Dressages Riders - Finding That Special Horse

Helping DRESSAGE RIDERS FIND THAT SPECIAL HORSE

A horse’s price tag is sometimes determined by a seller without
adequate expertise to properly assess the animal. For this reason,
horses often end up with an advertised sale price that has little to do
with the horse's worth. Horse buyers also become confused in their
shopping because of a lack of thorough understanding of what makes
a horse worth a given dollar amount. A horse's values takes in all
observable factors like the quality of all three gaits, temperament,
readability, competitiveness, potential, soundness, age, and reliability.

It is not unusual to find a horse on the market that is not a “ complete
package". You might find a horse that is sound, beautiful with two
wonderful gaits but a terrible canter. The owner is focused on the
general quality of his horse and is pricing accordingly. He may not
realize that the bad canter is strongly affecting the potential future use
of his horse.

Another common mistake that buyers and sellers make is using,
classified ads to gather comparative market data. Example: They see
an advertisement in a national magazine for a fourth level Hanoverian
gelding for $20,000. Without more information, it could be assumed
that they shouldn’t have to pay more than this amount for a fourth level
gelding. Fact is probably the horse is for sale because the owner
wants to dump him and get something that is not as difficult or
unsound.

Or a seller might see a two year gelding by a semi famous stallion
priced at $30,000. They will use this information to price their horse at.
Fact is this is not relevant information unless the horse is truly
comparable.

Remember anybody can advertise an absurd price, but only
repeatable and completely sales justify a value.