If ever there was a time to buy a horse, it’s now.

Tough economic times and a glut of animals have left buyers room to be picky as they press for bargains.

“They can be picky, they can be real picky about what they want,” said Jayme Gafford, co-owner of J&J Halter Horses, a small horse breeder near Gatesville.

High-end horses with the best bloodlines, or in their prime for breeding, still bring good prices.

Mary Bauer walks Annie’s Gotta Gun, an American Paint Horse, at her Painted Ridge Farm in Lorena.
Jerry Larson/Tribune-Herald

Otherwise, horses are going for a fraction of what they would have two years ago, breeders said.

Gafford recently sold a mare for $1,500 that normally would have gone for $5,000 to $10,000, she said.

Gafford said she can pick up horses for bargain prices, too.

“It’s completely a buyers’ market. I’ve benefitted from it and I’ve suffered for it,” Gafford said.

What a horse sells for depends on many factors, said Joe Maley, senior director of programs for the Texas Farm Bureau.

Besides a slow economy, the end of horse rendering for human consumption in the United States three years ago also has fed the glut in the market.

Cost of upkeep

Part of the economics of horse trading has to do with the cost of upkeep, raising and training the animals, he said.

It could cost $6,000 to care for and train a young horse through its first two years of life, only to bring $2,500 at sale, Maley said.

Individuals have priorities other than paying for food, boarding and other upkeep for those horses, said Mary Bauer, owner of Painted Ridge, a breeding and boarding operation near Waco.

Bauer recently declined to sell a black and white paint mare for which she had wanted to get $6,500.

The best price offered was $2,500, so she’ll keep it for breeding for now, she said.

It’s the so-called backyard horses — going for $1,500 or $2,000 — that are the most affected, Bauer said.

The lesser horses are fetching as little as $100 or $200 as their owners weigh the cost of feed and upkeep against waiting for a better selling price, she said.

In expensive specialty breeds, the best horses are still bring prices in the six figures, said Shawn Crews, general manager of Arabians Ltd., a Waco-based operation that breeds Egyptian Arabian horses.

“The top of the horse market is still selling, and selling real well,” Crews said.

bteeter@wacotrib.com

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