Trying horses without a trainer? How much does your trainer charge?

[gottagrey]

A young friend of mine and I did just this very recently with the purchase of her new horse. Worked out perfectly. Saved the trainer lots of time… I was in charge of videos (and opinion) and friend/buy would show the videos of the horses she liked to the trainer. Lucky for us we found one who ticked all the boxes so not much shopping at all. Trainer then took over. Apparently we did such a good job finding this horse, trainer joked about us finding her one ha ha.

I think this approach is a huge time saver for a trainer unless the trainer has a sales barn in mind with several good prospects - then bring the trainer (and knowledgeable friend along)

[findeight]

@Cacique

You could easily solve that by having a PDF copy of your waiver, e-mailing it ahead of time and having them bring it signed. I did almost all of my riding as a junior as a working student far from home and on the road with my trainers alone, so horse shows, etc. were always a little annoying in terms of waivers.

Thanks all for your answers!

Well, that’s a little sketchy, you have no idea if the parents actually signed it it not. Waivers might be annoying but you probably haven’t been involved in a lawsuit involving injury to a minor. Better to be more careful on the front end.

[Artax]

@findeight

Well, that’s a little sketchy, you have no idea if the parents actually signed it it not. Waivers might be annoying but you probably haven’t been involved in a lawsuit involving injury to a minor. Better to be more careful on the front end.

Get the parents to sign the waiver in front of a notary public and get the NP’s certified copy.

[OneTwoMany]

Posters have raised some good arguments on both sides of the fence, but in the end, the answer probably depends on your program and your abilities.

As mentioned above, some trainers are very competitive and very interested in how their business is represented to the outside world. They have built a reputation, realized certain achievements, and aspire to be competitive at certain levels. The clients represent the trainer in a sense, or at least the outside world is making certain assumptions about the trainer based on the performance of his clients and the quality of their horses. Trainers that are competitive will want to have a meaningful say about the horses that are brought into their barns. These horses will reflect on the trainer and the trainer will be obliged to train them, ride them, fix them and perhaps one day represent them for sale.

On the other hand, there are programs that are a bit more laid back and the trainer may encourage the client to go shopping on their own and run the best prospects by them for final approval.

Finally, it depends on the client’s experience and abilities. There are more than a few ammies that are very experienced, have been riding for decades and are quite capable of making purchase decisions on their own. IME many of these ammies end up with their own private farms, or would be quite capable of running one; which is a testament to their knowledge and experience.

Meanwhile, there are clients that really shouldn’t shop on their own because they do not yet know, what they don’t know. It isn’t a knock on anyone. We have all been newbies at one point or another.

In summary, I don’t think there is any one single answer. It depends on the trainer’s program and the client’s experience/abilities.

[findeight]

Depends on the seller too. That sale horse is their product representing their program. That is especially true in more serious show barns. . More average and lower end barns just want it sold and don’t care, maybe it’s never stepping in a show ring.

Think the varied responses here are based on our boarding and training experiences. Have to be careful to undersrstand what your barn/ trainer does might be totally different then another, your truth is not everybody’s truth. Their decisions are based on their experiences and it’s their right to make the decisions with their business and their horse(s).

[mvp]

@Artax

Get the parents to sign the waiver in front of a notary public and get the NP’s certified copy.

So the plan is to have the would-be buyer print out the waiver, and pay a notary public to certify it? I can’t imagine being asked to do that; it seems an undue burden on someone just wanting to come test-drive a horse you’d sell them.

[Halt_Near_X]

@mvp

Kind of OT, but the OP worried about discouraging sellers by not bringing the trainer to the first test-drive. How often is this the case?

Reading here, sellers complain about noobs and tire-kickers, often explaining that if the person has a trainer on board, that somehow “pre qualifies” them as a serious buyer.

In my very limited experience, it’s not about how serious the buyer is, since buyers without trainers can be very serious. It’s about the number of hoops that have to be jumped through for any given sale.

One of those hoops is whether the trainer approves of the horse as a good fit for the rider/their program.

So a rider with a trainer that is on board–at least in the loop, even if the trainer doesn’t come out for the first ride–is, yes, much further along the “may potentially buy this horse” path than a buyer who is doing all the legwork and will only be discussing horses with their trainer if the buyer likes how the test ride goes.

To be clear, I’ve had some really good potential buyers contact me who didn’t have a trainer involved yet, and the experience was fine. But more often than not, the ones without trainers who contact me take up a lot more time, want vastly more hand-holding, and it all falls apart when it turns out the trainer doesn’t like the breed or height or some other thing that was obvious in the initial ad and videos.

So while I wouldn’t discourage someone from trying if their trainer wasn’t involved, I certainly do take note of the ones that already have their trainer on board as an indication that they likely have more of their ducks in a row. I absolutely appreciate the buyers without trainers who are equally efficient and professional… they are just outnumbered by tire kickers and time wasters.

[findeight]

@mvp

So the plan is to have the would-be buyer print out the waiver, and pay a notary public to certify it? I can’t imagine being asked to do that; it seems an undue burden on someone just wanting to come test-drive a horse you’d sell them.

That referred to minors not accompanied by parents. For adults, you just sign the form when you get there if they require it.

It was suggested that seller could e mail their release form to minors when the appointment to see the horse is made and trust the kids will tell their parents they are going to try a sale horse and they need the signatures…yeah, that’ll happen.