My DD has big dreams of competing at PF next year. If she does, it will be our first time back there (we are in Oregon). If I wanted to take her back to PF this year to get her some experience in the environment and lease a small just for the show–maybe the week before (doesn’t need to be winner, just needs to go around the ring), what would that cost for the lease? Assuming it was a pony close by so shipping costs weren’t huge. Is there even a market for that?
You may be able to find one. I think you may want to find one that is for sale where perhaps the owners can’t or won’t pay for pony finals. I would smalls that are out doing the division on a normal basis probably are owned by a child who will compete it at pony finals. You may be able to connect with someone that has a sales barn and would benefit from the pony going.
It’s definitely possible. It’s not terribly unusual for people to lease a pony for the week before and the week of pony finals. I’ve known people who do it if they haven’t managed to qualify their own mount but still really want to go or kids who might be riding in the children’s ponies but are ready to move up and want to go for the experience. As for who has the animals, the best bet is to reach out to the big pony sales people who have lots of ponies and who always go to pony finals with a reasonably large string. PM me if you want some names. Also, there are always those kids who have two ponies in the same division, both qualified, but they can only ride one (only allowed to ride one pony in each division). You might want to reach out to some local KY trainers to see if they have kids in that situation who might be looking to lease their second mount. As for pricing, it isn’t inexpensive. The “pony finals lease” is actually a fairly hotly contested market, so be willing to pay quite a lot, especially for the packer who is guaranteed to get around although not necessarily ribbon.
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