In addition to reining, which is huge in Europe, the Vaquero scene is monster in Italy.
There are also several saddle makers who learned the craft in the States and are now working on the Continent. (Making ranch, not reining, saddles.)
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I feel like it’s a little premature to pin EDM on Europe/imports, though I do think I have seen that opinion expressed in another thread by @Xctrygirl, who has some insider knowledge. There are breeders in Europe whose babies get plenty of grass, and breeders in America whose babies don’t/can’t (due to geography/climate). If there is some intermediary factor that we don’t understand yet, we don’t know whether it is more common there than here.
The only EDM case I know personally (my friend’s Hanoverian mare, confirmed by necropsy) was born in the US and did get turn out. I know because she was born and raised at my coach’s barn and I took some foal photos of her in turnout. Maybe the grass wasn’t good enough or the timing wasn’t right or there is some other environmental factor involved, but dozens of foals have grown up there and this is the first known EDM case.
While each person’s risk tolerance is different, I think we just don’t know enough to make informed decisions yet.
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That may depend on the sport. In the dressage world, a backyard horse is rarely going to have the gaits to beat a fancy warmblood.
Supply and demand? Late summer of 2020 I looked HARD for a backyard pony big enough for me to get on when it got naughty for my little buddies. When I finally found one, I choked at the price, but paid. Three times what I would have expected to pay. She’s still a Gem. 
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I’m replying here only because I don’t want to lose the thought in this complicated thread, not to pick on anyone in particular. But the breeding industry in the US does itself no favors pricing horses on “what they have in it”. This is part of why people go to Europe.
A horse’s value is a sliding scale variable of quality and training.
You can put $50k of costs into producing a leg hanger. You can put the same $50k into producing a worldbeater. Their breeding/feeding/training/upkeep/show experience cost the same, whether they are crap or not. But it doesn’t make either of them “worth” $50k. The leg hanger is worth peanuts here, or the Europeans eat him. The worldbeater is worth 500k, 1 million, 5 million, depending on whatever point you decide to cash out. He covers the cost of the leg hangers that everyone produces in the process of trying to produce the worldbeaters.
Of course most horses fall in the middle, and the more training put into the average horse the more value it has to a wider market. But it’s not always that clear cut. That leg hanger would be “worth” more money as a weanling before training, just because he has the breeding and looks to have potential. You can then put all the money into waiting until he’s older and getting him started, only to have him be unsaleable at the same weanling price because he’s now proven he is worthless.
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I actually do training for a rescue. We help other rescue groups with horses that are suitable for training. They have to pass a basic prepurchase on entry to our program. They are all sound and useful horses that have ended up in rescue.
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It’s been said here already, but a lot of folks still think there’s some deep conspiracy going on behind horse pricing.
Like antiques or artwork, they are only worth exactly what a single buyer will pay for them. Period. Sellers can put whatever crazy price they want on their horse, and if someone buys it, then the price was valid. If no one buys it, then the price is unrealistic and gets lowered, or the delusional seller keeps the horse on their books and gripes about buyers who can’t recognize quality when they see it:
Ultimately horses aren’t a commodity and prices can’t be evaluated that way. There have always been undiscovered gems at rock-bottom prices and nice horses that sell for amounts that seem out of line with their record, abilities, or breeding.
But the only way you can “question” (or actually object to) horse prices is to make a counter offer to the seller, or just don’t upset yourself by looking at horses outside your budget.
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Wow! That’s good to know, thank you. What, if you are aware, is the main reason useable/ sound horses end up in rescue?
I’m going to say lack of training. The grade 2 year old off the range no one wants to invest time in. The 9 year old pasture pet that isn’t totally safe even on the ground.
Rescue is a very wide term. If it’s the SPCA then horses have been seized for poor body condition and might be sound and broke when they recover. If it’s private rescues they could be surrenders, more likely with a limiting physical issue. However many rescues just buy horses at auction to save them from slaughter, and all kinds of horses go to auction especially when times are tough.
You are unlikely to get a top sport horse prospect out of this milleu, of course. Speaking as someone that follows a lot of rescues on FB.
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Scribbler has it for the most part it’s lack of training. People don’t want useless horses. The untrained, even if young and sound, just keep falling back in the rescue pipeline as they get older and less sound.
These horses come from all kinds of situations. Feral and abandoned, owner died or ran out of money or into health problems, or neglect cases that went through authorities. A lot of people have horses that aren’t trained that they think are fine because they will just take care of them, or they get in over their heads with a breeding or a purchase that they learn they can’t train themselves or don’t have the time, and then it’s 8 or 12 or whatever and something happens and they can’t keep it but who would want it?
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Around here the average, done nothing but ride down the ditch bank a few times is going for roughly 9,000. The prices people are asking and getting for the caliber of horse is crazy out of alignment.
Hay is already expensive. And it is going to get worse. I see a wreck coming.
Shwilah
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**[quote=“IdahoRider, post:380, topic:772697, full:true”]
Around here the average, done nothing but ride down the ditch bank a few times is going for roughly 9,000. The prices people are asking and getting for the caliber of horse is crazy out of alignment.
Hay is already expensive. And it is going to get worse. I see a wreck coming.
Shwilah
[/quote]
I know prices have gone up, but as I wrote up thread, if people are readily buying these horses at these prices, can we really say they’re out of alignment? If buyers pay the asking price, then by definition, that is the horse’s legitimate value at the time of purchase.
I do think most owners will be priced out of horse ownership in the near future, but not because of horse prices. It will be because of rural land being developed, farms being sold, and the costs of hay, etc. I actually think horse prices have finally had a market correction and are more realistic now than in the past.
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Bias
Lately I noticed a big difference in price when I ask my friends for input.
Ask the older wiser coach - always thinks its less money and 10-30k less than what I’m thinking.
Ask my new age bestie and she thinks it’s a steal of a deal and the horse is worth 30-50k more
I try to lamd between the two but it used to be pretty solid estimating and now it’s not.
As a seller, I list my horses at the price I need the money for within reason.
But I think some horses start off being leg hangers but improve over time with training and moving up the levels. At leest that happens with showjumpers. Hunters I do not know.
Some leg hangers can improve. Some leg hangers are simply leg hangers.
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Sometimes. Sometimes not. You can invest in even more money in time and training and gamble it will improve, or cut your losses. If you sell it for peanuts a buyer can gamble that they can fix it. But you can also substitute in whatever flaw you want here. No step, no scope, not careful, wicked vice or even unsound. There are many things that can make well bred, attractive horses actually relatively worthless or useless for their intended purpose.
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the leg hangers are sold as dressage prospects. 
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well, it is a small jump. why tuck the legs behind the ears…
Not true at all… but I guess it depends what you consider “backyard”.
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