Knowing
When to Hold Them and When to Fold Them
By Todd Martin
When
I take a horse into training I am not only being paid to ride and
train the horse, I feel that it is my job to also evaluate the horse
to see if it is going to meet the needs and wants of the owner. For
many I am training the horse for them to take to the show pen themselves.
For some it is a business and for others it is for the competition
and the want to win and excel in a sport.
Taking
into consideration the wants and desires of the owners, it is my job
to see if the horse that they have chosen has what it takes to meet
the goals of the owner. Whether it is the competitor or the one who
wants to show and have fun, many of the criteria are the same. The
one deciding factor is the horses ability to do it well or excel in
his sport. The one thing that does not work for either is a horse
that has the ability but lacks the desire to please or the want to
do the event that we have chosen for it. If I reach this point in
the horses training that I have decided that the horse lacks the want,
desire, or ability it is my job to inform the owner that they have
a decision to make. Either you change your discipline or you change
horses.
This can be a difficult and hard decision for an owner to make. Compounded
by the fact that I usually recommend that at this time you cut your
losses. Which means make the horse a quick sell which usually means
sell it for a loss. It is in your best interest to cut down the price
now and take a loss and move on rather than stretch it out and cause
a greater loss in the future. Believe me, I don’t like to be
the one that tells you that you are going to take a loss on your investment
or that you are not going to make as much money on this horse as you
thought, but someone has to stop the bleeding.
Let
me take a minute and make an example. If you have a horse that you
have put 6 months into training and the horse is not going to work
out. You have decided that I am right and we need to sell but you
have invested 6 months at $800 which comes out to $4,800 and you purchased
the horse for $3,000, so you want to sell the horse for $7,000, even
though the horse is not working out. You are wanting someone else
to purchase a horse at 7K that has some obvious issues to work out
and still needs quite a bit more training even if their weren’t
issues.
It
is at this time that I recommend that you fold’em and not invest
more into a loosing proposition. It is not what many want to hear
but it is the best thing for most. Lets say that you are stuck on
selling for 7K when I recommend that you sell for 5K now and move
on. You are going to have to continue to train this horse in order
for it to hold its value and if it has some undesirables they are
not going to sell fast. Lets say that it takes only two months and
it sells for 7K. You have spend another $1,300 in training and another
$75 in shoeing along with a commission to the trainer of 700 dollars.
You have come out even and have lost two months worth of time that
you could have spent looking for another prospect and getting back
on track with your goals.
Let
me take a minute and address the issue of commissions on horses, cause
it is a bone of contention with some. It is common practice in the
horse industry that there is a 10% commission on horses that are bought
and sold through trainers. I get asked at times why is it that I have
to pay you a commission to sell my horse when I pay you each month
to train my horse. That is because you pay me each month to train
your horse. When it comes to purchasing a horse for one of my clients
or sell a horse for one of my clients the commission covers my expenses
along with the use of my good name and my good judgment along with
the use of my contacts. Not to mention my ability to make the horse
look his best when being shown to a possible buyer. You would not
ask for your Realtor to forgo a commission on the sale of your house
nor would you expect for the car salesman to not get paid for the
work he does for the dealership. Sorry I will get off my soap box.
There
are two things that go through my mind when choosing a horse for someone.
If it were my horse would I mind owning him or her for a long time.
And the other is does this horse make me excited to ride. If I have
a horse in training that makes me want to ride and that likes what
I am doing as much as I do, then I know that I want to hold. It is
the same thing that we all want and that is a horse that is a willing
partner in the games that we play.
It is
also important to not rush to a judgment on young horses and give
them a chance to prove themselves. Not all horses show you their talent
in just 6 months. Some take some time to develop. It is my job to
bring it out and see that talent sometimes before it surfaces. There
is also a benefit to having ridden a lot of horses cause some of the
bad ones teach you just as much as the good ones. The good ones are
easy it is having ridden some of the tricky ones that make you think
that you can get that something extra out of them that just never
surfaces. Those are the ones that teach you what you don’t want.
Sometimes that is more important to know than the other. Mostly cause
you don’t want to go down that road again.
I had
a good friend in the horse business tell me once a saying that has
stuck with me and at times I repeat it to myself when looking at horses.
I would rather want something I don’t have than to have something
I don’t want. And that about sums it up.
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