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Why is the dressage horse sales market so hot?

Just wanted to say I’m rooting for you to never have to sell that horse of a lifetime. I’ve so been in that situation and it’s just so hard. Sending you good vibes.

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I am just bumping this up to see how everyone’s experience is now? I sold a horse that was not working out and am now shopping. I will be curious if the prices get more in line after the FL season is over? Some of these prices are ridiculous for what they are (green, no show record, average movement but a reg. WB).

My guess is that the market will stay hot for a while yet. Perhaps it will slow down a bit this fall/winter when people in this country are largely vaccinated and other leisure activities pick back up. Then perhaps it will slow down a bit more once the virus is under control worldwide and international travel is safe and unrestricted again.

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Asking prices are still high, but I am not seeing horses sell that quickly at the moment even compared to a month ago.

I am seeing the same thing as soloudinhere plus a slight uptick in the volume of horses coming on the market. My guess is the market will continue to change as more people are vaccinated and employers start asking people to come back into work. I am selfishly torn…as an employee I want the transition to WFH to continue. As a horse buyer I want the market to cool off.

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I bought an OTTB in December, and I found an amazing horse that has a good brain and the potential for FEI levels - really exciting horse. He had probably 60 days of retraining but was still super green and he is (was) tough in the bridle - definitely not everyone’s type of ride. Clean as a whistle PPE. They were asking $12,500, I got a couple of thousand off but still a high price for a horse with 60 days retraining. I feel like a few years ago that would’ve been a $8,500-$10k asking price horse. Maybe I’m wrong because he is cool, but he really is not everyone’s type of ride, so it makes it a little difficult.

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Interestingly, in my immediate area horse sales have slowed a bit. Hay prices are high, like they are every year at this time, and a couple of bigger boarding facilities have either closed or increased prices. I’ve recently been offered a couple of free horses. 6 months ago they would have sold instead of give away in the low 4s.

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I think it’s probably starting to soften because there seem to be quite a few sellers who just put horses on the market at high prices to see if they could sell. Has been tempting for me to write a sales ad on days my young horse is being difficult!

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might want to review the employers policies to make sure there is not a requirement to reimbursement the tuition in a payback agreements

My wife used her employer’s tuition reimbursement program to obtain her RN, the policy required her to work for one year after completion or the last payment.

At least in the market I’m looking at, the backlog of horses who were not able to be imported due to land closures has cleared up and so there are a huge number on the market at the moment.

Additionally I think people are starting to see things open up and are now looking at horses that are ready to go right now. The market for prospects has softened considerably in the last 5-6 weeks and what I would consider to be very nice horses are languishing on the market at too-high price tags.

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It’s not the price of horses but rather the value of the dollar. The dollar has suffered horribly since we went on a money printing spree 365 days ago. As such, anything valuable has gone up, or rather the dollar has decreased relative to the item. You see this in houses, stocks, precious art, expensive wine, classic cars, horses, etc.

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I’m in H/J land but I’m still seeing/hearing that there’s no horses to be found and the prices for the available ones are very high. Everyone I know shopping is having a rough time and they’re on the scale of ‘need a sane, semi-sound lesson horse’ to ‘6 figure budget.’

I am wondering what will happen after Florida as well.

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There’s usually a crush in March to get deals done before the end of the FL season, when there’s so many horses in one location, you can see them show, etc (at least in the higher end of the market) after that until June, it usually softens.

For those looking for lower level horses, the ones that are on the market now have already been dealt with all winter, which is a big annoyance in a large part of the country, and so there’s less pressure to get something sold when there’s hay and turnout and places to ride them. Best time to find those horses is definitely going into “kid off to college and winter is coming” season of August-September-October.

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I’ve been looking for a year and the horses that fit in the lower levels, safe and sane, are sold in 2 seconds. There has also bit of a cleaning out the closet going on with horses being advertised as safe and sane, with crazy prices, that are nothing of the sort.

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I have been in the market for almost a year and have a rather healthy budget. I am still looking but am not going to overpay for a horse just because the market bears a crazy price. I rather wait a few more months and go to Europe to see what accumulated there.

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If you’ve been looking for a year, why haven’t you done that already?

It’s been my experience that there are a lot of horses on the market right now, but very few of really significant quality. I buy horses from Europe fairly regularly, and it has not been as easy to find good ones.

I am looking and it has been incredibly depressing. I have a couple lined up to look at, but if that doesn’t pan out I think I will be in camp “wait until Eastern Europe opens up more.” Prices are insane right now and selection is very minimal.

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Because there has been a global pandemic for the last year, so flying over to check horses out has not necessarily been feasible within her risk tolerance?

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Well it’s also not really feasible now with many countries still in lockdown, so I’m not sure how that became a valid solution now that we are a year in.

Good horses are selling to people who don’t need to fly there and see them.

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All warmbloods aren’t created equally. Just because a horse is a warmblood doesn’t promise a quality individual as many breed for the wrong reasons or don’t have a clue about matching up mares and stallions. I know of some who breed to unapproved stallions, so the resulting foals can’t even be registered or approved for breeding.Those of us who are experienced and take great care to match of top quality mares and stallions and make the effort to provide the best care and attention, training and maintenance spend ALOT of money to produce a really good quality prospect. Those are usually worth the asking price.

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