Fee for finding a horse?

[OhMrDarcy]

Wondered if I could pick your collective brains for the right thing to do.

DD is outgrowing her beloved pony fast, and we have a new home lined up for him, and they are prepared to wait til we have a new horse, so luckily this side is ok.

DH and I know little about horses - although more than we did a year ago - and frankly I think we're asking for trouble if we look for a horse for DD ourselves. I have asked the livery yard's owner's daughter to help us find a horse and she seems keen to help. I've also asked her to come and ride any potential horse with us, so whe can tell us what she thinks, which she is happy to do. The yard owner's daughter (early 20s) is very horsy, buys from sales and brings on all the time, rides competitively and usually makes a great horse out of a good one.

What should I be offering as a finder's reward? I've given her a budget of £5,000 for a 15-15 2 horse, to do all PC stuff, jumping, hunter trials and maybe start eventing next year - basically a bigger version of the 14 hand pony that has been grown out of. The budget could double, realistically if we can't find what we're looking for. She is going to send over a short list for us this week.

No money has been mentioned so far, but I was thinking 10% of the purchase price/£500 cap. The horse would be kept at their yard.

Would this be the right thing to do? Or utterly barking?

yes, that sounds about right

I agree. I have bought horses in the past from a finder who I know has marked up the price, but they have done the hard and often risky work of finding & trying said horse. Sounds a fair trade off to me.

I've paid 10% of the purchase price as a finder's fee before but the finder did all the hard work. She had the connections, called friends, found me a word of mouth competition horse that had not gone on the market yet, gave me a lesson on him and arranged a two week trial at her place, so all in all quite a bargain.

Do you foresee having to go through adverts, call up, arrange the first meeting and have the YO's DD join you for a second opinion if you like the horse, or something more like the above? it's different kinds of jobs.

Just a word of warning, if the yo’s daughter is a really good rider, make sure she gets something right for your daughter.
My friend found a horse for me. The problem was he was an excellent rider, me not so much (!) and I ended up being over horsed. Expensive lesson was that one!

Thanks all. The yard owners daughter is searching & shortlisting potential horses for us and doing all the donkey work. She will come with us to view & ride any horses & is trying DD on her horses first this weekend to gauge ability etc.

We're leveraging her experience & connections massively so I'm very grateful. I know there's no guarantees with horses but I'd like to increase the odds of finding a good fit. We're all wary of over-horsing at this stage!

She sounds like she knows what she is doing and you are doing the best thing getting someone competent to help you.

Just two notes of caution: this is the worst time of the year to get a horse, middle of winter with Christmas coming up, can you wait till spring? And while the YO's DD sounds professional and competent be a little bit weary if following this weekend she wants to sell you one of her own horses. Maybe you will have struck gold...maybe she will try it on (I am not saying that gauging your DD's ability is not a good idea, it's a great way to go, just that if, as a result, she wants to sell you one of her horses without seeing anything else be weary).