Project Horses: What's your experience?

Kao

Kao

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Getting straight to the point, I'd like to know if any of you have bought a project horse/pony to sell on and what your experience was? (good, bad, difficult to sell on etc.)
I'm asking this purely out of curiosity and also to help me for future references :)
I've had 2 project ponies in the past year and doubled my money on both. Purely down to a kind hand, patience and proper diet as both were extremely timid and not in the best of shape. Both were sold to family homes and are now placid little family ponies :)

Looking forward to hearing your stories! :D
 
The best couple we had we made what we paid for it plus 2 times that in profit (kept at home so minimal cost). The worst we had broke my face and we broke even - just.

And several inbetween
 
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Iv done a few in the past, and always found my best bet was to go for safe, easy PC allrounder types, There used to be a real market for saftey, didnt have to be anything special.

Last year, I got one, 14.2 5 yo coloured mare, safe as houses, 100 percent in every way, took her showjumping, got double clears, took her xc at 3 foot , and went clear both times, placed and quallified for things showing, CHAPS registered, really smart, nice sort

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(you get the idea) - I had her advertised for 3500, inc fully fitted english leather tack, and I had nothing but trouble, timewasters, silly offers, people wanting to loan.

From my experience in this economic climate its a real buyers market, and people know that, they know that nothing is selling, and so they can ask for more from the seller, and have plenty of time to shop arround. (for example one lot of people tried the pony twice, took it to there yard to have a lesson with there instructer, came to watch me at a SJ competition, there child rode it in the warmup, then asked to take it XC, I said no, as pony was very novice, as was the child, but I put together a 15 minute DVD of me taking the pony XC, inc hedges, ditches, water, drops, the lot, yet they concluded I must have been trying to hide something)

It seems in this climate people are happier to take a risk on a cheaper pony, than pay good money for a genuine safe pony, thats my opinion anyway, know several others that have struggled to sell genuine easy pc pony sorts, that once would have been a "safe and easy bet" as a project pony.

I think I went off on a bit of a rant there, but you get the general idea xx
 
Advertised on the Sunday evening, sold on the Tuesday morning and collected on the Saturday! She was a TB (bit wired) and had had 2 months off over the winter. I had brought her back in and lunged etc and got what I asked money wise which was not cheap, although I had hunted her, sponsored rides, ODE etc and trained with TTT (classical) for 18months before the time off so probably worth the money. She now has a lovely home and because she sold so quickly I didnt have to put up with the idiot phonecalls :)
 
Project horse....fell in love with her and still got her.

Project pony...mumm fell in love with him and still got him.....

Don't think i'm cut out for it!!!:rolleyes::D
 
Not selling I decided to go with fate and if she door she went. Had only idiots reply. I think it depends what you do as a project. Some pay 1500 to sell 3000 others like my self pay 500 to sell 1500. Project horse is now staying for the next year.
 
Bug2007 said:
Project horse....fell in love with her and still got her.

Project pony...mumm fell in love with him and still got him.....

Don't think i'm cut out for it!!!:rolleyes::D
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Hurrah someone else as hopeless as me :D

Still got my project horse, he's on loan to a friend but she might want to buy him (at least he;ll be on the same yard tho lol)
 
Don't talk to me about them lol....can't get rid of ours lol!!! Not even at a price we can't lower any more lol. And when I say 'project', she's only really unbacked and needs more handling, nothing time wouldn't solve.
 
Waste of time in this Market, you used to be able to make half decent money but now everyone wants a perfect pony for nothing and you get a thousand time wasters
 
I have 2, both had ridden issues but lovely to handle. Still got both of them and first one is amazing, i compete her affiliated sj, have started doing dressage with her. If I was to sell her i would asking at least 3 times what i paid for her. 2nd one is very good but headshakes, and is responsible for me sitting in front of this computer at the moment with a broken wrist as he threw a fit and chucked me off (for unknown reasons) He hasn't bucked for 2 years and then decided to and i wasn't ready for him! Would def have another project horse though, I love the satisfaction when they trust you and start behaving like normal horses!
 
Countrychic said:
Waste of time in this Market, you used to be able to make half decent money but now everyone wants a perfect pony for nothing and you get a thousand time wasters
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Agree with this.

I bought a pony for £500 including delivery and a year later sold it for £2500.00 and then I bought an andaulsian for £2500, imported from Spain, sold him a couple of years later for £8000 (In 2009). I wouldn't even consider doing that at the moment though with the current market.
 
I 'bought' my little pony as a project to bring on a bit, do some in hand showing wth and sell on. Two years later she's still here :o :o :rolleyes: :D
 
Bought mine for a small sum and selling for £3000. Will have made a healthy return as he's cost me nothing other than 4 months grass livery and his insurance :) Had him since he was 6months old he's now 3 in June :)
 
All the horses in my signature were either free or projects from auctions.

The bay section D was bought at auction as a 3yr old un-broken gelding, fully registered with fab breeding, had too many issues to list. paid £690 for him turned down £3000 for him 6 months ago, he will be with me forever he is now perfect, and we are having a blast jumping! so much for buying to sell on.

Paid £610 for the roan Ted 16.1hh TBx Trotter I bought at York auction as a 3yr old colt, very thin, unbroken, was easy to break over winter, lived out in all weather, fantastic jumper, sold him 3 yrs ago for £3,500 I had 3 people come to see him the day after he was advertised and all three offered me full price, so I got to pick were he went.Wish I had asked for more money though!

And last Little Lottie (Free) Coloured filly to make 13.2hh now 2 yr old. and still with us.
We got her free as I bought her mother a 12hh 3 yr old filly at auction for £230 broke her and part way through the year she had a foal (Lottie) even though my vet had examined her mum and not in foal!! sold mum for about £800 still have the grumpy foal.

Its well worth it if you actually sell them on when you are supposed to not keep them as I do.

Teresa
 
I guess I have had two, if I understand the term correctly.

I was on a riding weekend with my husband, there was a small grey pony in a yard, I asked about it and they said it was a nuisance and they were going to shoot it. My son was only 6 mths old, (so too young for a pony) but my husband let me send a truck for it, feed it up and resell, which I did for about $300-400 AUD. A lady brought it to put in foal to her shetland stallion and bred two ponies for harness out of her.

I also aquired a small throroughbred mare from a horse rescue organisation, they were desperate to find homes as had lost their rental property, unfortunatley they lied about the mare. They told me she had attended pony club, had been broken in by one of their breakers. Well she had been broken in very badly, and they had put a child on her with the intention of the girl attending pony club, but she was thrown off and broke her arm within the first few minutes.

I had her restarted, and the breaker out of goodwill had her about 3 months and worked her 5-6 days a week, only charged me $600 AUD. She was extremely sensitive and bucked, took ages to saddle, lots of ground work etc.

They helped me with her taught me how to stay safe and I had her 3 years, she was a dream to ride, (so sensitive you could think what you wanted her to do and she did it) but an average saddling was 40 minutes, you just had to take your time, if you did not ride almost every day she became unrideable.

I had another restart where they took her back for 2 months after I had a break because of something, can't remember what, and we were going really well. In the time I had her I had two falls off her, the first due to a wasp bite that made her buck, the second unfortunately at a clinic, where she was out of her comfort zone, I ended up in IC for 5-6 days with concussion, and did not ride again for three years. She went back to the rescue organisation and they made a decision that she would be retired as was her half sister. Her half sister lasted 2 months before being returned for the same issue.

We did establish a really good bond as we spent so much time in ground work that I could do anything with her at liberty including lunging, jumping, float loading, standing on things, so we did have a lot of fun, but she was bloody hard work.

Under the terms of the adoption I could not breed her or sell her.
 
I got one in January. She is six, but had basically just been broken in and was had the ridden experience of a four year old. She was very nervous to handle and underweight and it took a while for me to get her to trust me but now she is really attached to me (and vice versa!) and loves human company. She has started jumping and loves her hacking. She has put on weight and is looking fantastic. She isn't an ideal first pony, more suitable for a small adult so I think she would be difficult to sell anyway as she would need a very specific type of home. Anyway, I might be keeping her now as she doesn't cost me much to keep as she lives out and I keep her at home. Call me 'soft', but when you have seen a horse completely change from very nervous and untrusting to relaxed and happy it is hard to sell them as you become attached to them. Also, I think I will be happier knowing, she is now in a permanent, loving home. Needless to say, this is my first and most likely my last project pony as I am obviously not very good at the selling part! ;) :p
 
I bought my project horse last April. Fortunately I took out insurance...£10k in vets bills later she is still with me after several stays in horse hospital and is still not right - possibly arthritis in fetlock now. She's going to have to win bloody Badminton to make me any money!! She is a lovely horse and will have a home for life with me now, but I would never get another horse as a project....
 
HA about a month ago I decided I'd like to try buying a cheap project horse and selling for a good profit, bought her for 480 a week ago (tomorrow)....

Unfortunately in six days I appear to have fallen in love with her so she may be staying longer than planned....:p:rolleyes:
 
Don't do it for the profit, do it for the horse, if you like the horse and it's got problems of the sort you reckon you can deal with, do it.

I'm far too soft and silly to ever make money off dobbins!
 
Some great stories here :) It seems like now isn't the time to be selling anything, I guess the only good thing is people tend to buy now, in the Spring/Summer, rather than the colder months.
 
Bug2007 said:
Project horse....fell in love with her and still got her.

Project pony...mumm fell in love with him and still got him.....

Don't think i'm cut out for it!!!:rolleyes::D
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Exactly our experience too! We have kept her and she events but at only 14.1 not ideal for my grown up daughter who is now bringing on 16.2 4YO! Plan is to put in foal next spring and sell the foals....Like that's going to happen! :eek:
 
I've been thinking of getting a project pony but tbh some instinct is stopping me. I think it's great if it works but there's too many ways it could go wrong or Boone wants to buy. The horse would have to be really cheap to risk it.

Current horse was a bit of a project. If I sold him now I'd make double what I paid easy. Problem is, he would be worth every penny to a lot of people including me so he stays :). I'm useless at selling horses. I've only ever sold one and that was at a cranking loss. I tried to loan a horse once as well, found a lovely home and then backed out because I couldn't face giving my girl away. I'm too soppy for my own good I think!
 
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