do "wanted" ads work?

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amycamycamyc

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have been looking for a horse for a month or so - not ages i know(!). Seen some lovely horses (and Monty&Zoom has been a legend with second opinions!) but none that really clicked. Has anyone here found their horse through a "wanted" advert? Did you get lots of responses? what are the downsides to doing this?

any tips for what i should put in it? Obv I am a very well behaved forum user so I won't be putting full details on here...!
 
i put a wanted advert on horsequest and horsemart yesterday and i've had 5 calls, several texts and 5 emails. I've booked into see 2 horses on friday, one on wednes and a couple the week after... so i guess they do work!
I'd deffo recommend horsequest, thats where the majority of callers have seen my advert. Go for it, I decided I had nothing to lose so I have done and its all guns blazing now. Oh yes, may I add, I've had a few weirdos call though :S most of which i despatched with efficiently by saying 'sorry it's not what i'm looking for'. That shut their sales pitches up!
Best of luck ;)
 
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We got a fantastic horse through putting out a wanted ad. Some people are reluctant to put their horse up for sale but when they see a good home in the offing it helps them to make a move.
 
yep was looking for a project but nothing really up my street - placed a wanted ad and four days later he arrived. Would go this route everytime now :)
 
I've also always had abit of a responce - both when I was looking to loan and buy. There wasn't anything that I was looking for so on both occasions I found the horse!

I'm sure you'll have a good responce!
 
I will let you know...am looking at a horse Thurs, a response to my wanted ad. Have found and tried several myself but nothing suitable, and though this one is bigger than my 'want' at 15.2 he sounds like a possible. I am excited so wish me luck!!!
I had several calls but it has been 3 months *boo* I think you just have to be patient.
This is the ad I put, I have not been inundated but it will only take one perfect one to respond!
http://www.freeads.co.uk/uk/equestrian/horses_+_ponies/mixed_breed/5437906/-newmarket---wanted-/view

I am looking for a perfect family mount though, and a loan at that :(
Patience is a word I am coming to know well :0)
 
have done one! Annoying that it will only go up between 9-5.30 tomorrow now though. bit worried about posting about what i'm looking for on here as i don't want admin getting cross.. but.... 14.3-15.2,6-10yrs perfect allrounder basically! have been to prestwood farm and like all their horses/ponies but none really clicked, and they are mostly a bit young. I think head has to rule over heart when it comes to the age... so i've put on my wanted ad that i'd like them to be over the 5 yr old tantrum stage...
 
Yes!

I got Blackjack through a 'wanted' ad. His then owners had bought him 3 months previously to do BS(JA) with but he wasn't quite fast enough.

We put an ad in, and he was exactly what we wanted. They were in two minds whether to perservere or sell, but saw our ad and decided to sell him.

Worked for us!
 
We found our first horse and our current horse through wanted adverts. The 1st one was on Horsemart and we found the perfect horse for us at that time after almost giving up after looking at loads of suitable sounding but in reality not at all right horses from for sale ads :) The current fella was through a wanted post on a small forum I frequent. Again found the perfect horse for us at that time (and now :)) and stay in touch with his previous owner and friends through the forum.

I'd def use a wanted advert if I was looking again.

Edited to ad - in both cases owners were umming and ahhing about selling and hadn't advertised so we'd probably have not found either fella without a wanted ad :)
 
I had an overwhelming response when I placed a wanted ad on horsequest. The first night the phone hardly stopped ringing, and my email inbox was bursting.

Quite a few were chancers. It was amazing how many contacted with me with 16hh horses when my advert said up to 15.3hh. But a few real potentials did turn up.

If I hadn't put the wanted ad up, I wouldn't have found my perfect pony.

An owner contacted me about her connemara - she had been thinking of selling him and when she saw my advert thought he'd be perfect for me. Maybe a clever line to make herself seem genuine - a lot of people use this line and I do wonder how many people just sit and read wanted adverts for fun? - but either way he sounded nice so I arranged to go all the way to ireland to see him.

In the end he wasn't suitable, but because I had gone to Ireland a friend of my instructor said I might as well go see her connie since I was making the journey over there. Again she hadn't quite put him on the open market, as she had bought him to break and in normal circumstances would have wanted a bit longer to 'finish him off'.

I ended up buying him. So, though it wasn't exactly from my wanted ad, that played a key role in getting him!
 
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I found my new boy through a wanted ad and he has been absolutely foot perfect so I would say they do work. I had loads of phone calls but you had to be very firm with what you are looking for. As soon as someone said "I know he's a bit older than you're looking for" I politely declined to talk about it otherwise I would have spent hours on the phone.

Also, a couple of people contacted me from my ad with horses that sounded perfect but on doing some background digging (thanks to an excellent agent I hired to do the pre-viewing checks for me) a couple of them turned out to be a bit dodgy.

With one horse (for sale for £5k) it turned out that the previous owner sold it very cheap (less than £1k) as it had a sarcoid problem, they had been removed but were coming back aggressively. The new owner didn't declare any sarcoids on the initial phone call and was very convincing with her story about being made redundant and gutted because she hadn't had the horse long, etc, etc. The previous owner was gutted when she found out new owner had contacted me as they thought it was a home where the horse would be forever.

So don't become complacent just because someone has responded to your ad, as with a horse that is advertised, it's just as important to do all the necessary background checks, and sometimes more.
 
Ah faaaair enough....one I was thinking of is a bit big and more jumper\WH....;) lol. I'll keep an eye out though :)
 
Yes! I put one on Horsequest when I was looking this last time and got loads of response!

I put 'please email with picture and info in the first instance' which helped me weed out the unsuitable ones more quicly than I could spending hours on the phone.

Good luck!
 
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