“I don’t go to Germany anymore to buy three-year-olds. I might buy a trained horse because we don’t have enough horses for our competition riders and for amateurs.
People are still going to Europe for Grand Prix horses and for experienced amateur horses, seven to eight-year-olds with Grand Prix potential.”
“Buyers find that horses in Europe have a lot more good
training. With dressage horses, most people won’t go be- yond Second Level and are happy with that. So when they find an attractive looking horse that is four but has the train- ing of a ten-year-old in America, they think they’ve got a good deal. They buy the training, not necessarily the quality,” says Edgar, who notes that this is especially attrac- tive to amateur riders.
MOREWORK TO DO “We are missing an all-encompassing system for building athletes,” says Andras. “The Euro- pean horses get good initial training—dres- sage horses jump and jumping horses do dres- sage. Here, jumper trainers act like basic dressage is a different way of riding. On the other hand, in Europe everything is so uniform that the individu- al horse gets lost. Training the young horses is like a conveyer belt and some horses can get ruined.” Further, many buyers, particularly amateurs,
want horses with some show experience. In Europe, showing is less costly and more convenient than in the U.S. “It is tremendously more expensive here to give a young horse show mileage,” says Edgar. “In Europe there are so many shows within 15 to 20 minutes from the farm every weekend, and show expenses are low, maybe a couple hundred euros. The shows are so close you can go home at night. And usually the level of competition is better than most shows we have here where you can easily drop $2,000 a week.” Andras has observed that most American trainers don’t
want to get involved with raising and training young horses. “There is a tremendous gap between breeders and trainers. Trainers don’t know about bloodlines and how to bring up a young horse. And so many buyers with money don’t want or know how to raise foals. They want to ride the product. European horses perform at higher levels and those are the ones that get sold for good money.” “I don’t go to Germany anymore to buy three-year-olds,”
says Anke. “I might buy a trained horse because we don’t have enough horses for our competition riders and for amateurs. People are still going to Europe for Grand Prix horses and for experienced amateur horses, seven to eight- year-olds with Grand Prix potential.” An even more significant change, according to Anke, is
that competition riders in the hunter/jumper world have begun breeding their own horses with the plan of training them for themselves and their customers.
50 January/February 2014
SUPPLY & DEMAND Three years ago, the crushed econo- my caused breeders in both U.S. and Europe to cut back production 30 to 50 percent. As a result, many specu- late that there will be a shortage of trained sport horses in a few years. Andras is one of them, saying he is betting on the coming shortage of five- to eight-year-olds. To hedge his bet, he bred 16 mares in 2013, instead of his yearly three. “The economy will be better and riders will bring out the checkbook for good horses. Since I am a pro, where will I get my horses? I won’t want to pay a big price for inferior horses. So I am breeding them to keep and train as riding horses,” he explains. When the day arrives that there will be fewer horses, both sides of the pond will be affected and the United States will still be a big country. Attempts have been made to regionalize sales by creating sales cooperatives. For ex- ample, members of the American Hanoverian Society have formed breeders clubs in order to pool their resources. They have held sales as a group with some success.
AUCTIONS HERE & ABROAD Auctions have sprung up both online and as live events as a means to give buyers several horses to consider in one location. The second Pacific Sporthorse Selection Auction, held at the Christiane Noelting Dressage Center in Va- caville, California, brought 25 horses to the auction block with the most successful sales being horses that were recently imported, some specifically for the auc- tion. Buyers from across the United States and Canada came to the event. “In Europe when your horses go to auction, it is a very
nice, prestigious thing. But here, breeders are hesitant,” says Hamburg, German native Christiane Noelting. “People say that there are so many expenses beforehand. Sometimes they have a price in mind that is too high. Of course, every- one likes their horses and thinks what they bred is the best, and that’s tough in an auction situation.” According to the transplants, Americans have a differ-
ent attitude toward auctions than Europeans. They view auctions as dispersal sales or places to pick up bargains. In Europe, breeders consider the selection of their horses for auctions as an honor. “Auctions in the U.S. don’t have the tradition and know-how of Europe,” says Andras.
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