Because breeding and selling horses is something some Amish do to make money. Silly Englishers will buy some pretty silly crosses thinking they are getting something amazing.
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A former hoof trim client of mine had one built similar. She was a bugger to fit but what did it: A Mule Tree 
She may need to keep that in mind going forward.
I know this.
And Amish-broke for riding or Driving is not anywhere near what we might consider finished.
I read the Amish trade paper The People’s Journal & have learned the Horse Sale ad “shorthand”:
TSS = Traffic Sound & Safe
Ladies Horse = Dead broke (pretty much)
Boys Horse = 
Handful
School Pony = Kidsafe & will stand tied
Some of the ads are honest, stating things like
“does not stand well at lights” “not good with trucks”
But all are geared to a different style of driving and/or riding than normal “English” usage.
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how it works these days is your application for either purchase or adoption requires contact info for your vet, farrier and two personal references. None of mine were contacted, i asked.
Then if it is a ‘sale authority’ horse, you pick it up and it is yours. 100%. If it is an ‘adoption’ whereby they give you 1,000 in 2 increments (at pickup and then one year later), there is supposed to be a visual interview of the horse by BLM. I had my guy visit in person for the first ones’ first year. Other visit SHOULD have occured last December, but it never has yet.
They give you $1,000 in two increments to adopt a horse? What happened to the $125 they used to charge the adopter?
It’s called AIP (adoption incentive program). You can get a mustang for 125 yes…free and clear as a sale authority horse. (which is an older horse …i think 10 or more, or a horse that has been presented to adopt three times and not been adopted) You can also bid on one of their in-person or online auctions. For both Sale Authority mustangs and Adoption Incentive mustangs. The online auctions get ‘up there’, …but only for a few thou. *only once or twice anywhere NEAR the non-BLM auctions we see people talking about in this thread btw lol)
So…IF you are a successful bidder and win an AIP mustang, you do get paid 1000, AND you pay whatever the price was you bid to in the auction. So, if it’s 25, you pay the 25 out as soon as the auction is over. Then You get the first 500 when you pick the horse up and second 500 when you get cleared at the end of your first year and the horse’s papers transfer to you.
I went down to the pens in Burns, OR when they advertised an auction of the South Steens HMA horses. They had weanlings to adults up for grabs. $125 for any of them as long as your facilities were approved. This was before internet auctions were a thing. If they’re going to give me money to adopt, makes me want to get another. Mustangs are the bomb!
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Elkhart. 
We have video of the mare being driven but my girlfriend needs to learn tail from nose first.
Interesting thought - if she were such a nice horse, why wholesale her to a broker instead of selling her to the local market? Hmmm. Trying to remain the optimist, and truth told, we never really know the history of these types of horses. My own included.
Lovely driving photo!!!
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Before the pandemic my farrier and I rode out to the Mt. Hope auction in OH. I had never been there, but some of my friends who have driving horses go. What an eye opening experience. There were a LOT of these types of horses, Friesian & Friesian “sporthorse” type crosses. Most looked like this mare. The high seller was a Friesian sporthorse stallion who went for $25K. Most of the others were going for $9-15K.
We were actually there to try to find a Standardbred for my friend, but they were going for crazy prices, so we came home with an empty trailer.
I live in a pretty Amish area of PA, but none of our Amish are breeding anything like I saw at Mt. Hope.
Two DogsFarm reminded me that that’s where I learned what TSS was lol.
Because… people. If I had a horse for sale I would totally send it to someone else to market. I would last about a week with the incessant “still available?” and “how tall?” inquiries, when the info is right there in the ad. And I’m not set up for someone to come to my property to do a trial ride anyway, not to mention possibly taking time off work to get the horse ready at the requested time and then having people not show up. For me, all that is definitely better left to someone else.
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Also the Amish tend I understand to eschew modern inventions like telephone and internet. Thus sales would be in person auctions or horse dealers who participate in the world.
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I’m very very happy this worked out-- as someone who looked heavily into Friesian crosses (particularly Georgian Grandes aka saddlebredXFriesian/or draft). Too often Friesians and their crosses get a bad rep. I personally love the crosses that have been further developed with a purpose, such as the above, though many times the equine community makes me “second guess” friesian crosses I suppose. Still love them. I hope your friend won’t be given a hard time due to her horses cross typing, but it sounds like your friend is confident!
As for the mare, I agree she can gain a bit more weight. Her longer back is a bit typical of modern grandes (if she is one). She looks good to me from the picture.
A friend of mine bought a really very cute Friesian cross (with QH, we think, he’s an absolute gem and a very fancy mover,) that came from an Amish breeder last year, through an acquaintance who is a horse dealer and runs a dude string.
He goes out to Ohio regularly with an empty trailer, buys 10 usually solidly green-broke horses from his Amish contacts, and brings them back out West. He spit polishes them a bit, sends them out with the wranglers on the trail string, makes really good videos of them doing all sorts of things like galloping across snowy landscapes and hauling Christmas trees out of forests and all those romantic things people think horse ownership is all about, and then sells them for startlingly large sums via online and in-person auctions. The horses are actually mostly pretty nice if you like black and hairy.
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Thanks.
More experienced (than my 6+yrs) Driving friends tell me I won the Mini Lottery.
He’s my 1st experience Driving one of my own.
Got him as an unbroken 2yo in August '16, sent him to a young Amishman in October with the intent to bring him home in December. But a stretch of bad weather kept him there through the Winter. In May '17 I got back a pretty much deadbroke baby. Since then I’m working - at a glacial.pace 
- on getting him finished for the CDE I’d love to do.
He’s a Cones Machine, would canter through if I let him & water doesn’t faze him, so someday: Marathon!
But, I digress…
I hope your friend’s mare is amenable to bring ridden.
If not, easily resold - maybe for a profit - to a Driving home. < Assuming no holes there either.
I get to Napanee, Middlebury, Topeka & Shipshewana several times a year. I’ll wave as I pass Elkhart 
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Around here, often younger members choose to be Mennonite which sanctions both cellphones & internet as well as driving cars.
One Amish family of my acquaintance has started bringing back the Hackney Horse & has clients coming from as far as Canada & CA for their youngstock.
Oldest son (early 20s) is Mennonite, has a cell & FB presence as well as truck & trailer.
Time Marches
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Ah, this makes sense. There are a lot of “Amish” Morgan trainers and breeders, and the younger ones sell horses on the internet, come to shows, sometimes show their horses, etc. They’re clearly breeding for the show market, and some of their horses sell for top dollar at Morgan auctions. I always wondered “how can they do that?”
At New England Morgan show last year, for example, there was a young “plain” family who showed up in an enormous motor home. Young parents, 3 or 4 young children, and what I assume were teenage relatives to help with the kids and the horses. The husband and one of the older boys were working a lot of horses but I didn’t see them showing any.
Even before I read through the whole thread I was considering posting that although I love reading train wreck threads and your friend did just about everything possible to set herself up for failure, I’m also a four-time example of the fact that taking even free horses sight unseen (and knowing almost nothing about them) can sometimes work out wonderfully. And it sounds like your friend may also have found a gem despite herself!
I’m certainly not a beginner, but two of my freebies came right from the track on the basis of emails from the track vets shilling for good homes for their favorite client horses, and the other two came from rescue orgs my ex-SO donated farrier work to, where they pulled TBs from New Holland and had no room for them (a whole other thing).
All four were uncomplicated but green under saddle, and had no dirty tricks in their repertoire. Three eventually developed health conditions that killed them years later, but nothing that would have shown up on a PPE. The fourth (my profile pic) is currently cruising along 18 years later, fat and happy.
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I believe the Menonites are not as strict as the Amish are.
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Correct.
Benefits the older - & still Amish - members of the family if the next generation is more Worldly.
We have quite a substantial Mennonite community near here (Northern Virginia). The young girls, in high neck dresses with bonnet strings flying, racing around the field on ATVs, make quite a sight.
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