Sensible offers!?

SNORKEY

SNORKEY

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I'm looking at a foal (hence other post!) and its advertised at £1500. Its a nicely marked spotted, but that could change, which is a bit of a gamble. No great parentage, just home bred, and will be weaned, passported, and chipped.
The owner is now saying sensible offers, I really can't see its worth more than about £800.
Is that a cheeky offer, considering the above and that's its a bad market? I only paid £475 for my coloured cob youngster last year who was a lot more handled and gelded.
 
If you dont ask you will never know :)

Id just say that im interested, xxx is what id be prepared to pay, I understand this is below your asking price however my offer is there if you dont get the price you are looking for. Then id describe the home i could offer so they dont think its a dealer :)
 
I guess the only way to find out is to offer it and see what happens.....
The worst that will happen is they may say no!

Is there anyway you can find out how much interest there is? this will give you the upper hand. I guess it depends how much you want the foal. (my other half always likens this to buying a car- he says if you want a bargain you have to b prepared to lose it...same goes here i suppose!)
 
I would expect decent breeding for that money, ideally both parents to be quality with some history competitively, you said it was only going to make 14.2, there is the cost of gelding him to account for also.
It depends what you plan for him but even at £800, plus gelding, he is going to be a fairly expensive pony by the time he is 4 and getting started on his ridden career, he would need to be really special to make that investment worthwhile, even if you plan on keeping him forever.

That said it costs a lot to get a foal to weaning for the breeder who takes probably the biggest risk but that is their choice, they do not have to breed.
 
Putting another slant on what he's worth... I've just bought a very smart, extremely well put together 4yo. He's a fantastic mover and has top class breeding, is gelded, wormed and vaccs and I paid a lot less than your offer price. He was originally up for £1000.

As another has said, you won't know until you ask, use the cost of gelding, transporting costs etc to your advantage to drop the price. Would love to see pictures.
 
If you remove the fact that it's spotted from the equation is it worth much at all?

You'd have to really believe that it's going to be something special to shell out more than £500 IMHO
 
WelshD said:
If you remove the fact that it's spotted from the equation is it worth much at all?

You'd have to really believe that it's going to be something special to shell out more than £500 IMHO
Click to expand...

Completely agree in this current market. It's a buyers one for sure and probably the best way of picking up potential young animals at a good price. A gentleman down the road is renowned for breeding some top class show jumpers with some of the best breeding in the country, all good, correct stock, yet he is struggling to even get his covering fees back, let alone the mares vet and weaning costs.
 
If its a nice pony foal from Somerset (which is where it could be from as there is a big spotted stud there) buy it and pay the money! I've had 4 crackers now, all from said stud (white hawk spotted ponies) and they have the most amazing temps, and do perform.
 
Its not from Somerset, just a private home that's been doing a bit of breeding. I think £500 is more the price I'd rather pay. But when someone starts at £1500 then says sensible offers, I think they may get offended at £500!
 
I think in this market £1,500 is high for a foal of no specific breeding. I bought a really well bred 2 year old Dales gelding last year and only paid £750 for him. He really is a cracking pony and I considered him a bargain, but I wouldn't have paid £1,500 for him at 2 years old even with his breeding.
 
I think £500 is enough and it's unfortunate if the owner is offended but they are asking a silly price in the current market. Also, there's no guarantee that it will make 14.2, there is a market for good 148s and they can fetch decent money but if it measures out the value is suddenly a lot less and you will be taking a gamble on that.
 
You can always offer a low price and leave it open for the owners to change their mind later if they find it hasn't sold. You might find you end up with them ringing you back in 6 months asking you to buy it.
 
What did they breed the foal to do or have they just bred to get the colour? if it was a bay with no great parentage you would be looking at a few hundred at most as there are a lot of foals just not selling at the moment. if you feel the colour may change then thats a negative point as well. why not ignore the price tag they have and value the foal for the job you want (or what you would value it as if I had put a post on here saying how much would I get for this foal if I was to sell it) and then try putting an offer in at just under your value so you have a bit of room to go up if they are prepared to sell for that sort of money and see what happens
 
This thread is interesting as we have been debating should we have to sell Dolly the price we would put her up at ! i agree that sounds quite steep and the owner seems to be asking too high.

Some are going as cheap as chips, the fact he is a colt will bring the price down slightly due to being gelded etc. We were goigng to put dolly around the £500-£700 end o the market if we had to, as she is equally marked, very kind natured and has been well handled. However like the colt unknown breeding.

£800 imho is too steep of an asking price :)
 
I think I know the foal your looking at as I've been looking ( not seriously) around where I live and it is a very nicely marked foal but for £1500 :eek: I wouldn't pay anymore than £600 for a foal that's going to make 14.2 Max.

I paid £400 for a 4yr old unbroken well bred forester that had been gelded and halter broken. ;)
 
No breeding & as colour risk, £400 tops. Trouble you will have is that it is homebred. I have found people who breed from their favourite mare kind of scenario put an artificiall high price on the foal as they believe their mare is 'special', even if she has no breeding or competition or stock record behind her.
 
Is this foal the one with 'very unusual' markings and blue eyes? Regardless if it's that same one or not, I'd say even your potential offer of £800 for a colt foal is still way over priced given there are decently bred forest colts going for less than £200.

This is essentially a chunky cob x of no breeding and we don't know of any proven performance by either parent. Even presuming both parents are nicely put together super-star RC type performers, £800 would be decent money these days.

As above posters say, if it was bay...
 
I would offer £500, and if they said no walk away.

As above, it's a buyers market at the moment and you can afford to be choosy. Especially as the foal is nothing particularly special I'm sure you wouldn't be looking long before one came up at the right price.
 
Did you want the foal for its colour or is it to do a job? if its to do a job there will be a lot for sale coming into winter that will be very cheap as so many are just not selling so could be well worth you waiting and paying a lot less. in the £5-800 price band you could be looking at getting a 2 year old if you think the others it will be kept with could be a bit hard on a weanling
 
not knowing the foal or its breeding I don't think anyone can say whether its a fair price or not.

If they have had a studfee, scanning, keep etc to pay, the foal will have cost them £500 before its even on the ground, add into that feed for foal and mare, worming & farrier and the price mounts up.
I know that's not how most people price their foals but if a single homebred foal may be the thinking. yes you can buy cheaper & we all hear of ponies for 200 quid but imo if you want something that takes your liking with looks and breeding to back up their price then go for it. There is always room for negotiation in a price but to go from £1500 to £500 is just a wee bit cheeky, you never know though.

you do usually pay more for a foal, the price holds or drops as a 1 & 2yo then goes up again at 3yo
 
I think all you can do is try. We found a pony for our daughter who we liked and who ticked most of the boxes. They had him up for £3000 without tack which they changed to 'offers' when he didn't sell. We went to see him as even at £3000 he was under our max budget. His schooling was completely lacking, but he was otherwise perfect and daughter fell in love. Based on current market and the fact he needed properly schooling we offered £2000 if they threw in the tack and we were called time wasters, told we shouldn't look at ponies we couldn't afford and told not to contact them again! You could grab yourself the right pony at the right price, or you could be laughing off the label in the pub later on tonight!

(Oh and that was in March, and that pony is still for sale and they have now dropped the price twice to £2750 then £2500, still no interest according to a friend who liveries at the same yard!)
 
i would not pay more than £300 for a foal of unknown breeding (how can they say how big it will grow?) in the current market-colt or filly-coloured or not there are so many of them

i paid £600 for mine as a handle 2yr old and if i had not known her for the first year of her life i would not have paid that much
 
Thanks, I offered £500 and she said she was thinking more of £800. It really is his colouring I'm going for. So I'm going to go and have a look, but I still won't be paying much more than £500. The parents were just nice riding horses apparently but don't get ridden any more and I doubt any vets have seen the mare or foal.
 
The value of something is that price agreed between a willing buyer and a willing seller. Since there is no agreement here, a valuation is purely speculative. The buyer thinks £1,500. Others here think as low as £500 or even less.

Really, to be practical, the OP has to decide what the foal is worth to her. Make that offer and leave it on the table. If the sellers are offended by it being too small, I'd say they were being a bit silly. Anyone can offer me money at any time and I can promise you, I won't be the least bit offended!:D

Better to have a low offer than none at all. Just make it clear that you are in the market and if you find what you are looking for elsewhere, the offer will be withdrawn. If you want, you can even put a time limit on it. You can still look elsewhere for your foal as there is no bargain until both sides agree. You might get a nice surprise!
 
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