Several of my longtime horsey friends still ride hunters. Whenever they’re horse shopping— which seems remarkably frequent 
— they’ll send me photos or videos from the seller. And these are not inexpensive horses. Yet many of the pics/videos are horrible. I mean, technically the horse is getting over the jumps, but the jumping form is often… “disturbing.” My favorite is the horse that’s jumping higher than the top rail yet still managing to drape its front legs like a curtain. But yeah, it’s a derby prospect. 
5 Likes
Ugh yes. It seems to be a common thing with the OTTB market too. Any OTTB is pushed as an ‘upper level’ horse. No. No, that OTTB needs a ammy with dreams of the 2ft who will happily inject all the joints while signing it up for weekly massages. It’s not going to run the next 5 star.
With OTTBs, there are 99 that need to be a low level horse for every 1 that could do the big sticks.
3 Likes
I’m unfortunately spoiled - I am to the point where I really only buy or seriously look via my connections. (Not that I’ve been looking lately.)
Most of my friends who are breeders keep their good stuff back to go to known show homes. Most of my friends who do sell/buy a lot have a lot of word of mouth stuff going on - I have a friend who has sold probably 50 horses this last year, and about a dozen of them never even hit FB or had a video made because she knew that Buyer X had a budget of $Y and was looking for Z. Good connections in this industry are irreplaceable.
Outside of that, my most recent buying/selling success has come via Dreamhorse. Once when I was trying to sell a horse destined for a market I’m not a part of, and once when buying a horse that I wasn’t yet a part of. It was stressful and I hated every minute of it. 
Good luck digging through fb.
Lots of high dollar horses on websites but if you’re looking for a cheapie you’re going to have to dig and move fast.
1 Like
Translation: green as grass and spicy
6 Likes
Photos where the horse’s head/neck is artificially lifted/curled. Let me see his natural carriage. I don’t mind if you get his attention to make him puff up a little, but don’t use a treat to curl them up.
And yes, we all know that you take your pictures where your ground is pitched to make the horse look uphill. Even going so far as to put one end on the driveway and the other in the grass to really make the horse look uphill.
Those who have seen it will know exactly who I’m talking about… 
4 Likes
I once suggested to a seller that she take a brush to her caked in dirt sale horse so people could actually see what he looked like. She got very snarky and told me to MYOB. The horse was on the sale site for months. I love the pictures where the horse is grazing and not doing what he’s advertised as being trained to do. Or the standing on the back pictures; I even saw one that had some guy doing a handstand so I guess if one ever needed to do a handstand on a horse, he’d be up to the task.
7 Likes
I feel the same way when people say they’re “lessoning” or “clinicing” with a particular trainer. It’s not necessary to turn all your nouns into verbs to try to sound like you’re up on the latest lingo!
4 Likes
I’ve seen a lot of instances lately of people using what looks like a kid’s senior pictures in their horse’s sale ad … teenage girl sitting on horse bareback in a dress, long flowing hair, dramatic lighting. They may well be gorgeous pictures, but unless you’re shopping for a horse to use strictly as a photo prop, it doesn’t show you what the horse can do or how it’s put together.
5 Likes
I have had several clients buy horses lately, which means I have been “looking for the right horse” for one client or another for literally over 13 months. I have always had the rule that I go through my network rather than blindly searching ads on FB, but the market was dry enough I had to go that route a few times. The good thing with FB is that I can be nosey and snoop around the seller’s personal page and get a feel for what type of horseperson they are. Yeah yeah, I know I’m a judgey snob, but I vetoed several horses that looked good in the description but I got bad vibes from the seller.
As a note, one of the horses I got this year who is an absolute gem came from an ISO ad I posted. The seller saw the description of what I was looking for a teenaged client, and had not yet marketed her horse because she was waiting for the right fit. Seeing my ad, with my business profile, and seeing the reputable friends we have in common prompted her to message me. We ended up being the only people she showed him to. Perfect case of a really nicely brought up horse who someone wanted the perfect family for but didn’t want to wade through the crazies of the internet with a general sales ad.
17 Likes
After searching for 7 months, I’ve decided that horse shopping in this market is one of the circles of hell.
My trainer is using all her connections. She’s also a judge so she keeps an eye out at all the shows she works at. I’m using social media to snoop out leads. I have watched what feels like hundreds of sale videos, wasted thousands on travel to try horses and most recently a failed vetting. It’s mostly the emotional stress of getting attached to the idea of one, and getting so excited, just to be disappointed AGAIN. I know I’m not the only one to ever have a hard time horse shopping, but it definitely feels harder these days.
So ya, IME it is all freaking awful 
.
7 Likes
Or in the case of boarding barns, the pictures of other animals or the view of the sunset past the manure pile. That’s what I look for in a potential barn, whether or not there’s a view. No pictures of the fencing, the stall, the indoor (if they have one)…
7 Likes
I’m just window shopping (on FB) right now for the most part but what always sticks out to me is the lack of info that will be posted in a sales ad, like others have already mentioned. They’ll post like, one or two pictures or a video of the horse, “a good [insert any and every discipline here] prospect”, no price, and just say PM for more info. This doesn’t help me as a potential buyer because it doesn’t allow me to sort through and find horses that are realistic to my budget, abilities, etc. And it doesn’t help you as a buyer because I would think that tends to invite in a lot of tire kickers and you spend more time answering basic questions over PM instead of just putting in the ad for all to see.
Not saying that this all always needs to be spelled out nor that it always should. I just think there are almost too many ads out there that lack any useful information or demonstration of the horse in question and it makes me scratch my head sometimes.
7 Likes
Agreed. I will mention that FB is a little militant about pricing due to its policy on selling animals, and thus, many good groups have gotten temporarily shut down for violating that. Some groups are quite vigilant about keeping out price info, but as a seller, that’s frustrating to post a six-figure future big eq prospect and get DMs from folks whose budget is $10-15k.
I assume people require shoppers to PM so that they can filter out the serious buyers from the rest but perhaps that’s a naive view of the world.
Yep and then the sellers complain about all the “tire kickers” who ask questions and then lose interest. ::eyeroll:: Maybe if the answers were in the ad, we wouldn’t have to bother the seller to find out the horse is totally unsuitable.
12 Likes
Yeah. I love all the ads that say, “Don’t waste my time,” usually in all caps and with an exclamation point or two. If you would put all the relevant details in the ad, I wouldn’t need to “waste your time.”
12 Likes
On the other hand, I often see ads that have pictures and a thumbnail description with more meaning you have to tap the word more to see the rest of the ad text.
The comments will ask for things like size, location, video, price, when if the horse shoppers would have just clicked more, they’d have seen all that info, or links to YouTube videos, or a link to the sellers website.
3 Likes
Can I add the completely delusional ISO ads? “Looking for an amateur friendly packer, must have show record and scope for at least 1.20, age 5-10, geldings only, 16.2+, warmbloods only, must be an honest jumper and forward ride but without quirks and light and responsive in bridle, must pass PPE, budget 20k with a little wiggle room for a true unicorn!”
And I’m looking to hit the powerball, but … Damn lady, I’m surprised you don’t expect him to clean his own stall as well.
12 Likes
You know I did own a horse at one point in time who pooped and peed only in one select corner of his stall. His stall was always done in like under 60 seconds. Made my life so easy I thought I should have put that on the sales ad. Wonder how much extra someone would have paid LOL.
8 Likes
