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