Are Americans Pricing Themselves Out of Good Horses? - Marjory Berkache

So I typically kick the episodes off by having the guests tell us who they are and what it is they do. OK, my name is Marjorie Burkash. I’m French, so that’s why I have a funny name. My business is Equisel Sport Horses and we specialize importing horses mostly from France because obviously I’m French so bring French horses. But we also take horses in consignment and market them and sell them for clients.

So our own imports and clients forces and we just do sales. It’s a very boutique business. We only have 11 stalls. It’s like we try to just, yeah, I guess more boutique approach. So what got you into horse sales?

Was that something you’ve done your whole life? I own a pretty large PR company. When I was in France, met my husband who is American, I moved here in the USI sold my company, put enough money that like I didn’t have to worry about working too much and I grew up riding horses. I had quit to run my company because it was a lot of work. Decided to go back into horses, decided to go to buy a horse at the time.

And I was like, Oh my gosh, the horses are so expensive. I know they are way cheaper in France. So I went to buy a horse in France because I was like, I’m not spending this kind of money on a horse here in the US Brought the horse over. Went to a horse show a couple of months later and I didn’t get somebody offered me three times what I had paid for the horse. I was a cute horse, liked it very much.

I had nothing against it, but I was like, I’m sure I can find another one that is quite as cute. So I went back to friends, got one, went to two or three shows. Sure enough, after the third show, somebody offered me money and I was like telling my husband because I still didn’t have a job. I was still living off like what I had been with my company and my husband does a good job and it’s literally how I started that guy. I had no idea that I wanted to start a sale business on to my lab.

Yeah, very serendipitous. I love it. I’m happy that it happened the way it is because I absolutely love selling horses, so it works out. So what? Why did you think when you came over to the States and started looking at horses, why do you think the horses over here were just so much money compared to even the purchase price plus importing of a horse in Europe?

I think it has to do with the cost of upkeep in the US versus the cost of upkeep in Europe. Sagan I think there is way more breeding going in Europe then there is here. So if you have those numbers are not even close but is there is let’s say 2000 breeders in the US and you will have 20,000 in Europe then it’s a numbers game where like when you have more products available then like it’s cheaper and vice versa. But I think it’s really more about the upkeep. I live in Florida but I pay 20 plus dollars for a bill of hay.

My partners in France, they can have a round bell for about $20 that feeds horses for, they can feed like when they’re around there at $20, they can feed like 20 horses for a week. And for me, I do two horses in a day and Ferrier, same thing. So the way it works with the import business that I run right now is I have some very trusted partners. They are, I consider them like family at this point. So they’re like not just people that I randomly know, it’s people that I’m very involved, like inside and outside of the business.

And so we have horses we keep in France. Like we buy them at 3:00 because we get a better price and then they will produce them at 4-5 and six. If along the line we decide that the quality is a little bit too average or the temperament will not fit what we look for in the American market, we’ll sell them in Europe and we’ll only keep like the best ones. And sometimes we produce them till they are at six and typically I bring them back six or seven when they’re a little bit more marketable. Here will cost me 30, forty, $80.00 for the Ferrier over there.

For those horses. It cost me here between 275 and 320. A full show in France, 2 days with a young horse, it’s less than $100. There is not a single show here that I can go and that cool, I’m going to go show and it’s going to cost me $90.00. Yeah.

And so that’s, I think the cost is really what makes the difference. So from like the moment they’re born till the moment they’re like syllable around 5:00-ish or whatever. Like I’ve read 1 here, he’s turning force like in 2026. I did it like as cheap as I can. Like not in a bad way, but like I tried to keep.

He’s boarded in Missouri right now. I don’t even keep him in Florida. He’s turned out 24/7, you know, I mean, I tried to do it like as cost efficient as possible while he’s growing, still receiving care, getting his feet done and everything needs, but I’m already close to $28,000 into it. The same force for a breeder in France, and it would be probably $15,000 into it, is that. Yeah, that makes a huge difference.

I know. I’m from originally New England and now I live in Aiken, SC and because we were so close to the Canadian border or hay was only $6 a Bale or something crazy, I moved down to Aiken and I pay $17.00 a Bale. Like the hay isn’t much better. I just remember being like, Oh my God, I don’t even know how people in Florida. Do it, Yeah.

And yeah, like I lived in Michigan for a little while before we moved to Florida in 2008. And I had a farmer that was literally like 3 farms for my farm. And he would come and bring me hair and I remember it was $4.00. And then the next year he was like, I won 425 and I was so upset. I was like, what do you mean you’re going to raise the price to 425?

I would kill to have Bob’s hair right now. Even if he told me $8, I would be Bob. It’s all yours. I know it’s insane and the rising cost of just everything overall I think has really put a strain on even people who aren’t buying and selling, just people who are producing it. It is just so expensive and.

So yeah, there is a worse that we bought at this 3 year old. We he did like the full 5 and 6 year old jumpers in France with all the finals. He went to a couple of international competitions which those FBI competitions even in Europe are more expensive than the national competitions they do for young horses. And by the time my partner was like, so we do our work counting, you know what I mean? She keeps dab of everything she’s spending on the horses in France and then I keep dab of everything that it cost me here.

And then when we sell, we factor the expenses and then like we split in a way that we think is fair. So she did that and the total for the three years was $28,000. Three years. I’m like, I cannot even just board feed and put shoes on for that price for three years. It’s not even even involving a show or anything.

I can’t even do it like at cost with everything that it costs here. It’s just, it’s just not possible. I can’t do it. So I have my 4, my 3 coming 4 year old baby that is in Missouri and I’m seriously toy. I’m seriously toying with the idea.

So I’m going to bring him here to Florida to evaluate him to see what the quality is. And so the plan is if he’s like a nice horse, but I would say fairly average, then most likely I’ll lose money by the time I sell it. And it’s fine. It’s always business. You can’t always earn money.

It was just like one time I was, I thought it’s pretty baby just fine. So I’m not giving his money. If he’s nice enough but not like exceptional, but like a little bit of quality, then I will probably be here for six months, try to Polish him a little bit, make him a little bit nicer, and then hopefully I can make $2000 after five years to pay proper investment. Look at me. And then if I’m super lucky that suddenly I’m like, no, actually with time and training, this horse is going to be something else.

My plan is actually, believe it or not, I did the math. I’m going to pay him for a flight ticket to go to leave him there for two years and then bring him back. And even doing all this, I will still be better than keeping him here for the next two years. Wow, that’s crazy. Stop that.

It really begs the question of is it even really possible to produce horses from nothing to something in the US in a way that. Absolutely not. It is absolutely not possible. Like with the state of the things right now, with the way Yousef is running, with the way trading bonds and the education and the mindset in the US, absolutely not. The the because the system caters for the entire system is built on trainers that cater to client because it’s like it’s their client’s hobby to a wealthy slice of the population, which is fine.

And so there is not anywhere a place where we’re like we need to make it cost efficient. It never comes to mind. The mindset is the clients will pay whatever they need to pay and it works. Not a lot of those people are able to afford those high prices and show circuit is full. Lots, of course, lot of course it’s showing and everything.

The problem is in that mindset, it’s only made horses that are ready to go in the ring and that are going to either win for the professionals in the big classes or the money classes or whatever and they can offset the cost of the shoe build. That or like the clients enjoying nice horses and enjoying like made horses for their hobby and then they are like I do not mind to spend X amount of dollars to sure because that makes me happy. But there is not anywhere where you could have a young professional producing young horses or a breeder where any of those people would be able to make money if they tried to do it properly with the current system. No. I remember when I was a kid, I worked at a barn and the woman would buy off the truck thoroughbreds at the end of the year and she would put a year or two into them and then sell them.

And now in today’s climate, one with how people view thoroughbreds and two, with the system of it needs to have a perfect vetting and it needs to have perfect radiographs. There’s virtually 0 market for thoroughbreds anymore and whether it be selling or making any kind of money and now unless you have the capital to buy a force that is from Europe or they spend $10,000 on a betting before you even buy it because people are going to want the radiographs and the. Oh yeah, I’m in the middle of all this thing. So I have, I don’t do clients, obviously. I told you I was need like in sales.

But there is one that snuck in. She’s been with me for 10 years. She has her own farm. She’s an amateur that that she buys thoroughbreds of the track, make some nice pictures, a little bit of time and then sell them. And she’s been doing very well.

She’s very respected in that community. She does a super job and she just texted me yesterday or whatever and she’s and another failed vet shack because everybody’s doing back X-rays and their breads start right now like she says at least nine out of 10 that I have will have at least not necessarily kissing spine, but it will be like will be a little bit more narrow in the back and whistling on client has been backing out and the vets. I even say it is common in thoroughbreds because the way the when they gallop at the track, which is the motion that is very different than just you can’t ring your ring back with your hunter. The spine really stretches out. And then when they coil back, it really gets close.

And so the motion that’s that will change the confirmation of the spine, not necessarily making it painful, but like it’s mechanical the same way that like I’m trying to explain to people that if you want to buy a meter 45 force that is like to teach your kid or whatever. And the worst is 14 or 15. Most likely it will have some narrow spacing. And the reason for that is that when you learn from those big fans, it actually pushes on all the vertebras and that motion ends up like making them compact. It’s mechanical.

We cannot change it. And so you have a worse that is 14 that is competing that has novel on the show record that is they lovely flats, doesn’t toss his head, does everything, jumps the jumps, packs your kid around. And you’re going to obsess about the fact that is narrowing space that is actually scientifically proven to be created by the sport we’re doing. And you will still pass on the vet shack. But even if the words like the vet cannot # enough on his back to make him react and he has full motion of the back and the people are I’m not comfortable and I’m like, but guys like at this point it’s proven that there are more than 70% of the people the hosts are showing kissing spine and only very few of those become clinical and like age.

It should be like a level of fitness and showing is like it. It should help to mitigate the risk factor or whatever. I’m not saying hey, go to grab a foil that has sketch X-rays. That has never done it anything. Even me as a buyer.

Obviously I buy horses too because if I want to sell them I need to buy them in the first place. On a four year old I would be a little bit like, I don’t know, real sweet clothes. I would be like, maybe I will not take the risk. As the worst starts to have a career and you progress into those teens and stuff, then honestly on any kind of X-ray fanning as the worst gets older it goes away. Like your risk is less and less.

That could really decrease. Then the problem is the mindset and that is AUS mindset. They don’t have that mindset in Europe that the US mindset is very much that The older they get, the more picky people who are for the vet checks. I’m not. People.

It’s the opposite. Trust me, if it has not broken down by the time it’s not 1214 or whatever it’s going, it’s going to go strong. I have like my current, I am a Grand Prix horse that’s super, super nice horse. It’s 17 and it’s in TikTok shape and it’s doing great. Like at this rate it’s probably going to still show Bobby till he’s 22 because that physically he’s just better than half of the 8 year olds out there.

Yeah. So what do you think the like when you’re looking at horses for yourself to buy either as an investment or maybe you personally, what is it that you’re looking for when you’re talking about the quality of the horse? What goes into making a horse good quality? The cell form, OK, it’s going to sound super weird, but I promise you it works. First, it’s going to sound so corny.

You’re going to be like, whoa again, you’re going to be that Lady is a little crazy. I really like to look at their eye. It’s and I’m not saying they have white around the eye. I don’t care about that. But there is this thing about that where you can look at the horses deep in the eyes and when they have those big eyes, sort of like you can see the calm and everything already.

I’m like, OK, when they look like their eyes are always a little bit like this already. I’m like, oh, I don’t know. And so that’s I always look at the eyes on a video. You can’t always see it. So if I receive a video from my partner first, like she has a great eye, so she will not send me shitty horses.

Thank, thank you so much, My partner appreciate you greeting already like half of them for me. But number 1111 quality for me is I look at the candor and I am a specific Cantor that I like and I will never buy anything that is out of that Cantor. I don’t care if it was jumps me or 50. I don’t care if it moves A10 for the hack. I don’t care if his knees are in his eyeballs.

If I don’t like the Cantor, I will not buy it. It’s really I would say 80% off. What I’m going to buy is the quality of the Cantor. I wear the FI dressage myself. I don’t show Hunter jumpers, I sell them.

I train people. I understand how the sport works. That’s what I do feel black personally, as a rider, I show myself up to FBI dressage and very early on when you ride dressage, they tell you can improve the trot. On the walk. You can’t really improve anything but like onto jumpers.

Nobody cares how they walks. That’s fine. But like the canner, you can always make a horse better by working enough, but you can never really improve 100% of the canner. And so for me, it’s like either they have it or they don’t have it. And so I feel that if a horse has not a proper canner, you always going to be swimming upstream trying to fight against something that is hard for the horse to fix.

And so I’m like, if I don’t have to fix that, knowing that I will counter to every jump and I guess what like my life is the easier. So I would say it’s the canner obviously also after that I will look at the form over the jump, like how they use their body. And then the last aspect of it would be I love to work with French forces. Everybody thinks they’re hot. They are hot.

They are like the best minded animals, like tend to not be very spooky. They tend to be very forgiving. Like they they good doers typically less now, but like years ago, they didn’t need to be a little bit on the ugly side because the French people didn’t care about the gates, didn’t care about the looks. They just cared about the canner and the jump. But and so they were all a bit like those big planches, nuts, big heads that move that card horses, but could jump the moon and they were like super pleasant to work with.

I feel that a lot of the German warm bloods like they are like I would say they are medium range. They are not necessarily the most blooded ones and they are not necessarily dead heads. The thing was German horses like they need that kind of days in, days out discipline that requires like constant training. They do well in a program, like as soon as they’re not in a program, like they tend to take advantage and not have they don’t try very hard. When they’re in a routine, they are great.

Out of their routine, not so great. That’s my overall impression of working with them over the years. And the Dutch warm bloods out of the bunch tend to be like, I would say the most athletic, the most talented, the most beautiful and the most blood. And they have a pea brain to be spooky high, strong, harder to ride, need more prep or whatever. So because they’re so athletic, so pretty or whatever, like a lot of people want to work with them.

But I feel that overall they are not anti friendly and they are the ones that record the most high maintenance. So when you have a good one and you can have the system, fantastic horses. I would say in general for amateurs, like the French horses, like you can leave them three weeks in the pasture, grab them for a metal horse show and they will go and be like, all right, we’re at the whole show and I’m like, what winner? This is what I want to work with. So, so I look at temperament.

So that would be like, I don’t do flighty. I don’t like flighty horses. If they are spooky at 3, they will be spooky at 17. Like my personal horse, my Grand Prix horse. Always 17 is dodge.

So you see, I still go for the dodge. I’m not saying that I don’t spike. My personal horse is dodge every day. Spins around the Bush here and the tree there and the poop cart and whatever every single day. Still love him.

But I think as a professional, one of the learning curves I had, it’s about sometimes the horses I like are not necessarily the horses that the people that are buying the horses need. Right. There’s a reason he’s a personal horse, a talented, absolutely magnificent animal. He shows meter 45 Grand Prix. He shows FEI dressage with me.

Like he’s like the most talented animal I’ve ever seen. But he’s anything but an amateur engineer horse. But yeah, no, so, so yeah. So I would say Canner. I canner quality of the jump and brain.

Those are like and and it’s going to show again that I’m friends. I don’t care about the trots because I was not raised enough for the hunters. That’s like, I know everybody wants a good hack winner, but I’m like there are 4 offences classes or three or four. There is one flat class. If you were scheduling all the classes or offences, you can still make the championship with the horse that was like a sewing machine.

But I’m not the majority and I don’t do a lot of hunters. So here we go. One of the reasons that I had wanted to reach out to you was I saw your Facebook post about the kind of exploding Chinese market in buying horses. When you’re working with your people over in Europe, what is the sentiment of the American market and dealing with Americans versus dealing with some of these new buyers? Oh, OK, that I’m married to an American.

Sometimes he tells me, sweetie, you can’t really say what you think. So how politically correct and nice do you want to do? And again, I feel America is my country now, OK? I would never want to live anywhere else. I love the USI love the Americans.

I asked you American kids. I have an American husband. So again, like I come here and pee. But at this point, I will say most Europeans are really fed up with the US clients because they are labeled very high maintenance. It’s like they really expect perfect horses at all times, which is not easy to find.

And I would say the main beef would be the vet checks that are so unreasonable that it feels what’s the point at this point? So in my experience, that has happened multiple times. We go, we do a full vet check because at this point I understand that I don’t even want to try to put a horse on the market if I don’t have neck, back locks, feet and Hawks, stifles, you name it. OK, so here’s my, I already have that because I’m not going to buy a horse myself knowing that if there is a little something, it’s not going to be sold. So like I, I do, we do our due diligence and vet horses and make sure that, OK, by the time you take 5060 X-rays, it doesn’t matter which horse you’re wedding, there will be at least a few remarks.

It’s just, it’s just the way it is. And but at the your vets or whatever, they’re like, OK, it’s just really like a remark and like it’s never going to bother the horses. Then you send it to the buyers and then they going to start finding stuff where you’re like, where are you finding this? So then I’m like, OK, I sent it to my own bed with a big surgeon in Ocala. Like the guy is like top notch.

I’m like, if I’m going to work with somebody, I’m going to work with somebody good. Because then on cases like the second, have a solid opinion. This it works for a big practice that only does them this usually it’s pretty close to what the Rose I was thinking. And he will tell me, OK, I can see this and it’s not a bit. And then those people pass and they’re like, so then I send the X-rays to the next set of clients that is interested.

And most of the time they will come up with a whole new list of things they found on the same X-rays. And I can go through four or five vets and they all going to find different things. The other one is going to be like it as a sis in the stifle. The other one is going to find something in the navicular. Another one is going to find something in the neck and at the end I’m like, should I put it down now?

What do I do with it? You know what? And it does. I can it’s that’s it. And all that people.

I, I, I had some people they were interested in vetting the worst. I send them a set of X-rays, the full set. Like I just said, they booked the wedding redid and they find some things on the first set. It was there like it was the recent set. So whatever they redid a set and on the second set I know it’s going to come as a shocker.

The same thing that was on the first set showed up on the second set and they are like we’re very uncomfortable with the findings. And at that point, I’m like, why did you just spend €3000 on something that was sent to you for free in the 1st place and wasted our time to trail the worst to Belgium to a high tech clinic or whatever and spend, we spend 6 hours taking this force or whatever, knowing that on the first set of X-rays there was already a deal breaker. And like in this case, it was the back. There was 2 vertebras, not kissing spine, but they were closer. They’re all close.

And then that’s where I was like what they told me we’re going to offer you half of what you’re asking for the worst because that’s all we’re comfortable spending because of the findings on both set of X-rays. I was like OK, of course this is the most illogical, the reason I’ve ever heard. If something is really trust me, I see X-rays all the time because we vet horses, tons of horses we vet. Do you think that spending €40,000 and $12,000 in import, so now you’re black and the tariffs and everything, so now you’re $60,000 into it. Would you personally spend $60,000 into a word that you think you’re not going to be able to ride because it does something on on its spot?

I want yeah. If I truly deep down believe that the words are something that is career and or that’s not going to really do it for the sport, I will not buy it for $5000. The European sellers are a bit aggravated because when stuff like this happens, I’m like there’s absolutely 0 logic. The fact that she wants to pass on the worst. I have no issues.

If you’re not comfortable with something on the wedding, everybody has different level of comfort. I’m totally fine with that. It’s fine, It’s totally fine, but don’t offer me half because if it’s going to break down and you’re like you’re still going to be 60 in the hole, you still lost 60. So is there you buy the horse at full price because you’re comfortable enough with the X-rays or you pass? Yeah.

So for the Chinese people, it’s a very big emerging market. They started with 200 bonds in whatever 2019 or whatever, like a little bit before that. Now they almost had 3000. Their buying power is absolutely incredible. They come to Europe, they’re all decked and Chanel and whatever and they have money and like I’m learning about China and like how it works.

But like basically the whatever you build in China, like business or whatever can be a multimillionaire 50 years after, like you have created your wealth. It will be all taking away by the Chinese government regardless. It goes back to the Chinese government. You cannot pass it on your kids. So those people have absolutely 0 incentive whatsoever to build generational wealth.

So guess what they’re going to do with the money they have now? Spend a big load of it. And they spend it like there is no tomorrow. Because there is no tomorrow. They can’t do anything about it.

And so this band, so they send all those kids and young adults or whatever and they want pretty horses. They want amateur friendly horses. They want horses that job. Then for the vet checks, it’s a little bit funny, but they are definitely less picky than the American buyers. And there is one more thing for Europeans.

I’m not saying it’s a good thing, but I’m going to be honest there. If he saw, not that you should do that, OK, I do not. I’m not talking about my business. I’m talking about Europe in general. But if you’re going to sell a horse to the US, even sometimes you sell a good horse, for some reason, it arrives and it doesn’t settle in the probe.

It doesn’t mean the trainer is bad, doesn’t mean the horse is bad. Sometimes it just doesn’t perform the way it performed in Europe. It happens. They’re not machines. So you sell this force, the US cons are going to be very upset, I understand or whatever.

So then they’re going to start being like, oh, like I bought a horse from XYZ in France in Germany and hall that person is approved because they told me there was didn’t spoof. But now it’s spinning everywhere we take it and then it’s going to start this, which is that’s if you, if you get screwed by somebody or if something doesn’t work out, you are totally entitled to speak about it and to share your opinion. No problem with that. What happens when you sell worse in China? Nothing, because they don’t really have Internet to communicate with the outside world.

So when you saw a horse to China, it goes to China. And that’s not so picky with the vet shacks. They are tougher riders. They don’t care if a horse is going to scoot, They don’t care if a horse is going to crawl up a little bit. They don’t care if a horse tries to be sticky at the door.

They will give it a big kick and then keep going. They’re all rough like in the way that they are. They can cowboy, but at the end it’s not. It’s still easier to sell them horses because they can have horses that act like horses. Yeah.

And so they’re not better riders than the US rider. Yeah, it’s sometimes it’s a little bit rough around the edges. I saw some on jumper courses and I was like, Oh my gosh, It’s sketch. But they get the job done. And so in that aspect, it’s a little bit easier.

They are not as picky for the behavior, as long as it’s really safe. If it’s like a little bit wiggly or whatever, they’re not going to care. They’re going to be less picky for the vet checks and they would never have any negative feedback or any kind of feedback as when it’s sold. Who do you think they’re going to start selling to? Yeah.

The same maybe the Chinese right now still spend a little bit less, but as I see that they were starting to at first they only wanted to spend 2030 and I know I’ve seen some spend 101 fifty. No, I’m not. The price thing is not a thing anymore because they’re like getting bolder and bolder with how much they spend. And when the riding clubs and everything are relatively new, they are going to be rougher around the edges because they just don’t have the experience and tradition of so yeah, as they. They actually one may I Salinas because they want to start a breeding program to start to produce their own.

So it’s not only geldings. So it opens the market for the euro. So it’s not being able to sell anything instead of scaling, scaling, scaling. The only drawback for China compared to the US is the quantity process is a complete nightmare. And I would say that right now this is really the biggest hold for the lack of import, like the the reasonable rate of import to China.

This is what helps the US right now is that their import process is a complete nightmare. Therefore, like the US still has a shot because that offset all the other aspects. So the point in in for China is the horses cannot have travelled to any other country than the one they are being bought from for six months. So if you take a Grand Prix horse and it’s Europe, they will go to do the Sunshine Tour in Spain or they will do international jumper show in Belgium or in Germany or whatever. They travel a lot.

OK, those horses, it’s today easy to make them travel. So as soon as if you had a nice meter 30 horse that didn’t show, that shows in France. But then they’re like, oh, there’s this nice FBI show in Belgium. Sometimes it’s quicker for them to drive there from where they are for my partners. So they won’t show in Belgium.

That will be said the process if they were trying to sell this horse for China, then they would have to wait another six months before they can even start the quarantine process. So that limits a little bit partially on those upper level jumpers. Then they will have to spend two months of quarantine in France in a quarantine facility and then when they arrive in China, they have two more months at the Chinese quarantine. So that’s a four months process. E The wars has been in the same country for six months, still on a Apple level Wars for the people from when they buy it till they get it, it could almost be over a year.

Yeah. And because they have to stay for so long, they’re running out of quarantine space in France because or Europe. And now there is like, I guess the Chinese government got mad, I don’t know why, but they got mad at the German and they got mad at the Dutch people. So they removed all the rights for quarantine in Belt Germany and Holland or Belgian and Holland anyway, two countries that sell a lot of forces, and now they’re not allowed to do quarantines. So they are sending a lot to friends.

But then there is a six month thing. And so the French people just opened like a old airport that was in Brittany’s West of France that was used in the 90s to send draft forces for meat to Japan. And they had a similar facility and an airport and everything. And so they just opened, I think it’s a 200 stall facility in Brittany to deal with the influx of horses from Europe. But yeah, so right now the hold up to ramp up that business with China is the quarantine constraints.

If they can, which I’m like, I could see the Chinese investing in buildings and facilities here like in Europe. Why not? I think they’re going to be able to sell because that right now. So there is an agent that currently works full time and lives full time, like where my partners are located in France, and we see is about 30 to 40 inquiries a day for people who’ve been forces in China. Wow.

Yes, one agent. So what do you think? Because as of right now, the reason a lot of people import to America is based on price and convenience of having a horse more financially accessibly produced over in Europe and you increase demand, price tends to go up. So what do you think the American market is going to look like 5-10 years from now? It depends what the Americans want to do about it.

Like at this point it’s really in the hands of the Americans. The question is either you still try to find that perfect horse and you stick to your vet requirements and your everything requirements and then they will be so few that 90% of the people are going to be priced out. Because if you host that media has no remarks on the X-ray that moves pretty, that jumps pretty, that is between 7:00 and 10:00, that can deal with an amateur. You will have to pay what, 304 hundred for it in Europe because they are what they are like maybe hundreds of them all over Europe that will fit exactly those requirements or you start to lessen your requirements then you can have bigger pool to buy from. But there’s not a magical answer of suddenly we we can change that.

And I’m going to sound like fear mongering person, but the past three days I am at 3 people and my partner also work with people from Qatar and like all those countries and those people have a lot of money and they’re paying for a lot of forces. So there is also that I’m currently like I have a deal pending with somebody from Qatar was buying a horse at this on my page that was in France and they are like vetting it and everything. And there is also an influx of people from those regions and are buying a lot in Europe. So like for the longest time, the Americans were the ones that had the most money and not really good relationships. Things are changing.

We’re like there are more and more needs from different countries that we’re not. I think to some extent it’s possible that the Europeans are going to try to breed more because there is more demand. Would make sense that they would increase the supplies but there is only so much like at the end like it’s still going to drive the prices up and you’re going to have to be maybe be a tiny bit less selective or option B create a system in the US that start to help breeders to be able to develop forces and maybe something that is not Yousef that is specifically made for young horses affordable whatever. And that the second thing that people needs to brainstorm on if we can create a professional show series that mimic what they have in Europe, OK, maybe $100 per week. It’s not realistic.

It’s fine. I understand. But I think that if it was even $500.00 for three or four days of showing versus $1200 like already you’re making a little bit of a difference. Yeah, and I think it’s so hard because unless you’re a professional, you really don’t know how much time money and goes into the producing of the young horse even just to get one bred cost $1520. The numbers I just didn’t scare myself.

No. And it’s, it really is. I think people have been in a mindset of horses are just always going to be accessible to the type of buyer that is buying those types of forces. But there are so much global change happening that you can’t predict even what’s going to happen in the market five years from now. And so I have one more funny thing to share with you, which is also a problem.

And I understand, again, sometimes I’m talking about the problems. I’m not blaming people, I’m not pointing fingers. I’m not. I’m just stating facts because I can see it from my eyes. I have sold a bunch of really expensive horses, and we’re talking like 4 million and over, OK?

So very expensive horses with no vet checks. I have sold horses in the six figures with sketchy X-rays and you know what my farthest heights are for red shacks? My 40 to 50 crowd. The forty $50,000 clientele is the one that is the biggest by far for any kind of finding on the X-rays and I know why. I understand if you have like a quarter $1,000,000 to spend on a horse, it means that if something happens to that horse, you can replace it because you don’t, it’s pocket change for you.

So you can’t take the risk because whether it works or it doesn’t work, whether. You’re not out that much. You’re not going. To hurt for that money you put 40 or $50,000 into a horse, you’re already very rich compared to I would say the non horse part of the population. But.

At that point, if you save, you have a decent job or whatever, you can probably come up with $40,000 being like a little bit like careful with your money, but like for you it’s you’re going to extend yourself and it’s going to take a lot of sacrifices to get that 40. As you look at that 40 and you’re like, I cannot afford to lose that 40. Yeah. And so your difference mechanism will be like, I need to make sure everything is perfect so that nothing ever happens to that. And so therefore you’re going to go into that innovate defensive state of mind.

And then that’s where you’re going to be super picky. And that’s a little bit where there is a disconnect. Just why I understand what those people are saying. I’m like, if you relaxed a little bit, you could score some really nice forces for that price range or whatever and it will be a little bit easier to shop. But if I have a worse whiz, perfect X-rays, perfect temperament, perfect show record, why would I sell it for 40 or 50?

Yeah, I will sell it for 80 or 100 because, yeah. So that’s the part that is little bit tricky where I understand the two sides of the equation. I understand my side where I’m like, I’m gonna I’m a grumpy horse right now. He has he’s 14, super nice, like mirror 20 machine. And he has like a couple of findings on his X-rays.

Clinical is super, the show record, everything is good. It’s a nice horse. I want 40,000 and it’s it can be the winner at work. It can be the winner at work. Like it’s a machine I cannot sell to save to save my life.

But for 40, what are you going to find? And so either you go for something young. So a lot of people are, I don’t want an old horse, I want something young. And I’m like, OK, so you got to be stuck in the meter 10 with something that probably needs a lot of training rides that you might not enjoy very much because obviously it’s a young horse. So you can’t really do a lot of mistakes with a young horse.

Yeah. And for two or three years you’re still back as a 5 year old. You don’t know if it’s going to be a meter 20 machine or a meter 30%. And it’s still a bit of a Game Boy. They can have all the qualities.

Sometimes it just end up not making it or they don’t, they’re not careful enough or whatever. And so you have three years of navigating this thing where you’re going to pay thousand 2000 for board plus the training plus the horse shows. So per year you’re going to sink like 30,000. And then you do that for three years you have spent $90,000 on a horse that might actually not fit what you actually want. Yeah, yeah.

That’s where the math is not mathing. There’s a big difference between buying the horse that’s doing the job and has been doing the job versus taking a chance on a young horse. And who’s to say that you buy that young horse with perfect X-rays, perfect everything, and as you’re progressing it through the job, all of a sudden when someone goes to buy it three years from then, it has something on the X-rays? Because this is the life of producing horses. That are in my experience and maybe I’ve been like, maybe it’s just me, OK, but I go through a lot of horses.

So I would say that like I’m a pretty, I’ve been doing it for 25 years and I’ve sold thousands and thousands of horses. So I think I have a good idea whatever. But like I bought when I my older daughter was 12 at the time shopping for horse, I couldn’t find her anything. I fell in love with the horse that my partner had. three-year old that has two weeks under saddle.

Why did I buy that for my 12 year old? Don’t ask me whatever. Bottom line is that horse add the worst X-rays on the face of the earth and I’m not exaggerating. Even so, we’re talking about global Navicure X-rays, full boy Navicure X-rays. OCD in one stifle cyst in the other stifle and I didn’t bother to do neck and back.

OK, because I’m sure I would have found something because the sometimes if headed a little tweak to the right. So I wouldn’t be surprised before working with something there. So we have on the worst for seven years. We did the OCD surgery because my vet recommended that it was better to do it. So I was like, OK, let’s do it.

It has done and not be competitive in the three six at work. Knock on woods. It has never been lame. It’s going strong. I was like this angled on his feet were a little bit funky.

So I took him to my vet to see if we needed to change the angles to make sure that nothing bad was going to happen. But they took the X-rays. Look at the X-rays there. Oh, my gosh, this is navicular. And I was like, yeah, you said the same thing seven years ago.

I’m fine. It’s OK. Yeah. And I paid either 4 or €6000 for the worst at the time. And so that was fine.

Then I bought one with perfect X-rays, all the ones I am at that got great X-rays ended up costing me the worst bed bills I have ever. 11 ended up with atrial fibrillation by a healthy worse. Everything is good and out of nowhere. Any worse anywhere out of nowhere their cardiac rhythm can change one day you listen to their heart it’s great the next day you listen to the heart and the rhythm is not good. And that was the quickest failed bet check I have ever read by the 1:00.

So we bought this horse. It was super nice got tried by some clients. X-rays are good. I’m like, look at us like I know it will flex. I’m like cool, I’m already spending that money.

I’m like, it’s old and the net comes and put this little scope and I’m like holding the horse and I’m like, cool, listen to the heart and then we’re going to look at the eyes. Yeah, we never looked at the eyes. Like she literally that was a 12 second vet shack. Oh my God. Eyes, tendon injuries, one drop dead like you name it.

And so over the years, I am at a lot of vet bills. When I go to the vet’s office, everybody knows me, my kids name, my my pets names and everything. I paid plenty of vet bills. I can’t really remember a time where I paid the vet bill from a finding I had on the X-rays that ended up turning back and again, maybe I’m super lucky. I know it happens.

I’m not saying it doesn’t happen, just saying that like although with the vet bills I have had to pay, it was always something different. It was like a colic. It was like tying up. It was like an eye problem. It was a hard problem.

It was a 10 minute issue. It was a neurological issue. It was like, yeah, like whatever disease, Potomac fever, whatever I had my share of like you name it, if it happens, I probably have had a horse that had it. And So what I’m saying is I understand the X-rays. I take X-rays when I buy horses.

So again, not against X-rays. I’m not saying should try to particularly shop for Swiss shit X-rays. I locked out on that one, to be honest. That was a big gamble and it was cheap enough that I could do it. At the same time, you need to realize that the minute you buy a horse, you need to look at it be like that money is gone.

Yeah. I always go with the frame of mind that whatever money you put in that horse, it can be gone in blink of an eye because they are horses and so they will find a way to do something. And so the extras are only, in my opinion, a small part of the equation. They are part of the equation that they are small part of the equation. And that’s a big part of the selling and everything.

People are spending so much on vet checks too. At $5000 pop, you fail for you’ve spent $20,000 and you still have worse. Yeah, that’s the big thing and. So I’m like, really whatever you failed. I’m not saying if he comes out lame on the baseline or whatever or something like me like he tried like they’re like OK before the sections tried it on the circle and it looks like gimpy, right?

Yeah. But if everything on the clinical looks good, like really good and always a couple of things on the vet check, don’t you think that $20,000 budget that you spend on those failed vet check, you could put that in an account for rainy days in case something happens and then in the meantime you still have worse to ride? Exactly, Yeah. And I think it also a little bit goes back to when the people are spending 250K plus on a horse, even if they don’t want to replace the horse right away, the funds that they have to go into maintaining something that comes up is just so different than OK, yeah, I’ve spent my entire $40,000 on actually buying the horse. And so if something comes up, I don’t know that I have the capital to even deal with it.

And it’s, again, bones are strong, right? Like we’re doing all of this. You’re probably better off to ultrasound the lower leg than you are. OK, so when I buy horses in Europe, obviously we do the experts because we’re going to need them for the buyers. We’re solely depending on how much we pay for a horse.

We do ultrasounds and and if I had to choose, if you told me you can only choose ultrasound or X-rays with the clinical, I’ll take ultrasounds. I’ll be more worried about soft tissue injuries on a sport horse then I’ll be worried with bone stuff by the time they are 8 and they have done stuff if I had to. If you said you can’t do both, ultrasound all day long, all day long. And I’m surprised more people don’t do ultrasounds because for me it is more of an issue in the long term in the sports career. If I hear more about horses being laid up for soft tissue injuries than anything else.

The other thing I would say that is a difference between the US and Europe is with the popularity of the winter circuits, be it in Florida, hits, Venice, that’s you name it. And then now they have like Ohio and whatever I’m saying. And I was not raised like this. I don’t go to many horse shows. I go to horse shows because sometimes I need to put a show record on a new import or whatever, but I am not a show born.

I show because I have to, but I try to keep it to a minimum. My last real show rated show I think was in March. So that tells you how little I stop just because like how it’s simple. Like most of the horses I import, guess who pays the show bill? It’s me.

And so if I take 6 to the horse show and I pay 6 show bills, that’s a lot coming out of my account. Every time I show, it’s money that is coming out of my future profit. Because that doesn’t always mean create. Everybody’s not. If you put show mass, it’s going to be worth more.

Yes and no. It doesn’t necessarily increase that much that quickly. And that’s like the trainers that do those big showing bonds. They make way more money at the whole show than they make at home. Yeah.

I will be honest with the economy the way it is right now, if you just own a boarding and training facility and give lessons to people, I think there is no way you’re profitable. You can maybe pay your bills and break even at the end of the month and a good month and that would be it. So you would not pay yourself a salary, which is terrible, and you would not make money. Now, when you go to horse shows, it opens a whole new level of what you can charge your clients. Yeah.

So if you’re a trader, your incentive is, hey, I can actually make a decent living going to horse shows. So you will be like, hey, do you want to horse show every weekend or every? And so a lot of people are like, yeah, I don’t want to buy anything older than 12 because then they’re like broken. They’re broken because you’re overusing that if they do 12 weeks of showing in the winter and then you go, you’re like, OK, I’m going to give them a sweet break and then knock. You go to trial and you go to Kentucky and then you go to Traverse City and then you go to Saratoga.

And then there is indoors. Those are showing over 40 weekends or 40 weeks. And so on Monday to get off Tuesday, the client take care less takes a lesson. Often the pro will show the worst Wednesday, Thursday and the worst is going to show Friday, Saturday, Sunday. Those horses are lately jumping black from Tuesday to Sunday.

Two weeks during the circuit, one week off, 2 weeks, one week off. That’s what they do. They’re like always going to give them a week off, which is not a real week off because most likely they’re going to get a tuning from the trainer of events and lesson for the client folks. Horses are designed to walk and eat grass. They are not designed to jump jumps and stand in tiny boxes.

We make them do that. I love for showing. I’m like a show person, so I understand we don’t have to put them in a big hurdle and just let them be free. But at the end you need to understand that if you do something that is so unnatural and you really push it to the extreme by making it a lot, then it will put more wear and tear on their body. Yeah.

And for my SO my young horses in Europe, they start to show in March, no indoor shows. They start like when the weather becomes somewhat better and their finals for the championships usually like if you have a good horse, they will all qualify for that championship outside of Paris last week of August, beginning of September, typically what the French people will do then they will kick them in a pasture like all my young horses, they go out sometimes in a herd, sometimes by themselves or whatever, and they will be horses till by December. Ritz and repeat. Yeah. And so by the time and knock it’s two days off showing no more than two days you trader in it’s jumper shows.

So it’s one class. Yeah, it’s typically during the week. So they will jump Tuesday, Wednesday at the show, then either a week off like at home and then another always show. And then they will even regulate how many will show. You can’t do more than 12 classes per year or sixteen classes, which I think it’s 16 with four year olds.

And then they increase a little bit for the five year olds and increase a little bit for the six year olds, but they limit it and you can’t show outside or whatever because Zack, it will still count. Or if you show two big offered like 2 big classes outside of the young horse circuit, you can’t go back to the young horse circuit or whatever. And they would Polish like how many they don’t want those young jumpers or whatever. Think about like a 5 year old hunter. Yeah.

And they’re like, and you have the jumps, those big jumps. Yeah, my family also jumped meter 15, meter 20. And people are so bad for their legs. Remember they did 7 shows, 2 glasses per show. They did 14 courses.

Do you think that jumping is 3 foot jumps ticket where you jump what, 40 jumps Jumps. So you jump usually on tickets. Yep. And then you jump your warm up jumps and then you go, you have 8 jumps and then eight more jumps and then the next day and then you launch on top of it. Yep.

Which nobody launches in Europe. Yeah, you do that as 4-5 and six year old, Yeah your 6 year old will have way more wear and tear that yeah by 10 that thing is going to need is going to be so many injections and everything that it’s because so there is also that and again I don’t need. So you have a solution because I understand you cannot make money outside of charging for sure everything coaching, daycare like you name it. Yeah, this is a money maker if you want to make it. I understand why trainer wants to make money like the money.

They work really hard, but the incentive is to try to push the clients to show so many classes and so many days and so many. But then I could come at the cost of the horses breaking down earlier and more often. Yeah, I had no idea about the class restrictions and whatnot in France. That’s really interesting. I think more people are pushing in Yousef to put regulations on things like young horse classes and that sort of thing do.

You understand those rules in France, but I don’t think anybody would actually challenge them. They have them because you have to have a rule book. But honestly, I think it’s a mentality where people weren’t like, OK, that’s enough. How many classes can you jump with a four year old? At one point you’re like, OK, it steers, it stops, it jumps, water jumps in and out.

What else does a four year old needs to do much? And so there are so many classes where they can still learn stuff. Just a very different mentality overall, right? Yeah, and classes only during the day, like all the young horse classes exclusively during the week, typically Tuesday, Wednesday, sometimes Wednesday, Thursday and sometimes even month. And then they have the regular show for amateurs and professionals for the old courses past six.

Those are like Saturday, Sunday or Friday, Saturday, Sunday and people take the trailer. Yeah. So that’s also helps the cost. That mean helps the cost. So we have actually a circuit that is emerging here in Ocala, not in Ocala, but like in Florida.

Like the circuit is in Ocala. It’s called the local Champions Tour. It’s organized by Ronnie Rimmer. He’s known online as the German riding instructor. So he organizes it’s only jumpers.

He’s German, so I don’t do the hunter stuff, but I can’t relate, buddy. I can relate. You’re here LCT the concept is so you go, it’s three days, really nice facilities. Like he tries to go to different places so the horses don’t always show on the same show ground. So if you have some young ones, it’s good because they see different things.

So pudding is always great. Courses are like super well designed. He’s a Grand Prix rider and like he’s he has a bunch of people working with him. Don’t like super, super experience dedicated horse people. So like they always come up with some full courses.

Friday is a schooling day. So you buy a ticket, but you go it’s like a show day. So you have a course that is set up, you pay to go in the ring and it’s not like you can jump for 40 minutes on the course you go, it’s the course. There is it’s not time though anything. And if your horse refuses, you can go to grab another job and then come back to the one.

So they make it a little bit flexible that you can school if you need to. So you try to go on your course. If things really wrong halfway through, they will let you try to make it around. And so that’s on Friday and then on Saturday and Sunday there are classes with money prizes and stuff. It’s really nice and they have all the levels.

So on Friday it’s all the way to meter 40 from Crossrails and then Saturday, Sunday it will be meter 25 I think is the highest there is, like their Grand Prix or whatever. And so those, they are so nice because it’s easy. It’s really good for the horses, very educational, great atmosphere. Like The Avengers. It looks like a real low a show.

Yeah, I’m sure I’m going to get it wrong. So Ronnie’s going to be like woman you didn’t write, but I think the classes are $40.00 for the entries. Office fee is $25 and I think that’s it. That’s all your pet and then you trailer in. And so because it’s from a cat like everybody else, I could be 6 horse head to head or whatever.

And then people take the horses out of the trailer. There’s like wash stalls for the horses. There is water or whatever. And you just do it like the your way. And I’ve seen like quarter million or half million dollar horses at that show.

Or you have one that lost his confidence at the last show and let’s take him to a class there that like it’s not going to show on his show record if he’s still not quite, you know what I mean? And so it’s always full. It’s full even during circuit, even during everything. They have full house big names. I’m tired.

We’d be surprised who shows at that show. It’s there is no Appaloosa and no Aflingers. It’s all like warm bloods with a show people. And So what it tells you is there is a need outside of the regular use of circuit for quality shows for. I would say asial material, trainers, riders and horses that are more affordable for different reasons.

Again, I thought there are like 1,000,000 reasons why it would be cool to go to a show like this. Is the worst good with traffic or not? Like I don’t need to go to work to find out. Yeah, I like like I have an import that was written by a six four rider in Europe and my rider is that 120 lbs like soaking wet maybe the snaffle he was using in Europe was great, but we got to try the snaffle. She gets runaway on course.

What I’m saying is, so it’s like if I do that at work, click my horse and suddenly here is my rider that is strung out and then knocks 2 whales because she was just taking one out because we didn’t really know what bit to you. Yeah, then it’s for everyone. Click my horse. Yeah, and sad and I’m not trying to hide things like the clients that will be like yeah, when we take him to the first show. I ran away.

But like with that bit it works great. But what I’m saying it’s not necessarily you’re trying to hide things, but the problem is like even click my horses has been a big problem for selling horses or whatever. I have nothing against it against. I’m trying to be very transparent. I am at horses.

No joke. Like this has happened before. I had the horse super show record. He went to Wake unfortunately crashed really badly in the warm up. We thought he was fine.

He was not fine. So he came first jump, he stopped and then and we came back and he had a very serious tenant injury, but he just tweaked it. He needed two weeks off and that’s why he didn’t want to jump after. And it’s fine. And we took him to the next show and it’s super wild, like super good laptop, top five every.

We took him to five or six more shows. Didn’t was not out of the ribbons a single time. Yeah. Could not sell it to save my life because there was that one video of him one time stopping, and I had the explanation why he did it. Yeah.

And if you’re a horse person, you know that if your horse lands in the middle of an officer and breaks the rail, whatever, then, yeah, they might be shaking right there, but it doesn’t mean they’re stoppers. Yeah, I understand why he did it. Yeah. Was I smart to put him in the ring? No.

Dumb mistake. Will not do that again. But he jumped after that, so I thought he was fine. He was not OK. Big mistake, could not sell it.

Could not sell it. So I ended up policing it, which I keep doing. But at this point I was like, I don’t even know what to do. I can’t give him away. And it was a nice horse.

Sold them to some people. Horse ended up placing an indoors and not having the most amazing show career. Yeah, I’ve ever seen. It’s been five years. That horse has not stopped once.

Yeah. But like now we slip my horse it doesn’t matter. People will dig stuff from four years ago. The worst was that whenever 5 in Europe and then I get up like a second show is stopped at the Liverpool. Mind you they are about like 60 course with the soccer jumps Liverpool left in the jump off you name it.

I think he has a Liverpool problem. No, I don’t think so. So that’s also one of the problems right now for self. Again, lost with my horse. Use it a lot when I buy horses.

So it’s super tall, but same thing. It’s still a bit tough. I was a vet check with my horse or whatever. People are so judgmental that they want perfect horses, and I don’t think those exist. Yeah, no, for sure.

And there’s such an influx of information that I think it just makes it hard to know is right, what is good for me? What is correct? So I think the not the blame, but I think the responsibility needs to shift a little bit to the trainers and I think at this point they should do a little bit of a better jobs for their clients If like so my husband is non is a non horse guy guy. The nerdy engineer place is hard. I have.

One of those two. Doesn’t like horses. We’ve been married for 25 years and we always have this joke that the only pieces of equipment that he knows is Hacker. More because he thought the name was awesome and Martingale. I’ll not.

Don’t ask him a snap for whatever he doesn’t know, OK? Like he can’t even tell you. Like if I have 3 Bay horses, he doesn’t know which one is my Grand Prix horse. He has no idea. He just tells me he’s brown and that’s about it.

Bless his heart or whatever, make sure if my husband was shopping for my daughters and I was not a horse professional, but like he wants to buy a horse for one of my daughters or whatever and he’s the one that’s going to spend the money and try the worst. The kid likes the worst, like the vet things the trainer thinks the worst is suitable for the kids. The trainer says OK let’s that this horse and we found out the vet is going to find a bunch of things on the vet shack and the vet is going to make it sound as alarming as possible because they want to cover their butt for loss, which is fine. Again, I understand it’s like with lawsuits, it’s very difficult. So now I have the dad.

The trainer is asking him to shell $80,000 on Herbivore that he has no clue if it’s good or not good or whatever to make his little daughter happy. And there is an expert that he just hired that gave him a list of everything that is wrong with the horse. And they and the dad is I don’t know if I want to spend my money doing that. Can we find one that doesn’t have all this list of wrong things? And what I’m saying is it’s the job of the trainer to be there and assess the risk for the client.

And so you find those things, it’s half blind or it’s it has a thing in its foot where it’s it’s just a question of time. There is a fracture, someone I don’t know, there is a cyst. I hate cysts. If there is a cyst, I don’t buy it. But there’s things where I would tell my clients.

I have told regularly. I have a client of mine. She invests, she buys horses in Europe, then then to me, we sell them. She just found one. I was like, Oh my gosh, I want it, I want it.

I was so excited. I was already not, I’m getting a nice super new self horse that we’re going to flip and stuff and said it has a small cyst in the stifle. I was like, run, she said. You don’t want to do that to look at the exercise. Absolutely not.

I don’t want to touch it. I don’t want to deal with it. But a bunch of times I’ve also told my clients I’m like, OK, we found this that Dan was has been jumping the three six consistently. Your kid is doing the short stirrup and the worst is 12. It actually very pleasant, clinical, whatever.

I think the risk you’re taking, even with the current finance is very low. Yeah, they know, but the traders don’t do that. I don’t know if it’s a lack of education on their part that themselves they don’t know what is the problem and what is not a problem. I don’t know if it’s a fear to disappoint the client, but the disconnect is there. Yeah.

So you have a provider that is the batch, you have a seller, and the in between should be the one that should help to read the room a little bit on assessing the risk for those non. People, yeah, for sure. And yeah, I don’t know where that stems from, but I think there’s definitely a little bit of maybe not even necessarily lack of education, but lack of experience in dealing with forces who maybe have something or whatever. A bunch of times I’ve tried to work around it. So I try to be creative partially when I know that, like with my experience, because I’m older, I just turned 50, so I’m more seasoned than a lot of people.

So I’ve got times where they find stuff on the extras and I’m like, oh, there’s no way it’s ever going to be a problem. Like zero chance. And so sometimes on that contract I will be like, OK, I’ll sell you the worst. And then I’ll put a, a tandem that if that triggers alumnus and that prevent stores from competing, I’ll refund all your money within the next 12 months or whatever. Sometimes I do five months and then at 18 months is half and 24 months is and I’ve done that.

Guess what? I’ve never refunded money. Not because that was like a Jackass and I had to claim and I didn’t give the money that I’ve never had anybody claiming anything. Yeah, I worked for a woman who did the same thing and same idea of she never had to pay out for that thing causing an injury. I always tell the people you understand that this is how I make a living, OK, And I hate game like you’re not going to see this girl going to Vegas.

I hate gambling. So me like I’m adverse to risk, OK, And so I thought people if I’m willing to put that in the contract that tells you that I really know that is not going to be a problem. If they even had 5% chance, I would not put it there just because I will be like always my luck. I’m going to be in the flipping 5%. Exactly.

So the other thing is like for us with my partner, we’ve been thinking about it more and we’re thinking about new solutions on selling horses. Like I see a huge increase in Leith. Leith, everybody wants to, that’s a new way to buy. And so for sellers, nieces are the worst because I am at so many horses run with lease. It’s bad.

People do a lot of bad things with nieces. So as a seller, lease is really your last resort. That being said, we are starting to build a lease, straying with my partner because there’s such a high demand where we find super nice forces with shit X-ray in Europe that are hard to sell even in Europe that we assess it looks like a risk we’re willing to take. And so we buy them at a decent price, bring them here, take a little bit. The risk leads them for a year and then hopefully year or two we can knock somewhat, recoup our money and make a little bit.

And then your three bingo. And now it’s just free money that is coming our way. And then the last subject would be like as far as least is or whatever is everybody wants to do least to buy. I didn’t do many of those. I did like a handful, like literally over 25 years, probably less than 5.

And now I think that 80% of the people that inquire about horses at this point when they message me on Facebook, Instagram or whatever would you do at least to buy. And I understand why those people want to do at least to buy. There are many shady sellers out there to try. The horse is perfect and then they take it to their bun and the horse is a complete jerk and doesn’t do whatever. So a lot of that burned out because they bought bad horses and stuff.

Understand also two sides of the story. I’ve been screwed by horse again, I buy a lot of horses. I am a buyer. I’m as much of A buyer as I am a seller. So I really can see the two sides of the equation, OK?

I’m not just a seller, right? I need products to sell, so I’d buy. So I’ve been screwed. I’ve bought my share of bad horses. I’ve lost money on a lot of horses.

I lost money every year on horses that don’t pan out to be what they were supposed to be or whatever. So a lot of people are a little bit like conservative and a little bit like I don’t want you to take the risk. I understand. But me as a buyer, as a seller, there is nothing worse than a lease to buy as far as business, worst business model in the entire world. When I do a lease, I’m protect my assets being like I tried to lease horses that from a value point of view or like fairly low, it’s a certain type of forces that I’m not.

It’s really going to be hard to screw this one up. I’m never going to lease a very nice horse. You know what I mean? Not a bad way, but like more like a three foot Packer is like that’s that’s my prime candidate for lease. I will not lease like a meter 30 jumper or whatever nonsense because there is more risk for it to if he’s poorly ridden that he leans enough Knox or he stops and now I’m left with nothing.

Be foot Packer. They can probably get themselves around and just do fine. So these they can be very profitable if you buy right and you find the right people and the right type of forces. You sell a horse, like you lease the horse even for $25,000 a year, you keep it for 10 years. That horse brought you $250,000.

So even if you bought it for 50, it’s a great return on your investment. You would sell a horse not right? You bought it for a certain price, you price your profit in it, you sell it, the money is in the bank. Bueno lease to buy. So at this point you take all the risk because you lease it.

But most of the time on those lease to buy it’s nicer horses or whatever. So let’s say it’s $100,000 horse. The lease, you put it at 40 and the buyout is at 60 and for a year your capital. So now you’re upside down. I could find $100,000 in Europe for 40 importing food and tariffs included.

But I’m I’m not even like the best partners in the entire world at 40. I haven’t recouped yet by initial investment. So now I have skin in the game and money or whatever, and now I need to rely on somebody else’s care, training, showing to keep the value of my horse up. Yeah, that if they decide to not buy the horse at the end of the year, I’m not super upside down. Yeah.

That is a big gamble. Yes, yeah. If I’m lucky enough, because the horse is nice, the people are like, yeah, I want to buy it. And so at the end of the year they buy it. But I was the bank for that 12 months period.

Yeah, not making any interest. I was upside down. So I had like maybe a $30,000 cash flow in my account because like I missed it for 40. I had 70 in it and I’m making 30 profits. I’m 30 in the hole for a full year after that.

I’m missing on my bank account that is doing nothing. You know what I mean? And so I’m trying to explain to people, as a business owner, it makes zero sense I could not get to the dealership and offer a deal like this to the dealership. Never drive that car out of the lot. No, and it’s the same as you’re never going to, you’re the credit card at that point and you’re never going to have a 0.

Percent of something that is volatile as well as worse. It’s not even like something where I’m like it’s a tractor. Hopefully it’s it’s fine. It’s tractor. You can always fix the tractor, but it’s a worse.

And so I have started to be, I’ve changed the way I do these to buy. So far nobody has. I’m going to say I’ve presented this option to a bunch of people. So far, nobody ends and I understand. But like I have told the people that.

So on the same assumption, $40,000 lease, 60 buyout or whatever, I tell them if you buy the worst after three months, $35,000 of that lease goes towards your purchase. So you lose $5000 in that initial five months. Then after that you lose 15. By the time you’re at nine months, you have lost or you lease. And they’re like, I am not the bank.

Yeah. With it on your card or whatever, I don’t care. Take a loan to your bank for whenever I don’t care or you lease it, I will let you lease it that year after year, whatever because that’s good money. But the lease to buy now I’ll do it because if for you it’s just the I want to make sure I click with it and that’s the right worse after three months, you should be totally fine one way or the other. If you have concerns about anything is health is behavior compatibility, whatever it is.

There is no reason that after three months riding a horse, you can’t tell me whether you want to keep it forever or not. Yeah. And in that span you lost $5000 on $100,000. I don’t think it’s unreasonable. Yeah.

And so that’s where I’m at. But so far every time I present that because it’s new, because everybody like all the trainers are trying to sell their horses and be like we need to sell these horses. They are a little bit desperate. Everybody does least to buy where they are the bank. And I’m like with the new vet checks and everything, it’s getting harder to buy horses.

So there are more and more people on it to lease, to buy. And I started to talk to a couple of big dealers and people that sell horses. Like it’s like we are like a group. We know each other and we work together and they all are starting to do what I’m doing. Like they are more people that are doing what I’m doing, which is it’s fun and dandy will help you, but we’re going to make money out of it on just be the bank.

We’re not banks. Yeah, exactly. And banks make money when people take out loans, so. But yeah, the leaf to buy is becoming the most popular option of buying horses nowadays. Like by far.

Yeah, very interesting. There’s so many shifts in the last 1015 years really that has been in the horse market. Big time and I have been actually downsizing. I’m not retiring anytime soon, but the past couple of months I am between 10:00 and 12:00 horses. I downsize this to only 6 because my expenses were so high that I actually realized that running it at six horses, I make almost the same money by shifting my expenses down, rotating the sales and selling more and more of a video in Europe.

And actually like financially I’m doing better than that 10:00 horses. And that tells you something. It’s the same thing. It’s got the costs are so high to maintain everything here that by shutting down half of my business, I’m actually making more money. Think about that.

Yeah, the whole horse market you mentioned earlier, I just don’t know how trainers who are teaching maybe if you don’t have any of your own horses and you have no competition goals and and all of that. But that makes a lot of, I have a bunch of I would say they low quality walk trout, canner, crosswales, whatever you need it like basic horses that people will give you that thoroughbreds, quarter horses maybe like sometimes questionably sound OK for walk trout. You can have a fleet of horses that is very cheap if you do it well and you just stick to lessons. By the time those people are doing crosswales, they need to find another place. You can actually make a lot of money.

There’s a lady down the road from me. She did after school programs. They did camps where they are picking the horses. They were not really riding those horses that much to be honest with you. It was a lot of taking care of them and, and learning stuff and dress up and blah, blah, blah.

And between the camps, the after school and everything, she made so much money, like so much money. And then she was super smart because she. Run program, she had fit to get more donated horses and tax wise she had a ton of breaks. She did that for 10 years, retired, bought a big house and she was like wealthy just doing that. And there is a matter where I think if you do that and you stick to that, if you’re just in it for the money, it’s a chiller money maker.

Yeah, I think they’ll like I do. You can make good money. I’m making good living. I’m married an engineer. He has a 8 to 5 normal job with very well salary.

And the way it works in our household is he never pays for anything was just ever. And I run the entire farm and I pay for the farm and stalls I rented from the household. There is no outside money coming. My husband is not the one that is for it. Like not a dollar ever in 25 years.

So I’m making good money. I’m paying myself a salary. I can even put money aside to invest alongside what my husband is investing for our retirement. I would say I’m in super good shape as far as the money. I’m not rich, far from it, but I make OK, sorry, like I’m not making a killer, but I would say it would be a fairly low salary for normal, but I’m making a salary here.

I’m paying for all my bills, all my equipment and everything. I have nice trucks, trailers, everything is great, is paid off. So I would say my business model works because like I’m actually making money out of it. And I would say top tiers of those big household name names, I don’t know, the heritage and stuff. I know those people are making money.

I think people are actually, they are running hobbies that pays for themselves. Yeah. And what I, it is like they can pay their bills, they can afford to watch show, but I don’t think many of them actually really actually get themselves some money and are able to invest it outside of the horses. Whatever comes out of the horse business to put it somewhere outside of the horse business. I don’t think it’s very common for any of the other participants.

I think if you have a regular boarding barn with a couple of horses in training, couple of lessons and you do a handful of shows per year, I rent that model for a while so. Yeah. And my husband was like, this is not working. He’s an engineer. I looked at the numbers and you’re like sweetie.

Yeah. You know, we need to do more sales. OK, got it. I got a little bit like everybody else. You’re like, look like you get the board money and this and it’s comfortable because with sales, the only thing that is dicey is there are days where I look at my bank account and I’m like, look at me.

I’m so rich and I’m like on top of the world. And then I don’t sell anything. And then suddenly I look at my bank account and I’m like, Oh my gosh, I’m going to die. Like this is not possible. I have yet to have two sales per month.

I wish it would make my life easier, but like I just like this past month I just had six sales and God knows it’s possible that the next two months I’m going to have one If I’m on a lucky day and suddenly like everything I built, it’s cool. So there are days is like, Dang, that girl is wealthy. And the next day have you ever saw about applying to McDonald’s because you’re going to need some income lady like that night. We’re starting to be in the three digits. This is getting sketched and so the boarding and the training for a while look very appealing because every month you can’t get.

Consistent. Bank account but you can’t scale it. Only so many stalls, so many hours in the day to train those horses and give those lessons. Unless you pay more people, but then the payroll is really what kill your. Business, I always say if the skills that you have running your horse business, you can’t go and make money in another business, you’re not running a business, you’re running a hobby.

Yeah, it’s a big mentality. And I would say, OK, because I think you like the fact that I can talk about Europe and the UI, think there are more true professionals that make money out of horses in Europe than there is in the US. In the US, everybody’s passionate. Like, horses are really a passion for people, and so it’s easy for them to be like, I love it so much, it’s OK if I get up at 6:00 and I work till 8:00 PM because I’m doing what I love or whatever. And so you start to forget that at the end, it doesn’t matter that you love what you’re doing.

I absolutely do my job. I love it. But you still should be paid. Yeah, And a lot of people are like, hey, I can’t pay for all my bills and I’m going to horse show at the end. I didn’t really get any extra money, but like I did what I love and that’s enough.

And that’s where it’s difficult. And then you get burned out when you do that. Like eventually it gets to a point where you feel like it’s a rat rate and even your passion for horses is not enough to make up for the amount of time energy you pour in wet. Yeah, for sure. And I think more and more people, that’s one of the good things of social medias that more and more people are seeing, OK, maybe I shouldn’t be this burnt out.

Maybe I should be able to make money. Maybe just being able to like pay my bills and get down to $50 at the end of the month. That’s not great. And so I do think hopefully there is a shift coming. A lot of people talk about the horse welfare and horsemanship side of things, yes.

And I think the more the trainers are taken care of financially, the better the care and the horsemanship and all of that is going to be because they’re not running from a place of personal deficit and. I’ve always said, OK, so I just told you my husband, he makes decent money. If you don’t get me wrong he makes money but like I I’ve always been even if my husband has been never supported me financially for divorces. If tomorrow I’m like I’m done I’m burned out can’t take it anymore. I can sell everything I ask and we can live on his income alone and my kids graduates from college.

We can definitely technically we can live on the salary and be just fine. And so I have to say that just that part as always giving me a little bit of a Peace of Mind that I was exactly regardless of what decision I need to make, I will never be homeless. And so if I was a single person and I didn’t have that, I can’t even imagine the stress that I would be under even if I’m paying my bills right now and I would be able to pay my bills. Like having that security blanket has been like a huge stress reliever. And then sometimes also he is my biggest cheerleader, which is really nice.

But also sometimes I made some dumb business decisions that seemed really smart at the time. And he was like, you’re not running a business or I know you care about your clients, but this is costing you money. You need to cut your losses. But then he’s like, it is a business. So sometimes he’s a little bit like the person that reminds me that as much as I’m of forces, as much as I enjoy some people, whatever, I need to run it like a business.

And so I try to get a little bit tougher because that’s the other thing. You get very emotionally involved with your clients and then you become friends because you are in it together or whatever. And so like it always blows a little bit the line financially and all this. So that also, yeah. So like he’s always try to keep me grounded and be like, no, I had a business like I told you, like I had a business that I sold in France before I started my horse business.

I think that was like probably the best thing that could have happened to me because I was into horses very heavily till I was 18. In France, in order to be a trainer, it’s a two year program that you need to go through. So you go to classes and then you have an internship. And I interned with Knockout, an inventor that won the word Austrian Games and that was that place at the Olympics. And he was #1 in the world for eventing.

And so I worked for him while I was becoming a trainer in France because so I wanted to be a trainer. And I was like, I realized after three years, like between the school and interning with him, I’m like, dude, this guy is number one in the world in his discipline and he’s barely making any money. I could see he was struggling for money. And I’m like, here I am, I’m 18 and I’m not the best in the world for From. That how can.

I make money if the best rider in the world is me barely making any money. And that’s when I I with horses completely when put myself to school, got a job, started my company, made a very successful company, grew it from I started it with two other partners, NPR and started the three of us in a basement on the side. And then we grew it to have 22 employees and we sold it for quite a lot of money. So I run it for about four years. For four years I was in an office running a proper business, learning about everything that you learn, running a business that has 22 employees.

And so when I got out of that and I moved to the US when I married my husband, I get myself, I’m like, OK, I work like crazy. I’m burned out, like I want a little bit of time off. I didn’t know what I wanted to do for a job. So that’s when I went. I was like, I’ve been reading in five years I want to go back into it.

So I’m going to buy a worse. But I think the reason why I’m running the worst business like the way I am doing and I’m doing fairly well for myself is that I still had that experience early on in my life to know what it was to run a real business that did not the same passion and the same there was no passion in my first business. I like what I did. I was proud of it. I did really well at it.

But it’s not the same strength work in ER and you work for some big clients or whatever. It’s not the same than going to do some Tampis with your worst in your arena. But it’s not even the same thing. But what he did is I think it really showed me, OK, this is how you make money and then try to take those recipes and apply them as much as I could to my current business. And in Europe, I feel they are a little bit better at that.

I feel that it’s a little bit more like maybe cut throat, but like in an aspect they are all in it. If I had to take a guess, I would guess that they don’t necessarily make as much money if you took like a number. I think the numbers are bigger in the US because everything is more expensive. But if to get as a percentage or whatever, then the people in Europe would there would be more of them actually making a living out of it. Yeah.

And paying themselves. Yeah, that’s such a good point. I just think so many people don’t think of it as a business where indoctrinated is not the right word. But like in the US, you ride as a junior and then you go be a working student for someone, and then you maybe become an assistant rider for someone and then you just go out on your own and no one really talks about the money, but you can see how much people are struggling. Correct, correct.

And so I did because where was it? I don’t know. OK, it was one of my clients. I don’t know. I’m talking to one of my clients bullshitting.

She’s interested in her horse, but I know her pretty well. I don’t know, it came out, but like, bottom line is she drops this nugget and she says, oh, I’ve never paid myself. And mind you, she runs like a good business with big names. She’s at the biggest horseshoes or whatever. We’re not talking about some random barn in Iowa.

We’re talking about established, like fairly. I was like, what? Come again? And she’s like, no, I’m not paying myself. What do you mean?

Everything goes back to the business. I just recycled the money. It just goes to pay for the farm, the horses, the whole shows, and then just pay my bills. But I’ve never given myself extra money outside. I’m like, this is nuts.

Yeah. Then now I’m like, that’s weird. So literally, I start asking everybody, everybody who calls me out of the blue for some random things. I call my friends. I start to go through my phone and I’m like, can you put yourself?

And people were like, what? I start to ask them how was one of the few people that paid themselves and actually I don’t mind like I can be transparent. I pay myself $5000 a month. I make $60,000 a year, which this is not like a crazy salary. I would say it’s like fairly middle class salary.

OK, I’m not paying myself half $1,000,000 a year. I pay myself $5000 a month. I don’t know any. I could not find somebody I could call and trust me, I have a lot of phone numbers on my phone. I could not find somebody who paid themself $1000 a month to run their business.

It was Zach. So then I’m like, maybe I’m just surrounded by broke friends, but they’re horse rich. Sorry to all my friends. I’m so sorry. I was just joking.

So then I went on my page and on my story like I have popular, popular social media. So I was like, sometimes when I have stuff like this, I’m like, OK, now I’m like tickle pick, I need to see. And I put a little poll about and I asked people, do you always professionals? Do you pay yourself a salary? 18% of the people said yes, 8% of the people paid themselves a salary or what.

Then I looked because when I do it on insta it tells you who says yes or no. You can go through it and I could see which accounts some of the people that said no, I was up. I was talking to a woman a few months ago and she was like, how many professionals do you think even go into this with a business plan? Oh yeah. And I’m like.

I told you, I’m going to be honest, I’m one of those. I told you how I started my business. Maybe not the right example for that one. That one out. But yeah, it’s the same thing of people just don’t.

It’s such a passion project like. It’s. Not I’m going to sit down and figure out where my margins are. If you talk to people about margins, they’re like, I pay everything and that’s no and I sell. Quite a lot of forces.

I’m doing pretty well for myself, but my bank account slowly is getting lower and lower and the level where I’m like, you don’t want to go below this threshold. And I started to go near the threshold and it starts to be under the threshold. And I was still doing business and I was like, there’s something wrong in the formula. It’s not working anymore. And that happened this past May where I was like, now I’m just generating money to pay on my ideas, including my salary.

But what I’m saying is not I’m not able to steer more money. And I was like, means that something is broken in the business model. So we sat down with my husband and we were like, OK, the burn rate right now is way too high than trying to keep my expenses low. Where can we cut money? And that’s where we came with the idea to downsize from twelve horses to six horses because then I couldn’t let go of some staff and that everything would be cut in half.

I made a couple of other changes, sold a couple of horses at lost, but those were costing me money does that I kept them at other places. Anyway, there was like a big thing and here I am. I just found that $12,000 a month that I didn’t have before, which like at the end of the year, this is like $140,000 that was going in places. So when I sell horses now I need to, I don’t need to make up for that $140,000. That’s a lot of commissions and profits.

And so that’s what I’m saying is things are changing because again, my business model worked fantastic for years. And then this past May, I was like, I started to look and I told my husband, OK, you like math, genius, you need to come here. And then we need to sit down and you need to tell me what I’m doing wrong. And he was like, you spend too much money. I’m like, but I’m not doing anything different.

And you see, life is expensive now. And some things or whatever is your income is actually pretty good. That’s just like, it all goes back too much. So yeah, so I changed and now it’s working so much better. Yeah, this has been such an informative conversation.

I feel like we covered so many different facets and maybe we solved some of the force industry problems. I hope so. But how do people find you? Follow along with what you do? All of that good stuff.

OK I’m a social media junkie so it’s super easy. I have a Facebook, insta and TikTok account that are like updated regularly and they’re all under AQUI. Sell sport horses? No problem, You got it.