Pony Prices

[Fudgeball123]

Any signs of pony prices coming down yet?

Sellers still seem to be advertising high starting prices but in most cases accept some haggling.

We've looked at 8 ponies now 🙄 and pricing has gone as follows (all ponies around 14hh with the exception of pony (7) who is for a different child and is 12hh):

1. £9k didn't get to the haggling stage - apparently someone paid this for it in cash!
2. £6k didn't get to the haggling stage as we didn't want the pony after we had tried it (it has been for sale for 6 months so would suggest over priced / not advertised correctly)
3. £5.5k really liked the pony, agreed £5.3k, pony failed vetting.. If anything a bit cheap for the pony..
4. £5k didn't get to the haggling stage as we didn't want the pony after we had tried it
5. £4k didn't get to the haggling stage as we didn't want the pony after we had tried it. Very reasonable price.
6. £7.5k. I felt this pony was well over priced. I got them down to £6k but then we decided the pony wasn't for us. It's now advertised at £6.5k
7. Initially £6k and agreed £3.5k. £3.5k seems fair. £6k was wildly over priced.
8. £8k. We like this pony but haven't got onto the haggling stage yet...

Just wondered how others are finding the current market? I can imagine if we wait til the autumn prices will come down but then we will have missed the summer holidays! (We're looking for 2 ponies..)

@XelaM when you say very young do you mean an unbroken 3 year old or a lightly backed 4 year old or a 5 year old who’s seen a bit of the world but has a lot of ‘potential’? The younger they are the cheaper they will be for the breeding but then you have to factor in livery and training costs for at least a couple of years before they’re an equivalent horse to a 5 year old.

A friend has recently bought a 4 year old ISH for her teenage daughter to event in a couple of years time but in the meantime she’s also looking for a more established horse for her to compete on now as the 4 year old can’t do what she wants yet - they paid £8,000

@XelaM If you are looking for a project, rather than schoolmaster type, personally I’d wait for mid winter. Imo the cost of living is going to cause a huge drop in price for anything that isn’t ready to go.
In my honest opinion, which I appreciate you didn’t ask for, I think at 12 I’d look for something with perhaps less scope and less work. By the time you include keep and training for it to be suitable you’re going to be adding thousands to your purchase price. Imo a native x tb is usually the ideal. Talented enough to be competitive but even green are still safe enough for a competent teenager.
At the moment they do seem to be in the 5-10k range, but unlike if you buy something like an ottb with more scope for half the price, she’ll be able to be more involved and will learn skills that will stand her in good stead when she’s older. And if she plans on riding competitively as an older teen/ adult, then unless you’re seriously wealthy the skills in bringing on a young/project horse will give her far more choices than watching from the sidelines while someone else brings on something with more scope and only being able to ride it once fairly established.
Otherwise I’d say it depends on how much talent, and what you’re prepared to compromise on.

@Pleasedontdothat @TrainspottingWelsh and @Lastqueenofscotland2

Thank you! This is very helpful. In an ideal world we would of course want a 5-year-old rather than an unbacked 3-year-old. In fact, my daughter's friend bought a gorgeous 15hh 5-year-old with good bloodlines a year ago and it's been a total success. I think they paid £12K. We would love it if it were below the 8K mark though, so we are definitely looking at more of a project horse. It's interesting that you advise to wait to winter, as usually people say to buy in spring. We are definitely not wealthy, but our yard has comparatively (for the area) cheap livery fees (it's actually cheaper to keep 2 horses here than one at our old yard). My daughter would of course love to take SJ to the next level, but any kid wants that and with us not being wealthy it seems a very unrealistic dream to me. I will definitely take on board all the advice!

XelaM out of interest what are your livery fees? Is it full livery?
I've looked into schooling livery where we live and its £650 per month compared to the £200 per month grass livery so if we buy this young pony for our son we need to factor in the additional cost of schooling livery and lessons on top of everything else..

TrainspottingWelsh do you think the cost of first / second ponies will drop over winter?
We have been recommended by several people to wait for the autumn as they expect prices to drop from the current all time high. Apparently children want their last go at pony club camp on the pony and people don't want to face looking after them over the winter.
I've noticed that two of the ponies we have looked at and still haven't sold have both been reduced in price..
The £6k nightmare pony (strong, didn't like jumping.. don't know what these people did to it as previous owner described quite a different pony). They bought it for £4.5k a year ago, advertised it for £6k and now its up for sale for £5k. Still overpriced as difficult to ride for a child's pony..
And the £7.5k pony which was allegedly bombproof but didn't appear so on our second viewing (quite a different pony) now reduced to £6.5k.
I do think some sellers are holding out for unrealistic prices, hence the ponies not selling.

We pay £112 per week for full livery (well, they can do everything for you, except ride your pony, so you ride but everything else is included). There are no additional costs for shavings/hay which some yards add on. Lessons are £20 for flat work and £25 for jumping. We are in London. Our previous yard used to charge £1060 plus add-ons for shavings etc so it worked out about 1300 per month, but this included 4 weekly jumping lessons.

@Fudgeball123 am I right in thinking you’re looking for a 14.2hh ish first pony? In which case no. Those are like hens teeth and will stay high.

Lastqueenofscotland2 arrggg bummer! It seems like there are loads of 12.2hh and lots of 15.1 ex race horses but where are the 14.2hh?

Exactly! Why they are so dear! Because they can be ridden by the older kids and mum they are less likely to be outgrown and therefore less likely to be sold.

Exactly, I'm afraid it's a simple case of demand outstripping supply,14.2hh cobby or native type is what everyone wants, from the galloping grannies to the school run mums to riding schools. Cheap to keep, sound and can be ridden by anyone from a large-ish child to a small-ish adult with teens in between, capable of RC and PC activities but quiet enough to hack down a busy road, literally the most popular type of pony there is as it suits everyone!

Also, on the supply side, very few people deliberately breed horses/ponies purely for the leisure market in this country any more as there was no profit in it for years and years so all the small breeders packed up. My elderly aunt and uncle are a proper case study in this, for years they had a small hobby stud of 8 or so 'genuine' welsh c and d broodmares that wintered out on their north wales hill farm, real nice quality well moving animals that won plenty of prizes in the show ring and threw quality, kind, thoroughly sound stock year on year. The youngsters that didn't make the grade made lovely second ponies for children or 'ladies rides' as they used to be termed and used to be in huge demand locally, but sadly with general demographic shifts in the population, the decline in popularity of hunting and riding generally and the huge increase in costs of keeping horses compared to in the 60s and 70s where you could chuck a horse out in a small farmers fields virtually for free, by the time they finally gave up in the early 2000s the unbacked 3 and 4 year olds were selling for basically meat money, so they were making a huge loss that was unsustainable as well as heart-breaking that no-one seemed to want them (Welshes went through a really unfashionable phase around that time as well which didn't help)...

So fast forward 20 years and we have basically very little considered/quality domestic production of 'novice'/leisure horses at all, causing a huge supply gap, unless you have a big budget you are left with either indiscriminately/cheaply bred animals (often unsound or dodgy temperament wise) or imports from Ireland or the continent which are increasingly expensive, or 'failed' racers or competition horses which are often too hot for an amateur home. It's tough, I'm not sure what the solution is - maybe the good old-fashioned way of small scale 'passion project' breeders esp focussing on our own UK native types and using judicious crosses of warmbloods/draughts/cobs as needed to produce the right mix of movement/strength/calmness (very few people breeding Dales and Fell ponies at all these days, Welshes and New Forests are still going but with the focus mainly on either the wild herds or the show ring) will start up again but it will take years to get back to the point where it can sustain the market demand and with the cost/availability of good grazing being as it is I can't see that kind of animal ever being that cheap again...

@maxelly - stonking post!

For those looking for a smallish mother/daughter share (not cob) you could do a lot worse than look at horses in Portugal - I'm not an agent or dealer (no time or interest!) I just love Luso/Luso X.

www.olx.pt/d/animais/cavalos/

@XelaM I'm no expert in the competition market but I would have thought for what you are describing you could pay anywhere between £5 and £15k depending on exactly how much quality you want, what size (most people want 16.2+ to be really competitive at higher end BS, 15.2 better for a teen's first 'proper' horse but might struggle with some of the striding in the higher classes esp if the rider is still learning too) and how green/totally un-started you are prepared to accept, also whether you'd be prepared to import from Ireland or the continent which can end up cheaper in the end than buying in the UK. But if you spend towards the lower end of that I would have thought you'll end up spending the rest in pro fees and livery costs anyway while you wait for the horse to be ready for your DD instead so either way get your chequebook at the ready!

For me (and this is only my opinion), given she's a very very lucky girl to not only have her own pony already but also you are prepared to get her a competition horse, I'd make her wait a year or two, save up the livery and schooling costs etc in the meantime and get her a proper BSJA 148 schoolmaster, which she can compete on until she's 16. Obviously these very much do not come cheap, at all, but they will hold their value very well into their late teens and beyond so long as they are looked after and stay sound. There's so many more fun opportunities for children in pony classes compared to children on horses classes or having to go in with the adults, and if she's serious about wanting to make a career out of it, getting noticed and good results on the pony scene is the way to get the best WP opportunities and so on. Plus you'd avoid all the issues of your quality WB 3 year old turning out to be crocked or a 'professional's ride' aka a lunatic by the time it's 5, and you wouldn't have to worry about whether your 12 year old has the skill and confidence to get the best out of a green newcomer even with all the pro support in the word and the patience to wait 3-5 years for said newcomer to really start seeing results! At 16 and potentially going on into college or a working pupil set-up would be a lovely time to have her first real prospect to bring on to compete as an adult and I think she'd really then make the most of that as an opportunity at that sort of age...

I got my 14.2 Connie cross, almost 6 year old from Brandon’s cobs…they were great! They’re based in Oxford so not sure where you are…

@XelaM Horses are usually cheaper in winter, but depending on the horse and your set up then overall it can still be better to buy in spring. The initial saving isn’t always worth it cost and time wise.
However there’s been a big increase in price over the last few years, and the cost of living is going to see a lot of movement. Which means we’ll see a bigger decrease in price this year than the usual seasonal changes. So for someone like you, not in a hurry and wanting ability, I’d suggest looking over winter.
With the recent price hike, there also appear to be a lot of dreamers and idiots that took on projects thinking they’d make a quick buck. (Sure you have seen the type, ads usually feature a 4yr old cob cat leaping a pole with an utter idiot clinging to its mouth, or someone that looks worse than a beginner hauling its nose between its knees as evidence of the ‘professional’ schooling they’ve done) Obviously they aren’t selling in vast numbers, but once winter hits there’ll be a flood of them hitting the market, and a surplus of project horses will reduce the price of most projects, even the good type.
And if you haven’t got unlimited income, I’d definitely recommend going down the route of learning to train (within reasonable ability limits) rather than just ride. And if it’s something that’s really too much without extensive work from a pro first, she won’t get that involvement.

@Fudgeball123 Agree with @Lastqueenofscotland2 and @maxelly
Recessions just don’t touch that sort. They don’t even need advertising. And no matter how desperate an owner might be in their personal life, they still won’t need to sell cheap for a quick sale. Indeed, wouldn’t even have to sell, you could take your pick of experienced loan homes within 24hrs.

Hi, I'd suggest joining some of the fell pony (and dales) groups on facebook. They're generally built like tanks so take up the leg more so you can get away with a little smaller.

We have a quirky, fun fell who stands at 13h square and is ridden by my 5'6 husband with no issues at all. He'd be superb at PC etc.

Worth a look! Good hunting.