EventingMum
Well-Known Member
A horse is only worth what a buyer will pay.
Breeding is not cheap but you cut down on what is going out of your wallet if you have your own stallion, good land and live where the weather allows them to live out most of the year. However it has to be remembered that often what people think is profit isn't really if you look at the hidden costs such as a return on the investment of buying the land, building stables etc, if you were renting it would be a different picture. Also factoring the cost of your time looking after the mares, foals and youngsters would be substantial even if it was costed at NMW. I think amateur breeders often enjoy having youngsters and don't take into account the time taken to produce them as they do it for pleasure.
Also a lot depends on what you consider makes a horse valuable, we can all agree that healthy with correct, or at least not bad, conformation is a must but after that the rest is often down to personal choice. When you try a horse you often feel you have clicked with one, like it's way of going and can see, perhaps with some work, it fitting in with your lifestyle and riding aspirations. Another person may try the same horse and not like it at all and feel because of that it's overpriced. I have bought horses and ponies from a wide variety of sellers, professional and amateur. Some I would consider overpriced, some absolute steals but I bought them because they fitted the bill for what I was looking for at the time. The more expensive horses I have bought have all be purchased for their potential, not the stage of training they were at at the point of purchase - if I had considered that was as far as they would go I would have considered them overpriced. However I considered they had the ability and, more importantly, trainability and temperament to fit in with our yard, rider and the way we worked. Don't forget too, horses are often advertised at the price the seller would like to get but they know in reality they may not achieve it and are open to negotiation, sometimes reducing the price substantially. The difficulty with horses is no two are the same, we don't have the equivalent of the motor trades guide to prices based on mileage and condition of a particular model.
The only way forward to protect horses is to constantly keep up the drive for responsible breeding and then for those breeding to be selective in the stock they are breeding from and to breed the types that there is a market for, be that a happy hacker or a potential Badminton winner. If such horses were then sold at prices reflecting the financial input to them we could get away from cheap horses being sold to owners who cannot afford to keep them properly. However regardless of their destiny, good conformation and temperament should be essential but from then on much is down to the way they are produced - you can't legislate for bad handling or riding. All these thoughts are idealistic and I don't know how they can be enforced, the current state of affairs in this country highlights the difference between us and our European counterparts - I could be wrong but I haven't heard of a crisis like this in say Germany where breeding is much more regulated.
Breeding is not cheap but you cut down on what is going out of your wallet if you have your own stallion, good land and live where the weather allows them to live out most of the year. However it has to be remembered that often what people think is profit isn't really if you look at the hidden costs such as a return on the investment of buying the land, building stables etc, if you were renting it would be a different picture. Also factoring the cost of your time looking after the mares, foals and youngsters would be substantial even if it was costed at NMW. I think amateur breeders often enjoy having youngsters and don't take into account the time taken to produce them as they do it for pleasure.
Also a lot depends on what you consider makes a horse valuable, we can all agree that healthy with correct, or at least not bad, conformation is a must but after that the rest is often down to personal choice. When you try a horse you often feel you have clicked with one, like it's way of going and can see, perhaps with some work, it fitting in with your lifestyle and riding aspirations. Another person may try the same horse and not like it at all and feel because of that it's overpriced. I have bought horses and ponies from a wide variety of sellers, professional and amateur. Some I would consider overpriced, some absolute steals but I bought them because they fitted the bill for what I was looking for at the time. The more expensive horses I have bought have all be purchased for their potential, not the stage of training they were at at the point of purchase - if I had considered that was as far as they would go I would have considered them overpriced. However I considered they had the ability and, more importantly, trainability and temperament to fit in with our yard, rider and the way we worked. Don't forget too, horses are often advertised at the price the seller would like to get but they know in reality they may not achieve it and are open to negotiation, sometimes reducing the price substantially. The difficulty with horses is no two are the same, we don't have the equivalent of the motor trades guide to prices based on mileage and condition of a particular model.
The only way forward to protect horses is to constantly keep up the drive for responsible breeding and then for those breeding to be selective in the stock they are breeding from and to breed the types that there is a market for, be that a happy hacker or a potential Badminton winner. If such horses were then sold at prices reflecting the financial input to them we could get away from cheap horses being sold to owners who cannot afford to keep them properly. However regardless of their destiny, good conformation and temperament should be essential but from then on much is down to the way they are produced - you can't legislate for bad handling or riding. All these thoughts are idealistic and I don't know how they can be enforced, the current state of affairs in this country highlights the difference between us and our European counterparts - I could be wrong but I haven't heard of a crisis like this in say Germany where breeding is much more regulated.
