I've been spending a lot of time in the last couple years, selling horses, and trying to buy a good one. (which is real hard to do!) If you look on line, there are a number of good sales sites, like the
www.agdirect.com and
www.arabianhorseamerica.com ,
www.horsetrader.com and of course on endurance.net. You can look at horses of a similar age, and training and get comps. At a quality auction, it seems that a plain ordinary nicely broke saddle horse on a good day will go for about $1500 give or take. I keep that in mind when I go "horse looking". You can get a better price if you place ads and negotiate with an interested/suitable buyer. Plus, you can pick a more appropriate home for your horse. Always have pictures and maybe a video, before you place your ad, because everyone wants one. If you pl
ace the ad with a photo, you will get a lot more hits when people search, because they are curious and will look at photo ads first. If you set your price too high, then your market will look at it, pass on it, and it will stay on line for a long time. There are people who will click on specific catagories, age, sex and discipline and are looking for a specific horse. You won't get people looking for English pleasure show horses. Your potential buyers will keep seeing it and deduce that something is wrong with the horse, and won't call about it. I think that sometimes mares go for a higher price, because of their potential as breeding animals. So the geldings' performance history, and health/soundness needs to be highlighted much more than his pedigree. If he is sweepstakes nominated, make sure that is noted because that is a big selling point. I don't think it is out of line to ask for $2,000-$3,000 for a nice gelding saddle horse, depending on his accomplish
ments, health/soundness, disposition, and appearance. Good luck. Beth
