over priced horses!

How much do you think it costs you to keep your horse for one year? Multiply that figure by the age of the horse you are thinking of buying. Then add one extra year (the keep of the mother for one year) and add a stud fee. Now you have the cost of breeding and rearing the said horse. Except, it will have needed farrier, vet etc etc. Then there is backing and breaking and riding enough to make it safe and able to do the work you require of it. Is your final figure £1500? If so that is the right price.
 
Nightmare before Christmas said:
I don't get why everyone wants it so cheap though. When I see a cheap horse I always wonder whats wrong with it!!
Click to expand...

I would pay ten k to get my horse back without a second thought. I don't want it cheap but I'm not paying over the odds for something. 3k for a 3 yr old bolshy welsh D that's rarely been on a head collar and could be a complete fruit loop as there is no evidence to the contrary, is over priced. They can all die or break down whatever the price. Horses are my hobby and the ones I've bought for a bargain have been the best ones anyway. The more I've paid the bigger the disaster!
 
A friend of mine bought a horse similar to the one you're after OP and she paid around the £6k mark. Said horse wasn't going to be the next Valegro, but she was sane and sensible and would turn her hoof to anything!! She had the sweetest nature. She was worth every penny.
 
Last edited:
Nightmare before Christmas said:
£1500 is nothing for an allrounder! I find when selling anything up to 3.5k people want it for £1500 once over 10k people don't moan!!! Don't get why people don't want to pay for the right horse anymore. Everyone seems to want something for nothing!
Click to expand...

Completely agree with this. I would've put a £4K-£5K budget on the type of horse OP is after!
 
smellsofhorse said:
I agree with this.
£1500 is not a lot really.

I'd be surprised if you can find a good riding club horse for that much.
Click to expand...

I'd be surprised if you could find ANY RC-ready type horse for this price. For £1,500 I'd perhaps expect something maybe just backed so very very basic riding. Otherwise, something old. Why not go for unbacked? You can pick those up for £500 if you look around. For a general basic RC horse jumping about 75cm, I'd expect it to be priced at roughly £2,500. You may find the odd "problem" horse for £1,500 but I wouldn't expect it to be being advertised as an RC horse... You forget OP how much money goes into horses! I wouldn't sell any of mine for that money! When I used to back and bring on ponies to have been out to a few shows I'd get £2,500 for them no problem. I know market is different now but it costs money to look after and educate horses, take them to shows etc.
 
popsdosh said:
I wish some of you with low expectations of what to pay would try breeding some of the horses you think are overpriced that would be an eye opener for you. Or perhaps the breeders should become registered charities as well.
Seriously if you are looking for a cheap horse get it soon ,because I predict in 5 yrs time you will struggle to buy at 5x the price as there will be an under supplied market because the breeding numbers have fallen back.
Click to expand...

Just because it's bred to the hilt, doesn't mean it's worth anything. My beautifully bred welsh D cost £200 as an unbroken 6yo. Owner was scared of him, and being welsh, he'd picked up on it, and was a paranoid, jumpy idiot, kicking out etc.
He took very little to sort out, and was ride and drive within a week... but, and it's a big but, he was absolutely useless / downright dangerous when he arrived with me. (oh, and he jumped the breast-bar and kicked the jockey door off it's hinges before finally being walked to his new home!)

Bargains are out there, but much depends on your confidence and ability to 'improve' what you buy.
 
I think part of the problem is that there is such a discrepancy in what certain types of horses can cost. I’m looking for a horse that will jump 1.10s and maybe 1.20s in time but I have a limited (for that sort of horse anyway) budget so know I will get young and green for my money which I don’t have a problem with.
What I have noticed is that you will have horses that fit the bill ranging from 2k to 20k. To me I wonder what is wrong with the cheap ones but when people are asking for horses like this and getting people saying they have one for 2k it makes people think you can get something for nothing. They may well be a bargain but let’s face it 99% of the time they’re not. I know full well that my budget will get me a good all-rounder but it will be a stretch to get a good comp horse unless I know the right people and I'm at the right place at the right time.
I don’t think I would take a chance on a cheap horse. I'm not sure I would know enough to take on quirks and I would worry about why it was cheap and something appearing down the line. I'm not saying expensive horses are better but you may lessen the risk that there is problem or that it’s been badly produced. That said some people will try their luck and think that there horse will be worth the same as a good 1.10 horse just because it managed to jump that big once in a lesson.
Most people know someone with a bargain horse who went on to great things etc, I’ve had one that was about as perfect an all-rounder as you could get but I was very lucky and I doubt I could repeat it. I still think they are the exception rather than the rule, cheap horses are normally cheap for a reason and unless you know what you are doing, it doesn’t always end well.

Also as a side, is it me or is it becoming popular to buy cheap horses so you can go and prove just how fab your cheap horse is compared to someone’s more expensive one? Or is it just some of the people I know? It seems fashionable to say that you only paid x amount and that the horse is now jumping so big and that its soooo much better than the horse you’ve got because it was cheap. It seems that reverse snobbery like that is ok….
 
It sounds like my girl was a complete and utter bargain, but I always knew she was. 16.2 irish sport horse 12 years old. Perfect to clip box catch and shoe. Hacks alone and in company, bombproof in traffic. Sensible hunter, jumps 3ft, excellent cross country. Just got 69% in her first prelim and reserve champion the first time showing in a riding horse class. I bought her for the princely sum of £1200, I was very lucky as the owner didn't really want to sell her but due to back issues had to and she thought I would make a good owner and wanted me to have her. I must add she is not for sale and I never would sell her, she is perfect. Sorry gushing over now.
I'm not planning on selling her once she retired or the time is right I'm hoping to join the minefield and breed a foal from her. I know crazy hey
 
I think if you've bought a cheap horse and improved it to the point where it's competing with other people on expensive ones, you've got every right to be proud of
a) your judgement
b) your horsemanship

Not saying you should rub other people's noses in it, though :D
 
I agree, 1500 for a RC/PC type isn't actually that much money.

I also agree with what others have said- the cost of breeding/rearing and training a young horse is likely to have been more than 1500. We all want horses to buy, if we aren't prepared to pay the cost of what a horse has taken to produce then people won't continue to breed/train and then we won't have many horses to chose from. Then where do you think the cost will go? Up!

Saying that some people can be a little delusional. When I was looking, _GG_ and I went to see a lovely 17h 4yo gelding who had unregistered breeding (although we knew who his sire was, although he was relatively unknown), had been broken, turned away and was now just starting to come back into work.
We turned up to try him, huge lack of facilities, saw him hacked down a lane, and i rode him down a track. No place to school or jump, and he was being advertised as a sports horse! She wanted £4500!!
I liked him so I offered £2500 subject to a two week trial- he would go to a professional eventer for two weeks so I could get an idea of what he was like- at my cost. She declined saying the least she would take was £3800!

I often wonder if she did sell him at that price.
 
pennyturner said:
I think if you've bought a cheap horse and improved it to the point where it's competing with other people on expensive ones, you've got every right to be proud of
a) your judgement
b) your horsemanship

Not saying you should rub other people's noses in it, though :D
Click to expand...

Ha ha, this is one of the reasons I do it. I love getting hairy, scruffy, semi-wild ones off hillsides for cheap and turning them into decent horses. It's fun riding the "scruffy" little horses against the posh expensive warmbloods at BS and BE ;)
 
The way I look at it, disregarding the odd bargain, the more proven a horse is, the more you will pay as it goes a long way to reduce your risk.

Bargains are relative. Some 10 years ago I bought an ex intermdiate eventer 13 year old mare for £3k. However, said mare had just had her foal taken off her, had not ridden for 2 years and (later) I found out had a massive falling out with her owner resulting in a nasty fall. Worked out for me and mare took me up to Novice. She has, however worked as my most expensive horse ever as retired at 16 and is still a happy stable ornament aged 27.
 
be positive said:
I do think you may struggle to find something that is halfway decent for under £2k unless you make compromises, good RC types around 15.2 are hard to find and if someone has put in the work to make the horse then they will usually know the value, I would be expecting to pay around £3k for what you describe unless it has a quirk that brings the price down or find one that is being sold for a genuine reason but needs to be moved very quickly but even then it may go for over £2k
Click to expand...

Agree with this.
 
£1500 is pennies for an 'RC horse'. Cheap horses tend to be cheap for a reason- Be it behaviour or health problems. It is very rare anyone does actually get a horse than ends up being a bargain when they spend so little
 
Like others have said, it depends whether you have the time and experience to buy a project. My RI refuses to buy expensive horses, but she has a good eye and years and years of experience backing/bringing young horses on. We bought a 3y/o Welsh D from a market a few years ago for under £500, backed and brought him on, and now he's a lovely chap, safe as houses. Won't ever be a world-beater, but he'll hack anywhere, do a nice dressage test and pop round a course. He'll never be sold and has a home for life with my RI, but now as a nearly 7y/o, I don't think he'd go for anything less than 3/4k.

I've now got his brother, as a barely backed 5y/o, to have some fun with. Got him for a little over 1k, but wouldn't expect to go any lower than that, considering he's put together well, has a great temperament and is sound/healthy. Needs a lot of work, but I've got the time/experience to put into him.
 
In all honesty, YOU are in la-la-land. A project may be less than £1500 but you don't want one from your original post, you want something up and running with no quirks. These don't get sold for under £1500.
 
9tails said:
In all honesty, YOU are in la-la-land. A project may be less than £1500 but you don't want one from your original post, you want something up and running with no quirks. These don't get sold for under £1500.
Click to expand...

This ^^ it all depends what YOU want.

If you are prepared to have something quirky with few issues, then yes you can get cheap - mine £1 is stunning and does the jobs I NEED him to do (unaffiliated events and hacking etc) BUT tricky to hack alone, has sarcoids - none changing as yet and was tricky to load and can nap alone and had a ? over one hock hence wouldnt pass a vetting - that has proved to be nothing but thats the chance you take.

If you want a ready made riding club type that will do everything be prepared to pay at least £1500 upwards.

I have had a few cheapies over the years which I have loved riding and they have done the jobs I needed, but not necessarily horses that you would sell on!!

x
 
Last edited:
The thing is, you can spend £gazoodles on a horse, and it can be purrfect, but start to get worse as soon as you lead it down the ramp, as it starts to walk all over you or learns bad habits - how many of us have never seen that happen to the teenager with the nice young expensive sports horse?

At the other end of the scale, someone else's nightmare can be bought for chips and turn out 100% in a different home (by which I don't necessarily mean a professional, just somewhere/someone who suits the horse).

What's the old Irish saying... "a 'orse is always either improvin' or disimprovin'".
Paying more does up the odds of starting off with a good one, but it doesn't guarantee keeping it that way.

I would expect £1500 to get me a horse which is currently happily in work, not one that had been turned away for ages.
 
Cortez said:
One man's overpriced horror is another man's bargain...
Click to expand...

Oh yes!

I was wildly amused to see someone criticising a nice enough "limited availability" pony as being ridiculously expensive, then obsessing over a horse with no schooling, breeding to speak of, dubious soundness and no evident talent up for the same price recently...

As I said on another thread recently, life would be very dull if we all coveted the same neighbour's ass. And that neighbour would be very tired of batting us all off, too...
 
Last edited:
JFTD said:
As I said on another thread recently, life would be very dull if we all coveted the same neighbour's ass. And that neighbour would be very tired of batting us all off, too...
Click to expand...

Lol. So true.

The secret to a happy life is to be quietly satisfied with your own ass... whilst enjoying the process of resolving any quirks it might have:P
 
popsdosh said:
I wish some of you with low expectations of what to pay would try breeding some of the horses you think are overpriced that would be an eye opener for you. Or perhaps the breeders should become registered charities as well.
Seriously if you are looking for a cheap horse get it soon ,because I predict in 5 yrs time you will struggle to buy at 5x the price as there will be an under supplied market because the breeding numbers have fallen back.
Click to expand...
I think you're spot on here. I've been looking at weanlings these last few months, seen them going so cheap it must surely be costing the breeders more to breed the animals than they will get in return, what with including keep, vets fees, passporting etc. Also I've noted a lot of studs are cutting back on the number of foals they're breeding, probably due to this, which, as said by popsdosh, will lead to less horses being available in the next few years and higher prices. Market is so low atm, if you're after a bargain get it now!
 
popsdosh said:
I wish some of you with low expectations of what to pay would try breeding some of the horses you think are overpriced that would be an eye opener for you. Or perhaps the breeders should become registered charities as well.
Click to expand...

Perhaps if the irresponsible breeders stopped doing what they do, we wouldn't even have this situation? I'm sure breeding is very tough, but that has nothing to do with my post. I was merely pointing out the fact that a horse which has done nothing and has a few issues is not worth £1,500 in the current market (as that is what the OP was about), and that you can pay much less, but be prepared for a lot of hard work as it will not be 'up and running'.

Not everything below £1,000 is a write-off.
 
I paid !1500 for my unbacked 6yr old ex stallion and thought it was a bargain, but then he was my dream horses and what id always wanted and a ridden away version of him you couldn't lay your hands on under £3500 so was more than happy to pay a trainer 1200 to professionally start and still think I have a bargain.
price will reflect breed and desirability of the animal as well as its all round quality.
Mines a rare breed and highly desireable so comes at a premum, one which I always thought would be out of my price range.
If you really like the horse its healthy and capable of doing what you would like then I would say 1500 is fair money
 
an up and going RC all rounder shouldn't be available for less than about £2k. if it is then there is something wrong with it, sometimes that thing will be something you can fix easily sometimes it may be a health risk.

muckypony, a horse that will make a decent all rounder is worth £1500 of anyones money if its broken, even if it has some issues (which by the sounds of the original post were fairly minor).
My lad was £1500 unhandled, he has no recorded breeding (but I do know it, nothing spectacular) but he had a lovely temperament & attitude and good movement. At 5 yrs old is one of the best horses I've ever owned. He is super easy, takes the world in his stride (I had him at a show under saddle 12weeks after he arrived from Ireland), is as bomb proof as a young horse gets in VERY HEAVY traffic and has never realy had any issues with anything. Both myself and my sister often forget we are riding a 5yr old and often do things with him and then think "oops that was the first time he has done XXX." Heck I had shoes put on him for the first time ever last week, even my farrier forgot he had never had them on before, he was hot shod, in the middle of the yard and I stood there with a cup of tea in one hand and a looped leadrope in the other. It was only afterwards that my farrier pointed out that it was his first set of shoes and that he normally expects some reaction to hot shoeing for the first time.
Every penny of that £1500 was super well spent as i'd never have afforded him if he were up and going.

I think the OP is in La-la land if they want an up and going 15.2hh RC all rounder with no quirks/issues for £1500.
 
I think part of the reason why people expect the earth for very little money is that everyone hears how low the market prices are (especially at sales) and then expects everything to be cheap.

There is a world of difference between a feral pony going through the auctions for a couple hundred quid and something RC ready.

For the people referencing breeding and breeders in this day and age I wouldn't be breeding (and yes I have in the past on a small scale), my last foal cost me £1k to get on the floor - not inlcuding keeping mare and keeping him past weaning. We sadly lost him as a 2yo. I also know a very successful breeder - they have left half their mares empty this year and are only expecting 3 foals next year - in the past they would have been having 15-20.

I do think there are bargain horses to be had but they will need work.
 
conniegirl said:
an up and going RC all rounder shouldn't be available for less than about £2k. if it is then there is something wrong with it, sometimes that thing will be something you can fix easily sometimes it may be a health risk.

muckypony, a horse that will make a decent all rounder is worth £1500 of anyones money if its broken, even if it has some issues (which by the sounds of the original post were fairly minor).
Click to expand...

I completely agree, but whats to say there's nothing wrong with a horse that has done nothing for the past 4 months? Whether there is a valid reason or not, I don't think you can trust a lot of people nowadays. As I said before, I got a bargain at £600, but he was difficult to get right. I was told he'd had x amount of months off due to 'lack of time'. Had I paid £1,500, I would have been seriously miffed. As I paid barely anything (it was really just £600 for bloodlines and a 'pretty' pony...) I can't complain and was wanting a challenge anyway.
 
Tbh, my horse would be a fantastic amateurs or upper RC horse for someone - and has a fantastic temperament. As do a lot of people on here. And there is no way on Earth he would be sold for 1.5k - he is worth a lot, lot more.

My last horse went to a RC type home, and couldnt have found a better one! But he was sold for a lot more than 1.5k. But he was worth every penny - and good RC horses are hard to find!! He jumped 1.10-1.20 and evented to 1*, showed (as WH and riding horse) good to hack/travel/snaffle mouthed & didn't nap/buck/rear etc. but was quite lazy xc, but a different horse sj and couldn't be beaten in a jump off. He didn't touch a pole in 3 years. If someone offered me 1.5k for him I would have laughed them off the yard!!

You pay for what you get - yes, you do get some exceptions but generally I would expect a competitive safe alrounder and sound to be worth 6k upwards.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top