Fun train wreck!
I am also a “self made” horse person, though I cringe even saying that because it’s far more the norm than the exception (despite what it feels like at shows sometimes). I have earned and spent every dollar I have ever made to be able to afford horses. I chose my career 100% focused on what would allow me to have horses. I have sacrificed every single thing that you can sacrifice to keep my horses going. And I have never been given a dollar by a family member or client or investor or friend to do any of it.
Yes, the industry is incredibly incredibly broken. But the expensive horses are a consequence of that, not a cause…though the two are inextricably tied, I suppose. For profit horseshows and the mileage rules that funnel people to only a handful of shows and USEF requirements have done most of damage on that front. But by all means, rail at people asking money for horses.
But if we’re just talking on the first topic you raised, I’ll raise my hand right away. I import horses and sell them for 5-10x what I bought them for inside of 6 months (typically). Want to know how much money I make on each horse? Without taking into account home/living costs (e.g. cost of property, farm maintenance, etc.), and with a horse that I might buy for $10-15k and sell for $65-75k, my net profit is in the $5k-15k range. And people are willing to pay it for the expertise along the horse buying path…the expertise of my breeders in knowing what they’re breeding and raising, the expertise of my breeder/buyer in knowing who to trust and what’s truly high quality, and my own expertise in showing the horses in the US for 4-6 months and knowing what I’m sitting on. I think on average you would find that the expertise is grossly undervalued compared to many other industries.
Conflating “horse traders” in the old school sense into that whole process is wildly unfair and turns it into a different conversation. The people who run scams and sell a horse for more than they report to their client or buy a horse for less than they tell their client (and all variations of that) have no part in the conversation. Yes, it happens, but there are shady shitty people in every industry. We just have less regulation on that front and we all pay for it.
But back to the “shady” practice of honestly making money. There are so many factors that eat away at what looks like that massive profit - show costs (because without the US show record there is no massive increased value), feed, farrier, vet, commissions, import, etc. And I don’t have to pay board or training fees. There is just not that much money in MOST horse sales (though, of course, the exceptions to that seem to feel like what so much of the industry is…but half of the “known” cases of major dollars being made are BS anyway).
And it is really hard to take you seriously based on your title of the thread alone. WTF does it even mean “why does no one question horse prices?” Ha! That just made me laugh. If I had a nickel for every time I heard “your horses are too expensive”, I wouldn’t even have to sell the horses at all! But I guess in full disclosure, I just as often hear “your horses are underpriced.” I figure I have the prices in the right range when I hear an equal number of both comments.
Most of the horse world “questions” horse prices by not buying the stupidly expensive ones. Me included. And I always struggle with feeling the exact same feelings of not being able to afford to just drop crazy dollars on a horse that looks like it would be SO MUCH EASIER than starting them myself, or training them myself, or any of the other things. But I tell my kid all of the time, every time you start feeling jealous of the person to your left, remember to look to the right and see all of the people who are jealous of you. That’s just a natural part of life.
But while jealousy is natural, what’s not natural is yelling that no one else notices it and you’re the one who’s suffering the most. When in reality there are still a whole lot of people off to your right who wish they had as much as you do.
