How to buy a horse in Germany
How the German market differs from the Spanish one, where to look, what an AKU is, which papers to check and what the final bill adds up to.
I source horses in two countries — in Spain, where I live, and in Germany, where I go for sport-bred warmblood material. They are different markets and they have to be bought differently.
The German market is formal. There are fewer private arrangements and more procedure, which is mostly to the good: in Germany a horse is easier to check and harder to be surprised by, but there is also almost nothing to haggle over.
How the German market differs from the Spanish one
| Germany | Spain | |
|---|---|---|
| What is bought | warmblood sport horse for jumping and dressage | Iberian horse: PRE, Lusitano |
| Who sells | breeders, dealers, studbook auctions | studs and private owners |
| Transparency | high, video and assessments often ready in advance | depends on the yard |
| Haggling | barely done | expected and normal |
| Speed of the deal | fast, if the money is ready | slower, a lot of personal contact |
| English | with dealers and auctions, almost always | rarer, Spanish usually needed |
The practical conclusion is simple. You go to Spain for type, temperament and baroque movement. You go to Germany for the jump, for the mechanics of the trot, and for a pedigree in which every name can be checked against a results database.
Where to look
Studbooks. German breeding is organised into regional registries: Hannover, Oldenburg, Holstein, Westfalen, Trakehnen and others. Each has its own sales platform and its own auctions. Starting there is logical: it is the source where the data about the horse and the papers agree.
Breeders direct. There are a great many small breeders in Germany, often a family holding with a few mares. Prices are lower and you see the horse next to its dam. The downside is that the starting under saddle can be thin and there may be nobody on the place who can show the horse properly.
Dealers. A profession of its own, with a culture of its own. A good dealer keeps prepared horses, presents them systematically and provides a proper veterinary file. A bad one is reselling what did not sell somewhere else. One test settles it: how many years he has been at that address and who he has sold to before.
Auctions. The most transparent channel, with its own rules and its own risk of overpaying in the heat of it. Verden, Vechta, PSI in Ankum and the online Sporthorse-Auctions are where the volume sits.
Online portals. ehorses and the rest offer an enormous choice, but an advert is a dealer's shop window, not the horse. Look there, do not buy there.
What to check in the papers
The German horse passport, the Equidenpass, is compulsory, and without it the horse travels nowhere. Look past the cover at four things.
The transponder number. The chip in the passport has to match what the scanner reads on the living horse. Check it in your presence, not from a photograph of the page.
Studbook and brand. German breeds carry the registry brand on the left thigh. The brand alone guarantees nothing, but it has to correspond to the book that issued the document.
Who the owner is. Seller and owner do not always coincide, particularly with dealers. If the seller is not the owner, there has to be a power of attorney and you have to see it.
The food-chain entry. The German passport records whether the horse has been excluded from the food chain. That governs what it can be treated with, and some of the formalities on export.
Read the pedigree separately, through the indices and the results of the offspring: names in German papers can be checked against open results databases.
AKU, the German pre-purchase examination
The Ankaufsuntersuchung, AKU for short, is the local standard for a pre-purchase veterinary examination, and in Germany it is close to a compulsory ritual.
What matters:
- the scope is agreed in advance — from a clinical examination to a large set of radiographs; the dearer the horse, the wider the package;
- radiographic findings are graded in classes — from "no changes" to findings that are likely to become clinical. A class is not a verdict and not a mark for the horse, it is a way of describing risk;
- the buyer pays, and that is exactly why the buyer chooses the vet;
- the images belong to whoever paid for the examination, and you can show them to your own vet at home.
The seller often has a recent AKU already. It is worth reading, but it does not replace your own examination: the age of the images and the independence of the vet matter more than the saving. What is actually examined and how to read the report is in the pre-purchase exam.
What the final bill adds up to
The price of the horse is not the whole sum. Count it end to end, or you can buy a horse and fail to move it.
- VAT. A commercial seller charges the German rate on top; a private individual does not. The difference is noticeable and it has to be settled before the negotiation, not after. A buyer registered for VAT in another EU country can normally take the horse zero-rated as an intra-Community supply, but only against a valid VAT number and proof of transport.
- Commission to an agent or an auction, if you are not buying direct.
- The veterinary examination, at the buyer's cost.
- Livery from the day of the deal until the day of departure.
- Export papers and transport. Inside the EU that is a road move with a professional transporter and the TRACES entry, usually 1,500–4,000 €. To Great Britain add the export health certificate and the ferry. To the United States it becomes flight, USDA import centre and quarantine, which puts the layer above the horse into the region of 10,000–15,000 €.
Budget the transport before you name the seller a ceiling. That is the most common first-time mistake.
The usual mistakes
- Travelling to view without a brief. With no answer to "what is the horse for", you will buy the one you liked in the arena for twenty minutes.
- One day, six yards. By the fourth horse the eye stops discriminating. Three viewings a day is the limit.
- Seeing the horse only under saddle. It has to be seen loose, on the lunge and in the box.
- Accepting an AKU by the seller's vet. The report will read softer than the reality.
- Not checking who the owner is. The money went to the wrong person.
How I do it
I source horses in Spain and in Germany against a specific brief: age, sex, discipline, budget including transport. Then correspondence with breeders and dealers on the ground, a shortlist by video and papers, a viewing in person, my vet with a full set of images, contract and logistics.
I am not a trainer and I do not sell my own horses under the heading of sourcing. My interest is that the horse arrives and works, not that the deal closes sooner. What sourcing covers is on the services page.
