Buy/selling horses

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jaynedoc

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Having no experience at either buying or selling horses I would like some information on these areas.
Firstly I have a mare on free loan, the owner lives in Essex while I and the horse are in Northants. (I am not buying the horse as it is out of my price range) The owner does not want her back at the yard as she is a difficult horse to handle. So she wants me to sell her. I have no information on the horse to help sell it and most importantly I am self employed and I am at my busiest during the summer months and I work solid over the weekends and weekday evenings generally clocking up a 70 hour week.
Does anyone have experience in the pitfalls of selling horses that they can help me avoid as you can see my time is going to be very limited. Also I would like to replace her does anyone have any advise for buying horses and what warnings or problems should I be on the lookout for?
 
firstly you need to gather all info on that horse before you can do anything etc height ,breed , age , sex,colour,temperment,
whether or not he or she is easy to do box ,clip,shoe,
what rider he would suit
what disciplines hes done, is good at ,and enjoys,
good compertion results if any,
reason for sale,
vices,
price,
remember to include any other good points ect bombproof
as for you the same questians really i would also get a vet check done on the horse you look to buy must also has vaccination and passport
 
First of all, I would say that if the owner does not want to bother with handling the selling of this horse, you need to make sure that you are getting something for doing this, perhaps a percentage of the selling price?? If she is a difficult horse to handle it will not be the easiest of sales, unless she is a real competition prospect.
As far as tips for selling, be honest, give as much info as possible to anyone calling , or contacting you to ensure that the people who do come to see her, have a good picture of what the horse is really like. If you are working so many hours, might be worth using an email as initial contact so that you are not fielding phone calls, plus you can then manage your time a bit better.... another reason to make sure you get compensated for this work.. you may spend a bit of money on your phone bill ! make sure you have lots of pictures and preferably a video of the horse so that people have a better idea if it a horse for them

Good luck !
 
she should draft the advert and field calls. Set out a specific time you can show the horse off, and allow her to send veiwers to you at this time.

her horse, she wants it sold she should either sell it you, sell it herself or at least do the above. oh yes, and she pays for the adverts!!

whening buying the best thing you can do is use a dealer, depending on what you want and budget ask on this forum for reccomendations. i have always used dealers, as the horse comes with a warrenty, (if it doesnt - leave).

if you decide to use this method, take the horse home for the trial, if its the one - THEN vet it, no point in vetting a horse before knowing if its the one for you.

Save your self time, money and petrol.

I used Karren Niccol - european sporthorses.com, lovely horses.
 
How far out of your price range is she? When I bught my lad I had him on loan, owner decided to sell, I hadn't got enough money but by the time she had worked out cost of sales livery, advertising etc, and the hassle of selling, she sold him to me for 25% less than she would have advertised him for!!

Otherwise all of what ischa said above tbh! And be prepared for lots of people who don't appear to be able to read and timewasters! Advertised OH's mare as a broodmare due to injury (said exactly that in ad). One woman phoned up and said 'can he be ridden?' Ermmmm, no, what with HIm being a HER!! 'What about hacking' still, no. I asked if she was planning to breed...thinking maybe she was calling about a few different horses....'erm, yeah, well I could get a stallion' was teh answer. No, you couldn't, I answered and politely got rid. She phoned us 4 more times to see if she was still for sale!! Bizarre!
 
Personally I wouldn't take the responsibility of selling the horse - you can held liable if something goes wrong and have acted as the owners' 'agent'. You only have the owner's word for the horse's past. I'd send her back to the owner to sell. If you really like this 'difficult' horse and it is really one you'd like to own, pursue it with the owner as it would be less hassle and cost saving for her to sell to you at a reduced price. Re buying one yourself, I agree with the other posts on here (except using a dealer which I am dead against but that is purely from my own personal experiences and shouldn't stop you trying it) plus see if you can take someone knowledgeable with you if you try one, make a list before you go of everything you can think of to ask (even if you have done this on the phone prior to going), make notes of everything they tell you, try the horse out of its normal routine (eg if it normally hacks in company, take it out alone, and go the other way around its normal route). Just be very wary, go back a couple of times if you can and don't be rushed into making a decision. Think very hard about you need before you go, not what you want - eg you may fancy a TB allrounder but may actually need a cob happy hacker. I've been around horses all my life but still come home wishing i'd written something down, asked more questions, pushed harder for a trial, and yes I've been taken in and found myself in trouble later on. Just be realistic, wary, thorough and take advice where you can. Good luck!
 
Thank you for all the advise. I did not realise that I could be held responsible should anything go wrong.. I think a rethink is in order. I can see now that the owner (who incidently is an aquiantance of mine before I had her horse) is pushing alot of reposnsibility on to me. She wants £3000 for the horse and I can only afford £1500. The mare is a cob x fell and not what I would usually buy I a definalty a lover of warmbloods and I like a horse with spirit not a plodder. Having said the thee mare I have is difficult to handle on the ground (her owner struggled) but I have been usimg some parelli techniques on her and we get on so well I have no problems handling her in fact the other yardies cannot believe her transformation since her arrival 5 months ago. I am quite proud of my self as before I had her I had never even put a bridle on a horse before. I was told of I could handle her I can handle anything (talk about in at the deep end!!)and now I have the most well behaved horse on the yard. So I worry what she will be like when she leaves and is handled differently. I guess this is where some comeback on me may occur from a disgruntled buyer should she choose to be difficult again.
 
Perhaps you should suggest she goes on sales livery somewhere. By the time the owner's worked out what that's likely to cost her, it may just be easier to cut her losses and sell her to you! It may take some time to sell her (and several pairs of shoes and goodness knows what else in the meantime) and perhaps it's easier to just let her go for less money to someone who loves her and will give her a good home. I know I took less (but not half price!) for the one I sold in January, we were finally "apart" by £100.00 and he was due a new set of shoes in 2 weeks (£70) and more livery costs (say about £80) if I was going to lose the sale through not lowering my price even more - it made financial sense to sell him £100 less. He too was not the easiest of chaps and the people buying him were perfect for him. So in a funny kind of way I ended up making more on him that I would have done if I had been awkward and held out for my own bottom line price. And I also kept some of my stuff that had been included in the original sale price as a concession to lowering my price!

I too don't think you should "sell" the horse for the owner, it will be all your fault if she takes ages to sell, regardless of all the unsuitable numpties who turn up for viewings. I just don't think you can win in this situation. Not to mention that you are going to struggle to have time to show this mare off.
 
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