Why does no one question horse prices?

[Elles]

This was a Zangersheide sale in april:
Spartan de Kalvarie ( 2018, BWP, Hengst )
Diamant de Semilly x For Pleasure

€24.000

2

Lipton Ice ( 2019, Hann, Hengst )
Levisto Z x Cornet Fever

€26.000

3

Cold Case JT Z ( 2018, Z, Hengst )
Cachas x Carthago Z (Carthago)

€35.500

4

Quatar van de Begijnakker Z ( 2019, Z, Hengst )
Quaprice du Bois Margot x Chin Chin

€36.000

5

Bonton de Hus Z ( 2019, Z, Hengst )
Baloubet du Rouet x Fergar Mail

€39.000

6

Ogan BD ( 2019, Hann, Hengst )
Ogano Sitte x Christian 25

€58.000

7

Dwisty Boy du Réveil Z ( 2019, Z, Hengst )
Dominator 2000 Z x Twister de la Pomme

€200.000

8

Heart of Gold van 't Heike Z ( 2019, Z, Hengst )
Heartbeat x Power Light

€21.000

9

Tarzan vd Cumul Z ( 2019, Z, Hengst )
Taloubet Z x Denver W

€50.000

10

All About Aganix Z ( 2017, Z, Hengst )
Aganix du Seigneur Z x Kashmir van Schuttershof

€40.000

11

Turbo JW V H Gebergte ( 2019, BWP, Hengst )
Cappucino JW vd Moerhoeve Z x Diamant de Semilly

€16.000

12

Deejay River Z ( 2019, Z, Hengst )
Doree van de Moskifarm x Dominator 2000 Z

€19.000

13

Levisto-Flamingo Z ( 2017, Z, Hengst )
Levisto Z x Indoctro

€40.000

14

Amedee van’t Heike ( 2017, Z, Hengst )
Aganix du Seigneur Z x Tamura van 't Heike D’07

€49.000

15

Cameron de Will Z ( 2019, Z, Hengst )
Casall ASK x Cornet Obolensky

€45.000

https://zangersheide.auction/collectie/132/ended/young%20horse/all/all/price-asc

[amb]

Well that escalated quickly!

As far as the horse market goes: I’ve been seriously shopping and not had much to look at, and this week I was in the middle of buying a horse sight-unseen (until the PPE was a spectacular failure), which I never ever would have done a few years ago. When I started looking again at what was out there, I was shocked, there are easily a half-dozen to at least think about, when a month ago it was more like one horse every other week. It might be random variation but it sure looks like the market is slowing down a lot.

On the cost of labor: there are a lot of Central and South American people working with horses in my area (New England), but at least for the ones I know well they are all working legally. (We’ve chatted about exactly this issue.) My understanding is that in Florida the labor situation in the horse world is a lot sketchier. (I am not talking about non-horse labor here! Other industries here definitely have issues with exploiting undocumented labor. Also, to respond to a meandering point above, even in Canada; Montreal at least has quite a history of it.)

In other “expensive things people buy” news, the house market around here has definitely put the brakes on. Regardless of other factors interest rates going up has people able to afford a lot less house (or no house) vs six months ago.

[lenapesadie]

We’ve been singing bye bye refi at the office. Big bucks were being borrowed and spent due to low rates. Now it’s dry as a bone. I mean big bucks. As a single contributor I was closing double digit millions every month at the height of the refi frenzy. People aren’t taking cash out and sitting on it. That money has been pumped into the economy. Now it’s done.

[candyappy]

@eightpondfarm

it only cost about 15K to have enough mondo panels delivered And with them i can gentle and safely, comfortably enclose as many as 8 BLM mustangs per year. There are some really amazing mustangs out there in those high deserts…

I don’t have 15K to spend on anything , let alone more horse panels. Otherwise I would love a mustang!

[IronwoodFarm]

I am so sorry I missed this amazing thread, particularly the part of about money laundering through horse sales. I have personal knowledge of it as the US Treasury Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence suggested I was engaged in it 2019. Yes, I, Ironwood Farm, a breeder of Norwegian Fjord Horses was investigated for nefarious practices.

How did this happen? i sold a foal to my sister. I gave her a good deal in fact; maybe $3K and she made time payments. Not exactly an earth shattering price but she is my sister and made that well known to me. I digress. My sister wanted to pay the balance due ($1150) and $150 field board. For reasons I do not understand, my sister does not use paper checks and only does EFTs. So my BIL, being a nice person, sends an EFT to my farm account for $1300. The reason given for the transfer was “Horse.” That is what my BIL said…one word.

Alarm bells went off at the Treasury Dept. as they monitor wire transactions. Ding, ding, ding! A hold was put on this transaction and my bank was informed. Obviously something nefarious was afoot. I get a call from my bank asking me if there is an explanation for said transaction as they have been told to investigate. Never mind we are talking about a business checking account named Ironwood Farm that has existed for over 20 years. I literally had to produce the BOS, the invoice, and the boarding agreement. I threw in a photo of said horse. It took a couple days but I guess the Treasury Department decided it really was horse sale and not some drug deal, human trafficking or money laundering.

I would like everyone to know on the COTH Forums that Ironwood Farm has her standards for money laundering. My sister and I would never stoop so low as to money launder $1300. I am insulted that the Treasury Department thought we were that dumb or cheap. Now my sister and I may consider offers to money launder, but we don’t think Norwegian Fjords are a good breed to select. Their prices have gone up due to supply shortages but not enough to make money laundering worthwhile, at least not for us. I guess there are folks out there who will money launder $1300, but I say no thank you. I have my standards and do not contact me with silly offers.

[saddleup]

Thanks for the laugh. Our tax dollars at work.

[chestnutmarebeware]

Lol! My grandpa always said “Never steal anything small.”

[Salty]

I saw a photo and video of a dressage-bred foal in Poland who has piaffe, passage, and changes right out of the box, playing in the field. Amazing hind leg, elevation, and suspension.

I would love to be able to afford that foal, who is worth every penny they are asking.

[clanter]

@IronwoodFarm

The reason given for the transfer was “Horse.”

horse is street slang for heron

[trubandloki]

@clanter

@IronwoodFarm

The reason given for the transfer was “Horse.”

horse is street slang for heron

Yes, but who would put that in the memo line of a check?

[clanter]

@trubandloki

Yes, but who would put that in the memo line of a check?

there some people with no brains

[Impractical_Horsewoman]

@IronwoodFarm, that reminds me of how a group of college friends and I were driving across the Canadian border back in the 90s. When asked if we had anything to declare, the guy driving said, “just some coke,” lifting up his red and white can.

We were waved through. Waited a beat, and suddenly we all realized what he’d said.

[IronwoodFarm]

I am aware of the street slang, but still $1300 for a drug deal seems paltry to me.

[TheBigEasy]

Sadly, somehow, I’m not surprised.
I do understand why your sis only runs EFTs. Depending on how your banking is setup, they can be far more convenient than even writing a check.

I just wired by saddle fitter a deposit on a new saddle. Wonder if the IRS will have eyes on that.

Sad. So much bigger fish to fry in the tax world.

[Paint_Party]

@IronwoodFarm

I am so sorry I missed this amazing thread, particularly the part of about money laundering through horse sales.

Me too! Just to review, let me see if I have this right:

(Gulps swig of merlot and wipes popcorn kernels off fingertips to better access keyboard)

All the winning hunters are drugged…
… and ridden by rich ammies who can’t ride and break down their mounts
… at shows that are purposely too expensive for the hoi polloi
… while the “good ammies” who’d love a horse properly are priced out of the market
… because wealthy folks, who live off trustfunds, spend willy-nilly to get the fancy ones
… resulting in horses with over-inflated prices in an unregulated market
… that also serves to launder money
… (apparently much like what happens on the unrefined granite rock market)
… all while racetrack trainers are doing nocturnal slaughter shipments with their NQR horses
… which maybe wouldn’t be an issue if the base price of all horses was $2,000.

Is this about right?

[lenapesadie]

You forgot the mobsters. And the evils of Longlines

[clanter]

@Paint_Party

All the winning hunters are drugged…
… and ridden by rich ammies who can’t ride and break down their mounts

we had a bay mare win a championship at a Class A were the state had their vets there to do radium drug test and test all championship winners and second place finishers… state vet accompanied the horse from the show ring to her stall… never left her side.

At the stall we were ask to hand over the horse’s registration paperwork, vet reviews paperwork, looks at horse then closely examines the horse then said the horse before him is not the horse on the registration.

Yes that horse is the horse on the papers. Vet says no it isn’t.

His reasoning was the horse he had before him was no more than eight years old whereas the papered horse was 17.

Finally I had to get the show manager to intervene as she was also on the board of directors of the breed… she knew our horse well. So got her to the stall and she told the vet that yes the papers are for the horse he has before him.

and yes no drugs were found in her blood

[foursocks]

You missed the part about these discarded, broken-down horses being eaten in Europe, possibly as part of the money laundering scheme, but I am not sure. I don’t think anyone is sure, at this point…

[McGurk]

Okay, this thread has been a wild ride, but I am not completely unsympathetic to the OP.

I’m going to assume, for the purposes of argument, she is likely a reasonably talented rider who spent some time trying to make it as a pro and was seriously disillusioned by some of things she saw. And to be honest, there are some VERY sketchy, unethical, unkind, unhorsemanlike things out there that you may not see as a junior that become very obvious once you try to make a business or a living out of riding or showing.

That was me at the same age. The sheer amount of money being spent in the industry is pretty freakin’ daunting. For me, it was a $40K packer on the local circuit in the 80s with an utterly talentless amateur; now, it’s six and seven figure horses and dog knows what else.

The difference is I didn’t have social media to express my poorly articulated rage. Was I capable of the sort of sloppy thinking and blamestorming the OP has demonstrated? ABSOLUTELY. I just didn’t have a platform to showcase it.

The other difference is I got over myself, realized that only fair in this town arrives every year for 10 days in October, and figured out how to carve a niche for myself in the sport and not compromise my own ethics. It can be done. Now, the sheer work eventually wore me down and after two decades, I got a corporate job and did horses on the side. But I loved my time as a full time horsewoman and I don’t regret any of it.

But I do remember feeling pretty much exactly the way the OP does.

Let’s hope she does some self-reflection and some business analysis and turns that passion back in a positive direction.

[amb]

Back when the Longines tour was fairly new there was actually a decent amount of ink spilled on how it was amplifying terrible trends in the jumpers in particular to make it all about money, money, money, and it was corrupting all other priorities. I have a lot of sympathy for that point of view, and I wish I could find some of those writeups now. (Probably the most insightful commentary is buried here somewhere though!)

Where I am now in life is hell-and-gone from the big-money H/J world but we’ve still got BNRs coming to grassroots events and bullying ring stewards to change the order of go (published in advance!) for their convenience, and at the other end I’ve seen the changes the IOC (and thus FEI) are pushing for changes in all sports that are only about having a well-packaged media spectacle (that turns into $$$) and have jack-all to do with good sport.

To quote the end of the OP’s original post: “Is this really the industry we imagined? Or do we still have some “cleaning up” to do?”