On a pony hunt - where to look?

[peggyblackett]

I’m checking Horse Quest, Facebook, Whickr, Right Horse Right Home - but can’t find the unicorn I’m searching for. Word of mouth is not throwing up much either.

Where else should I search?

And if anyone knows of a 148 pony with a cracking jump for sale, please DM me! I’ll send you a crate of something to say thanks 🥂 😁

Unicorn ponies, word of mouth. They are very rarely advertised…

Yep. We sold our last pony through people queuing for her, and we found our current pony through a contact - he was never advertised. However I also found a cracking pony off HQ - her grandsire jumped CCI5* (I don’t think that the owners knew what they had!) - so occasionally you can strike gold.

I assume you’re looking for a competitive and well established BS pony?

if so, word of mouth and / or social media is probably your best bet, outside of the usual advertising sites.

if you’ve got a decent budget it could be worth making contact with some of the better known junior showjumper trainers as they might know of ponies coming up for sale that haven’t been advertised.

The thing that stood out to me as missing from your posts is Facebook/social media, technically you can't buy and sell on there but trust me a lot of trading does go on, mostly on local pages but there are national buy/sell pages and groups too, probably there is a specific one for SJ/eventing ponies (potentially closed groups you have to apply to join). Worth posting some wanted ads selling yourself as a caring/experienced/competitive home as people may not openly post their outgrown ones, sort of a digital word of mouth situation.

Or if you are looking for a proper BSJA type pony with the budget to match, worth approaching a reputable dealer/agent who is known on the scene, these types of ponies only tend to come up for sale at certain times of the year as riders age out of their categories and move on to horses but they will be able to help you with that? Obviously their services don't come for free but in the scale of the budget you're talking to get an affiliated competition pony it's not that much more...