05/13/2025
Sharing. Great words.
It’s very difficult to make a profit off another man’s service.
Let’s say you have a truck worth 20,000 dollars. And you bought it for 18,000 and the motor goes out a week after you bought it. Now the truck is worth about 3000 bucks. It’s basically scrap metal. You take it to a mechanic and he puts a new motor in it. Costs you 10,000. You’re in it 28,000. Did the blue book value go to 28,000 or 30,000? No, it didn’t. You still have a 20,000 truck.
The mechanic made money. He should. He has the shop, he has the tools, he has the education ( don’t ever confuse education with time), he also put in a part of his life. Time he could have spent doing something else. So he makes the profit. He’s got a lot of over head to get there and a lot of years into all of it.
He didn’t buy the truck, he didn’t blow it up, he didn’t have anything to do with it. He just agreed to be hired to fix it.
I see this all the time in the horse industry. People pay a trainer and expect the horse to go up in value beyond the training and board fees. Notice I said training and board. I figure half of my monthly fee goes to boarding. So when I charge 1500 a month, I really only get half that. The rest goes to the boarding, and there’s a lot more to board than just hay. So in 10 months you’ve really only paid me $750 on training. The rest goes to boarding which is not just hay. It’s also sawdust ( which costs just as much as the hay) the up keep on the barn, paying the hired help, the ground it all sits on, paying property taxes, tractor and arena groomer, broken feed buckets, maintenance on property. Feeding cattle, the tens of thousands we spend on tack. ( i had a horse flip over on a nee saddle once, broke the tree, There went 3500). The list goes on and on .
Yes there are some cases in which the horse goes up in value far beyond the training and Board bill, but at some point that will stop. Even the ones with huge price tags usually only get the big money once or twice.
I had a guy tell me one time that he sold a horse and when it was all said and done the trainer was the only guy who made money. I told him as it should be. The trainer was the one who did all the work.
Up until they are two, they are all sold on speculation. Hope. Dreams. Pedigrees.
Once you throw a leg over em, the bull s**t stops and from there on out you’re buying the individual. Some are better than others. It costs you just as much to train a good one as it does an average one. And sometimes the lesser bred one is better but usually not.
We breed and buy the ones whose ancestors and parents have won the most. They say you don’t ride papers, but you do. That’s why Stevie, Metallic, Hashtags, Axle, Kit Kat sugar, sugarr Daddy, and so many others are booked. You do ride the papers. And it is not about only the ones with big check books behind em. If the stud is that good, the big check book will get its hands on the stud no matter where he’s at.
This is a game. A hobby. It’s a livelihood for some. But they go to work at it every day. If you don’t make your living at it then you spend your money on it. Just like golf. Or buying a boat or a fishing cabin.
You won’t always get back all you put into a horse. You sometimes get back a lot and sometimes very little. Trust me, the trainer ain’t makin a killin, he’s hangin on by his fingernails.
That top 1% is the ones that always make a profit.
Your trainer works hard. He’s tryin. He can’t make the horse better than God made him to be.
Horses aren’t trained they’re developed. You develop what they have. We can’t force em to do anything.
It’s a love, it’s a passion, it can be a business, but remember that great horses have great prices. You’ve gotta pay your dues. Invest. And remember that great programs took a lifetime to build.
I hope this helps.
I shared the pic because I like that horse. He’s a great horse that’s owned by the kindest lady I’ve ever dealt with. Good customers understand.
Be a good customer. Cause in the end, we’re all someone’s customer.
