Horse Marketing 101: 30 years of experience taught me....

So here you are with a dream that ends in a nightmare viz buying a horse or even worse horses with a plan to 'flip' them with your supreme and unsurpassed training skills. A dream and a nightmare it will become.

Very occasionally you may just get lucky enough to take something pretty awful and 'done' and make it into something useful and financially beneficial to you. However, ( as the saying goes)," You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear." Let's just face it. You can work really hard, throw all the meds and supplements you wish at this 'investment' and work really, sincerely hard trying to train this horse to be someone. Yeah. Occasionally you can get lucky and it can work. But be realistic.

You may not count your time as worth $$ or even fritter it away but I am certain your family values your time and attention even if you have no measure of it. A horse that comes to you cheap or free is never either. Not unless you truly know the seller/breeder/contact and have an established positive relationship.

Why fight reality. Just as soon as that horse that you bought cheap from a kill-pen or just on the cheap ( very noble but know you have a very Mt. Everest battle and better be prepared to spend some $$)., the chances are that unless this is a horse for your kid, friend, self with no strenuous demands to be made of it, you will have a real deal issue selling it on or 'flipping' it. Horses are not houses. They are living beings with mental fragility and physical limits.

So, if you are truly interested in taking the talents you have as a trainer ( of which I am sure there are many) and bringing a horse along to sell him/her on then start, at the very least, with a sound one.

This means the expense of a full veterinary pre-purchase work up and Grade A ( as we say in the U.K.) X-Rays and ultrasounds. Buyers will accept nothing less regardless of what you think. They will hum and haw, they will waste your time. You will put every effort forth to be thwarted by the science.

So. Although it is hard not to buy the horse you identify with/can help/rescue or otherwise be realistic. If you truly are bringing the horse to your barn to put on some good training and resell and help your bottom line find a sound, well bred youngster and go from there. The work you do is the same. The $$ you receive at the end of the 'flip' will otherwise be completely disappointing. And when that happens. As it will. Remember. You are not a gold miner you are a horse trainer. Start with something good and make it exceptional. And please. Listen to the vet report. They know what they are talking about!!

Always buy the best quality you can afford with a full vet report.