horses to promote them later on,” Edgar says with enthusiasm. “For us there’s the added benefit of the young stock promot- ing our stallions, so it helps us sell breedings in the future.”
Advertising Strategies All these breeders agree that word of mouth—happy exist- ing customers and referrals—are your best advertising. That works especially well for the older, larger breeders. For the younger, smaller farms, farm websites, online horse ads and social media play an important role in selling their young stock. Print advertising has always played an important role, especially when promoting the stallions, according to Edgar. Dianna advises that good visuals, pictures and videos, in print ads and online are vital to attract buyers. Gigha recognizes that Facebook is also rapidly growing in
popularity but warns that there’s an art to utilizing Facebook to successfully promote available horses, so a seller doesn’t come off as desperate or obnoxious.
Balancing Profit and Passion “Obviously, when selling horses, the younger the better,” Gigha says. “Every extra month you keep them costs you money, and it’s not money that can always be recouped later by raising the price. I’m in a situation that might be unique to some other breeders in that I’m also a trainer, so keeping youngsters around takes away from time and space which I could dedicate to a profitable training horse instead.”
“I have found that breeding is a passion. And if one
focuses on how to make it profitable, they will be sorely disappointed,” Dianna warns. “I love the youngsters, the mares, the stallions, and I love the German Riding Pony. For me, the personal pride and satisfaction that I feel when a stunning foal is born, after many, many hours—sometimes years—of hard work is my motivation.” Jennifer is fortunate to have a large land base (320 acres) which helps to minimize feeding costs. In addition, she tries to do all her breeding in-house to reduce vet fees and keeps the numbers of foals per year under five. “I treat it like a real business. It can be hard to keep emotions out of the horses but I have found that by sticking to this I am able to manage the work load and keep the best care of my horses.” Edgar explains that their geldings typically sell earlier than
their fillies. But when it comes to fillies, he takes a different approach towards making them more cost effective. “Often we don’t even offer our fillies for sale. First we breed them when they are fairly young, and they produce two horses for us, then later we sell them as riding horses. The older mares, at ages five and six, are then more attractive to our customers who are older women.” Perhaps, when it’s all said and done, Dianna may have the
most practical outlook. “I don’t think selling unbroken young- sters is any easier or harder than selling older horses under saddle. I think selling horses is just difficult…period.”
64 September/October 2015
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