Where to buy a horse: portals, breeders, auctions

There are four channels, and they are not equal in price, in risk or in what you end up owning. I will take them one at a time.

Online portals

The widest choice and the highest risk. ehorses out of Germany carries tens of thousands of horses across Europe at any moment. HorseQuest and Horsemart cover the British market, Equine.com and HorseClicks the American one, and the PRE sits on ANCCE member sites and on the Spanish end of ehorses.

What is good here: the volume of supply is visible, you can filter by discipline, height and budget, and prices sit below what a dealer's shop window asks.

What is bad here:

• dealers behind private adverts. The horse stands at a third party who did not raise it and does not know it. Ask about temperament and you get adjectives;
• old photographs. Footage three years out of date is ordinary practice;
• omissions. Lameness, stable vices and injury history do not go into the ad;
• papers "on the way". They are not on the way.

How to work it: ask for video shot today, on all three gaits, from both reins and from both sides. Ask for the passport before you book a flight. Send no deposit before the vetting.

Breeders direct

Dearer than the portals, but you are not only buying a horse.

What you see: the dam, the sire, the ground the horse grew up on, and its half-siblings by the same lines. This is the only channel where you can predict what the youngster will become.

What you get: papers in order, because the breeder files them himself, and a reputation he has to keep.

How to find them: through the studbooks. For Spanish horses that is LG PRE ANCCE, where every stud and its stock is listed; in Germany the Hannoveraner Verband, Oldenburg, Holstein and Westfalen registries; in the Netherlands the KWPN. Every one of them publishes its members. Once a year most of the Spanish studs bring their stock to one place, and that is SICAB in Seville in November.

What to look at on the yard: how the broodmares look, not the show box. How the horses behave when a person walks up. Whether there is stock on the place nobody wants to talk about.

Auctions

The most transparent channel, and still underused by private buyers.

What is good: the papers are checked by the organiser, the breeding is public, and the price forms in the open. At the German sales the horse goes through a veterinary examination with X-rays before it enters the ring, and the report is available to every registered bidder. The Verden auctions of the Hannoveraner Verband, the Oldenburg sales at Vechta, PSI in Ankum and the online Sporthorse-Auctions all run this way.

What is bad: you are bidding against people who saw the horse in the flesh during the trial days. And there is the adrenaline — going over budget in the ring is easy.

Rough numbers: at Verden and Vechta a sound, correctly started riding horse usually falls between 15,000 € and 60,000 €, with the average of a mixed sale around 25,000–35,000 €. At PSI the top lots run to six and seven figures and are not the market you are shopping in.

The rule: set your ceiling before it starts and do not move it. No horse is the last one.

Buying abroad

A separate channel with its own economics.

When it is justified: when you want a breed that is thin on the ground at home, or a quality your budget does not reach locally. The PRE, the Lusitano and the Iberian lines are exactly that case, and so is a German sport horse for a buyer in Britain, Scandinavia or the United States.

What is added to the price: the vetting on site, export paperwork, transport and, where the destination requires it, quarantine. Inside the EU a road move with a professional transporter runs 1,500–4,000 € depending on distance, and the whole extra layer lands around 3,000–6,000 €. To Great Britain add the export health certificate and the TRACES entry, plus the ferry. To the United States it is a different order: flight, USDA import centre and a minimum three-day quarantine, and stallions a longer one for CEM — figure 10,000–15,000 € all in, with a Coggins test taken before departure.

What you win: access to a market where the supply is several times larger and the price for the same quality is lower.

Owner or dealer

Five questions. An owner answers without thinking. A dealer starts swimming.

One: what was the dam called, and where is she now? The owner knows.

Two: when was the horse last ill, and with what? Every horse has a history. "Never anything" is the answer of a person who has not kept it.

Three: who started it, and on what programme? A dealer says "professionals".

Four: can I come without warning? A refusal means the horse is being prepared for the viewing.

Five: whose name is in the passport? If it is not the seller's, there has to be a power of attorney and you have to see it.

Red flags in any channel

• Urgent sale at a discount. Real urgency exists, but it doubles the checking.
• A refusal to allow a vetting. Conversation over.
• Money before the viewing. There is no reason this is ever needed.
• The horse shown only under saddle. They are hiding how it looks and moves loose.
• A seller in a hurry. "There is another buyer coming" is the oldest line on the market.

What I do

I live in Valencia and work the Spanish market: I know which breeders do what, who holds which lines, and who sells honestly. I look for the horse against a brief, travel to see it myself, arrange the examination and carry the paperwork through.

Terms are on the services page.