations.

You’re right the Boomer and older generations operate VERY differently from a behavioral economics perspective - they are much more cost conscious and have less focus and education on the amassment and more specifically the diversification of wealth. The game of wealth has changed tremendously and there are very different behaviors at the cross sections of age, how wealth was accumulated, the perspectives of risk, the concept of diversification, etc. Generally speaking Boomer generations with wealth in the less than $20 -$100m are cost conscious and less diversified.

I have a whole plethora of sources from folks who are published on that concept - it is a passion area of mine (professionally and personally). If anyone is interested!

All this to say - there are plenty of buyers who work with trainers to purchase horses in the 6 figures. I guess the Coasts will be your primary market. I’d discuss with your trainer to see if they have the connections available to make that happen.

I see horses in my zip code going in the mid 6 figures (starting with a 2) for Eq and Hunters. Those damn juniors and AO’s!

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“Published!” ooh I’m so close to BINGO, just say “github” and I’ve got it.

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Did you check mine out?! super cool right?? the patent is pending!

Again, you really out here acting like you’re the only person on this forum who knows (or actually is) a “rich” person. I cannot. :rofl:

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Omg. Just stop. No one cares this time around either.

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Where is the eye roll button? This conversation was quite interesting until it (unneccessarily) went off the rails just like the other one did.

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Editing to remove my comment. Not trying to drag this thread further off topic!

  1. Trainer to trainer- plan on commissions on both end. Talk to your trainer, all of your h/j friends, send them the ad.

  2. post on fb hunter jumper equitation page

  3. bigeq.com website , I had a few inquiries but to be honest, not enough to justify the cost of running an ad. And the ones who did contact me regarding horses of that price- there was a ton of NO follow through. There were tire kickers.

for the 6 figure horses, the majority of the sales come through word of mouth. harder on SM and or the websites.

wanted to add, a horse in that price is more likely to be sold when he is at the bigger shows and not just a one off at a barn to have to travel to. Horses in that price range are typically tried with the trainer/ assistant trainer of the rider to sit on the horse, than rider sits on horse, and than a deal is made.

if you do sell through a trainer, make sure everything is in writing. who pays for what, who and how much commission goes to each trainer. and to be honest a horse at this price range usually goes on a trial for 2 weeks to a month. And have a contract, insurance etc etc on the horse for the trial paid for buy leasee. so much to think about, which I wasn’t aware until I actually had to go through it.

as someone else mentioned, a 6 figure prospect has to be backed up. All of my 6 figure horses were failed event horses for one reason or another ( didn’t like dressage or xc or wasn’t fast enough on xc) so they than had to be proven in the h/j/eq world. Got juniors to put the ring miles on- there is the justification for 6 figures. I don’t know many horses that would sell in the 6 figure range with no show record, no changes, etc etc.

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I thought most sellers, in any price range, will no longer take the risk of allowing a trial.

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Nah. Some do, some don’t, but given that higher-priced horses are often selling through well-established internal networks of trainers who know and regularly do business together, trials are pretty common.

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Not true. As @Tha_Ridge says they may depending on the trainer’s working relationship, but the big high-end sales and training program I have bought and sold multiple through has stopped sending horses out on trials entirely. You can go try at their farm as much as you like, they will meet you at shows, they will take the horse somewhere else off property. But those expensive horses are not leaving their care and custody until they are fully paid for and contracts executed.

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So it is true. You’re trying to play word semantics.

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I helped facilitate a sale this week for 150k. One ride, full PPE, definitely no trial. Wire transfer only held up for Mondays holiday. Done.

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