Selling Horses, Buying Horses

Getting horses sold can be a pain. First, getting the horse fit, groomed, presentable, etc is a job in itself; time consuming and requiring skill. Then you have to get nice photos and video, crop and resize the photos for the internet and tastefully edit the video and post it online. At least we don't have to bother with mailing VHS or DVD's anymore! THEN you have to spend the horse and cash to get ads on the top classifieds sites, possibly your breed's journal, maybe the local papers, craigslist, flyers at local barns, etc. It's a job! Next if you get interested parties you have to either ride or hire someone else to ride each horse for the prospective buyers. It is work.

Buying horses is perhaps more emotionally draining and still a lot of work. First you have to decide exactly what you want. Then you have to determine your budget; don't forget gas to view horses far away, vet checks, registration transfers, paying for a trainer's opinion or possibly to have them ride the horse for you. It's always a good idea to take along a horsey friend to help you make sure you don't get barn blind and buy something not suited to your needs. It might take over a year to find the right horse. It's a long journey and can be very frustrating. It's hard to remember not to give up and just buy something quickly to get it over with.

I am not horse-shopping YET, but I have been browsing to determine how much I need in my budget to buy what I want and whether I am going to have any luck finding what I need nearby. Just that has been tiresome and I haven't left home.

For my horse-selling, I have spent hours posting ads, updating them, taking and editing pictures, taking and editing video and posting it online. I am helping Trudy sell her 3 horses also, so that's FIVE horses I am advertising. It is work, for sure.

Yesterday I took video of Mister and a few stills, and lunged Spotless for video lunging and running free. I did that all by myself. If you've never taken video and lunged at the same time then you won't appreciate the juggling that requires. It came out surprisingly well.





Spotless, Dazzle, and Mister will be getting the most attention this coming week as an interested party from Idaho is going to come see them next weekend. She is looking for an Eventing prospect. I will be interested to see what she thinks of them, both as Event prospects and in general. I don't know much about Eventing, so I'm not sure how to evaluate them as prospects. I hope it will be a learning experience for me, even if she doesn't find her next competition horse here.