Is it the spicy guac? I don’t like the spicy kind, that is why I ask.
Otherwise, yes please, pass the guac and chips my way. No wine, thank you.
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Have you ever read The Monday Horses or The Crumb by Jean Slaughter Doty? These books for children were written in the 70s, and many of the practices you seem so horrified about (and much worse) are detailed within them. It’s not a new thing.
The fact that something costs more in one market versus another, well, yes, I’m annoyed that a restaurant meal I buy near my home has, like a $15 markup or more (and isn’t any better) when I go to the city an hour away from me. But with the exception of genuine necessities in the grocery store being marked up near less affluent areas (which I do think is unethical), ultimately you have to accept the market sets the price (especially for non-necessary goods like show horses).
Reselling a show hunter isn’t like buying up scarce baby formula in bulk and reselling it at an extreme markup.
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Yes.
You have taken on ALL the risk buying the horse. You have chosen the horse and put it in a position to be able to do so.
I’m not really not sure why you are against trainers or owners making money?
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What exactly do you mean by this?
My father races cars as a hobby…he sold his car for more than double what he paid. Do you feel the same angst against him?
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I’ll make both.
Probably more needed the way this thread is trending 
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No because I’m well aware of what is driving prices, and what causes a horse to be priced XYZ.
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I think the market is going to soften a bit. Will top notch international prospects and made, competitive hunters still be exceptionally expensive? Absolutely but I think the other sectors of the market will soften up.
I think board prices will and should continue to rise particularly in markets near big hcol cities.
Horse sellers are well within their rights to sell their horses for as much as they can get for them. Just like I’m entitled to seek employment with the best possible compensation package.
Pass the guac. I like mine chunky and spicy.
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This thread is starting to devolve into conspiracy theories, but for the sake of those who want to know what it’s like producing a horse in our current market, I’ll put my cost[s] to produce my 5 y/o WB below.
Her sire’s stud fee was nearly $2k. Her breeder’s foals sell in utero for $20K+. She was worth five figures before I sat on her back.
In feed alone, she’s cost over $12,000 in the last five years. ($200/mo)
I keep my horses at home so don’t have to pay board, but if I did, five years of board in my area would be $90,000 (
) if I paid $1500/mo.
Her farrier costs have been $3,000 (she is barefoot) for the last five years. ($50/mo)
A segue for a moment about the challenges of producing a young horse: here in the states, there is a dearth of quality sport-horse starters. There are tons of ambitious teens/twenty year olds that will ride anything, and tons of brilliant trainers who will train an already started horse, but very few experienced young horse trainers will agree to climb aboard that horse’s first time being ridden. Someone out there has to convert that unbroke baby who doesn’t even know how to have its feet picked into a riding horse. That takes months of daily work, and years of regular riding, training, and showing. These babies have to be taught to be handled, be good citizens for routine things like grooming, clipping, bathing, load in a trailer, stand for the farrier. They need to be taught to stand at the mounting block, to walk, trot, canter. To jump things they are pointed at. To ignore stimuli like plastic bags, loudspeakers, people running, bicycles. To concentrate on their job. To go new places confidently, step in any ring and be rideable, to be okay alone or in a group, to trail ride on the buckle, to look to their rider for support when they are nervous or unsure…
Trust me that this process does not happen overnight.
If you were to pay me to train this horse regularly, and I valued my time at $75 a 45m session (which I do), starting from the time she was 3 to now and accounting for only working her half the year, you’d owe me $13,200 per year in training fees. She’s had almost 3 years of training ($39,600). If you(g) put her up for training board with me instead of paying per training session, and I charged the going rate for training board in my area which is $1700, that’s $20,4000 a year and $61,200 for the last three years.
If I want this mare to have a resume, I’m going to have to spend thousands of dollars a year in show fees. A recognized event in my area is $275 for entry fees, $50 for stabling, ~$200 in lodging, and $100 in fuel. If we assume that each show will cost me $625 (which is CHEAP by showing standards), and you want to put 10 shows under her belt from spring to fall (about 1 show every 3.5 weeks), that’s $6,250 in show fees. This number is the biggest variable - some years you do two shows, some years you are almost doing back to back.
These are all costs associated with production. If you add my actual costs together – that’s everything from how much she was as a weanling to how much mileage and exposure I’ve put into her the last five years, you get over $71,000. That amount would be doubled if I boarded. The market starts to make sense when you look at prices in a cost-of-production sense.
If I sold this filly (she is never for sale), I deserve to make money. My product is valuable, and as a young horse rider/trainer, I know exactly what has gone into this horse. I put improvements into this product. I made her rideable. I made her handleable. I gave her exposure. I taught her how to bathe, clip, pony off of another horse, pick up her feet, jump, load in the trailer and travel well. The list goes on - these are improvements I gave this product and I – and other trainers – deserve to be fairly compensated. Especially when you consider that young horse riders are not common, and the amount of people producing horses per year is shrinking as more and more riders are priced out or go to easier, more profitable avenues like training adult horses or instructing adult clients.
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Is this what you interpreted as an attack? It certainly wasn’t intended to be. It was intended to be sympathetic. And it was based on my own experience - I was the person who worked my butt off, got pinned below someone who hadn’t put in the work who was on a expensive packer, and I resented it.
I was genuinely trying to discern where you’re coming from, and I started off with a place and resentments I understood.
It was hard for me to find a niche in the sport where I could thrive because I didn’t have scads of money or financial backing.
The watershed moment for me was when Spielberg paid high 6 figures for Rumba, the top hunter in the country who had won all the big hunter derbies for his kid to show in the Children’s. Because I remembered when the Children’s was the ONE division you could pin in on a not fancy but cute, honest horse. Maybe even an off color one!
I’m still not sure exactly what your beef is; it started with the price of horses, but then diverged in wealthy ammies, Facebook, drugging horses, bullying and I’m not sure what all else. Can you articulate more clearly exactly what your complaint is?
I will mention that while I will always love the hunters and I cherish my hunter show background, I had to branch out to other disciplines to keep my sanity and to enjoy the journey.
Someone in my area started a schooling jumper show series that was a great outlet for a while, I could take my good students on their inexpensive horses and if they rode well, they pinned and won money. It was great. Three years into to this circuit’s existence, the founder started selling lots of purpose-bred jumpers for their clients to show, and it got harder and harder, though not impossible to pin.
Eventing has experienced inflation, too, but eventing’s emphasis is more on independent horsemanship - no one can school your horse on the grounds for you, no coaching from the rail, and it’s really hard to do well if you haven’t put in the saddle time with the horse. Sure, people buy upper level horses dropping down as packers for lower level riders, but the rider still has to get them around without a pro tuning them up right before they compete.
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Of course it is. Do you have any idea what the mark-up is on most manufactured goods? And on luxury items, like horses, it’s even bigger. The retail mark up on diamond wedding rings is, according to the first return on Google, “an average of 300% up to an unbelievable 1000%.”
Eyeglasses: 800-1000%
Clothing: 100-350%
And if you really want to talk about moral and ethical, lets talk about the retail prices of pharmaceuticals - 200-5,600% mark ups.
It’s all driven by market forces. Things sell for whatever the market will bear. Horses are no different.
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The heck is this dirt money you keep going on about?
There is no money being made out of thin air. Every single person that buys a horse is taking a gigantic financial risk wether that horse is intended for resale or not.
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What on earth are you going on about? Are you seriously comparing the horse industry to the diamond industry?
Somebody pass me the wine.
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There are no spades here bro.
Pretty sure you’re an outlier bc you have no clue what you’re talking about
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But you are not really calling a spade a spade.
I am not sure what you are calling what, but if it makes you feel better about yourself to think that others are not allowed to make money at something then I say go for it.
I don’t know what that loaf of bread I bought cost to make, I just decided that this loaf, because I like it so much, is worth it to me to pay that premium price for.
Why are horses any different? Why do you (general) deserve to know what I paid for this horse? How do I quantify a dollar amount for the expertise it took to realize that horse is worth something and the knowledge it took to put those specific rides on it so it would win and then be sold for whatever huge number it sold for?
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I’m sorry that you feel it’s okay to attack someone’s character/background - of which you know nothing about - just because you don’t like their opinion.
Calling you out on an uneducated and illogical argument isn’t an attack. That’s calling a spade a spade btw.
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This isn’t about me and my feelings. Gaslighting someone who is trying to highlight serious concerning trends in this industry makes me think you genuinely think there aren’t problems that need to be addressed. Is that the case?
Reading the info on your profile, it reads to me like you have a nice chip on your shoulder that nothing has been handed to you and sound very bitter because of it.
The upper elite are not the majority of people who have and show horses. They can however, afford whatever they need to be competitive at that level and not much else can compete with that. That also isn’t unique to the horse world.
While I had my parents support as a child, I am much like you in that I am 100% funding all my horse related endeavors. It took me until I was 35 to be in a position to buy my horse and not have to worry much about the financial end of things. While I sit in the upper middle class tier, I am far from made of money. I am GRATEFUL that I am able to afford the horse I wanted and everything else that goes along with it and don’t give a hoot about anyone that can afford more than I can. It was entirely worth the wait.
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Hope you feel better now. Do you have anything of value to add or are you just going to keep trolling?
