I was going to debate with you on your feed, but this seems more appropriate because I absolutely don’t want to affect the perception of the horse.
To be clear, I have no issue with the horse.
The video though I find really not helpful. There’s no turns on the flat. I’m going to immediately step away, because for 90% of sellers that means the horse is lame on turns. There are no transitions. Does it pick up both leads easily or bolt into the canter? No idea.
It also cuts out after every jump. Is it easily collected after a jump? Does it require a one rein stop? A net? A brick wall? No one knows. There’s one change one direction before the video cuts out, and no related distances or even two jumps in a row. The video really doesn’t say much about the horse, and isn’t going to result in people coming to try it who are mostly certain ahead of time that it meets their needs. To me, a video is supposed to do some work in weeding out inappropriate buyers, while displaying all the skills of the horse that it would need for its appropriate situation. There needs to be a chance to judge suitability, and definitely a chance to judge soundness.
Just to clarify, you can “debate” with me all you like.
But it would be more helpful if you could find a video that better highlights the things that you value.
My greater point in this thread and my posts therein, including this most recent one, is that MOST of the flaws in current sales videos are absent.
Horrible music
Terrible video shooting, poor edits, overlong, improper shooting with re: to the daylight/indoor lights and so on.
Of course we can pick apart the minutiae that is there, but the overarch to this was that it finally was a well composed video that doesn’t take my entire lunch hour, or a significant portion of it, to watch.
Em
Yes! I’m absolutely with you on those. I hate music, need to be able to see it clearly, and I don’t want to see a whole giant lap of every direction, or heaven forbid more than one. But I do need to see enough to make sure it’s sound, which means turns, transitions, and once it starts jumping no edits, or cut outs or fade outs. Get from one jump to another, and show what happens in between. Even if it’s green as grass and advertised as such, and you did a simple change and went off to go trot another single; I want to know what happens. If it’s a made horse you at least need to put four or five jumps together with a couple changes of direction. If it is being marketed as made and suitable for a disciple there needs to be an attempt to show it.
I’ve seen a lot of horse sellers. If you cut out I assume it bucks in the turns, has no change, or builds to warp speed after the second fence in a row. No transitions, it must only pick up one lead and swap onto the other one. No turns, lame. Whatever you don’t show me I’m going to assume you are hiding.
I mean I do understand your position, I just don’t have those thoughts. (Lame because something that I want to see is not there. I mean I have the ability to ask for more video or go see the horse myself.)
I want only an appetizer. For a seller they should want to draw a buyer in by having enough for them to be interested for more. As a buyer I can figure it out even it doesn’t include everything I would love to see.
If you are not going to inquire about ones without the elements you prefer, that’s cool. I just, as a jumper/eventer/all-arounder, don’t need to see those things. I can make a judgement for my own desires based on a bit less. But I am admittedly not a hunter. The elements you describe are truly way more important in that world, than they are in mine.
Em
Agree that one doesn’t need to see endless trotting or cantering or jumping the same fence multiple times. As a friend used to say, “we’ve seen the trot.” Music is annoying but can easily be silenced. Also agree that this video would serve to quickly assess that the horse might work for someone or probably won’t. And that the cropping and exposure are such that you can actually see what’s going on, as opposed to seeing a small black blob on course at a show.
My assumption is that something that doesn’t appear in the video (that could have been put in there easily) doesn’t exist. No flying changes in video–horse doesn’t do them, or does them a bit too expressively. Horse gets a bit strong after jumps and then video cuts out–may take a bit to get it back, or maybe it bucked. Jumps have no fill elements–maybe horse is a bit of a chicken. Way too much editing when horse is doing a course–maybe it stopped, or bucked, or missed a change. Noting that not all of the above apply to this video and that people from different disciples are going to have different priorities and that there are different expectations for different levels of training.
I wouldn’t necessarily assume that a horse that didn’t turn a corner was lame, but would wonder why you bother to trot it in both “directions” in straight lines when one of those could have been a figure-8.
I agree. To me there are going to be some light red flags if we don’t see any transitions in a horse that isn’t green. Or, if there are transitions one way and not the other. Sometimes the editing isn’t very precise and you can see the start of a terrible transition. I understand why a seller wouldn’t want to showcase that in a video, but if it’s a horse who should have solid, non-fussy transitions, and those are left out I’ll wonder why. And, yes, to a video that shows a whole course, at the height at which it is being marketed.
Baby horses, sure, no one should expect anything but green on the flat and over fences, but I still want to see transitions, changes of lead, what happens after the jump, and so on, so I can get an idea of what point they are at in their training.
And, of course, this all helps with questions about soundness. I saw a very nice video a few weeks ago that was 95% flatwork one direction, with a very short canter the other, and in that direction the horse was visibly off. I mean…
Speaking of terrible sales videos, I just saw an ad for a kids trail horse the other day. A tall man was riding the horse bareback in a halter inside a barn (first red flag) while grandma films. I knew it was grandma because of the constant commentary, “Little Suzie come over here! Grandma’s trying to film”, “Little Suzie! Stay behind grandma so you don’t get too close to the horse!” The rider has the videoer open the human sized door so he can ride into the front lawn. They go through the door and the videoer follows behind, and you can hear the rider say “don’t get too close, he kicks!!” Ah yes, just what I want to hear in a video for a kid safe trail horse 
I don’t necessarily look at a sales horse from a “hunter” perspective. Unless it’s clearly a hunter of course. Since I rarely shop for myself, I do tend to look from a “suit an average client” perspective. Most people don’t want to ride what I want to ride.
I haven’t ridden myself in the jumper ring for a while, but I did them for a long time, up to the high a/o at WEF etc, and I have a very good idea of what I want to see in a jumper. It’s all the same things I listed above. They are just as important. Almost any horse can jump a pretty big single jump, particularly with some speed. It’s the rideability in between that determines how far it will go, and you can’t really judge the actual scope, style, and ability until you see jumps with related distances.
This 100%.
I hate videos that cut away after every fence or before every transition. Those in-between moments are critical. Don’t show a change? I assume it
Doesn’t have one. Don’t show a full course? I assume the horse isn’t capable of doing more than singles at this time.
I assume those things because that’s been my experience when horse shopping.
The ones that make me roll my eyes (in addition to the music and the slow motion takes), are when the horse does a change but then the whole change isn’t shown and you suddenly see the horse heading to a new line. I’m thinking ok what happened between when you asked for the change and got to the new line. Like if I end up trying the horse I will find out the changes are…exuberant or worse! Be honest- just say doesn’t yet have changes or something.
If you’re selling a made show hunter, show me some video of it showing, and it’s USEF name and number
If you’re selling a baby hunter, I want a complete jump video starting and finishing with a trot circle and name and number if available
Same for jumpers
Yes, again, I agree with what others have said, and I’m also looking for those things in a jumper ad. I’ve been doing a lot of online looking in the last few months and while an ad that seemed a little too edited wouldn’t going to stop me from pursuing the horse, it would make me immediately more wary.
I’ve been looking at unbroke or barely broke babies and these are going to be a lot more limited in what they can show, of course. But you can still see movement, handling, longeing or long lining if that process has started.
If the horse is being put through a jump chute I want more than just one or two with just the jump in a 7 second video. I actually like the ones that let the video run a bit more because you can see what the horse does before and after, can see it free moving, how it reacts to the handlers, etc. I know free jumping doesn’t necessarily tell you the horse is going to be a good jumper under saddle but if its natural form isn’t good without a rider the over/under of it improving with one doesn’t look promising!
I got in touch with a seller a while ago who had no videos of her fairly expensive two year old, asking if she had any to send, or more pictures. I was attracted by the good bloodlines from a performance family on both sides, and the dam and sire had GP records, so I thought I’d see if she had anything more to show me. But the one picture she sent was terrible with the horse looking away from the camera and standing with a leg cocked. The only video she sent was one where the horse was coming straight at the camera as the person was backing away, and then there was some trotting and it looked mildly lame. Really?
Something I’ve been thinking lately … what is the impact on the horse market of Facebook being the primary means of networking horses for sale, and also refusing to allow prices (or even price ranges, unless you’re very creative) to be shown?
I’m wondering if that’s part of why horse prices are so high these … instead of seeing a horse that looks possibly suitable, then immediately realizing it’s well above your intended budget and continuing to look elsewhere, potential buyers have to interact with the seller in order to even find out if the horse is remotely near their budget, and if it’s more than they wanted to spend but not exponentially so, they may be more inclined to continue pursuing that horse than they otherwise would have been if the price had been advertised.
This happens enough, and it’s bound to drive horse prices up, right? Thoughts?
No clue about whether people are falling in love with horses without seeing price and then adjusting their budgets up once they hear from the seller. I find that because there are so many horses listed, it’s really easy to reply “Lovely horse but out of my budget, good luck!” and move on, but that could be me.
I do think FB makes it harder to find comps for what you’re buying or selling unless you’re looking and networking and sending PMs all the time, which could allow prices to creep up. Mostly I think horses are pricey right now because of supply and demand. There’s been a huge increase in participation in the sport due to Covid, 90% of ammy riders want the exact same 12 y/o 16.2hh bay gelding, and there’s no more of those horses floating around than there were 4 or 5 years ago. There’s probably less, because a lot of breeders downsized or quit after the 2008 recession.
Almost every sales post I see on FB has some sort of indication of the price, anything from “hand signs” to general range like “mid-fives” to a link to a website with a listed price. This is across several Morgan groups, 3 general regional/statewide groups, and one eventing group. So maybe FB isn’t enforcing the rule anymore?
Hmm … most of the ones I’m in (I’m not actually shopping, just like seeing what’s out there) strictly forbid any reference to price or price range in the sale ads, although there are a few smaller, local groups that seem to let them slide. In the bigger groups only the ISO posts seem to be allowed to post a budget.
The Great American Ranch and Trail Horse Sale was just held in Lexington Virginia over the weekend. The horses in the sale were primarily Quarter Horse, Gypsy crosses, Haflinger, and crossbred ponies. Not show horses, but using horses on the farm and trail.
Top horse sold for $77,000 and the top twenty were all over $25,000 each. Most were geldings.
So if you’re wondering why it’s so hard to find a good minded all around horse just to have fun with and go to some local shows, there’s lots of people willing to spend big bucks to get exactly the same horse that doesn’t even have to check all the boxes that us show horse folks require.
Of course I understand everything, but I’m wondering what was in a horse for $77,000?! Is this a reasonable cost?
Take a look and decide!
Oh. It lays down when you pull its feet out from under it. And it’s yellow. Makes complete sense.
