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[RC] quarters/paints and the numbers - Lori Greene

I have to jump in here...we currently have quarters and paints, we have tried to be the "backyard breeder", and we're not fairing much better. 
 
I personally think (don't kill me here, jmo) it's who you are more than anything, on different levels from show to recreational with selling horses.
 
We have a local sale barn here that's doing well, can pull in almost 200 head once a month.  But....he's bringing ranch people from out west, hauling in mares/colts, bred back, what have you.  He will start those horses out, get a mint for them, (mind you not broke, no halter broke babies, horrible feet, nothing, brought in on a semi) and a local person can come in with a beautiful halter broke, same bloodline baby, or riding mare, and it will not bring the same because it's "not hauled in", and not from a "ranch" somewhere, which apparently the more grass they roam on, and the driveway they leave with the sign overhead means more to someone.  The owner of this sale barn, said that even when he hauls horses to the east, his horses will bring 4-$600 more than the local person, and they love it if they have the snotty nose because they know they "have" been hauled in!
 
Another example, my great friend from texas, up from the quarter/paint heaven down there, she has paid more in breeding fees over the last 5 years that I've known her, than I have ever given for a single horse or two horses, never has she ever gotten her breeding fee back, she also thought the mare she had was worth about 25K.   Now don't get me wrong, I love her and all, and would never break it to her, but she's in Indiana now, not Texas and she not even currently on a show circuit much less I high level show circuit and she's never going to get it.
 
I just personally think it's who people think you are, and a great story behind them.  I wish that a horse could be bred and sold on the horses mind, conformation, breeding merit alone.  But so far, atleast for us, it's always been "buy high, and sell cheap"  we have never been on the winning end of the deal, and there has only been a few horses that we've bought, that we hadn't been "slick willied" by a horse person.  So I guess what I'm getting at, atleast in our circle, the only ones making it, is the big breeders in quarters/paints!