What's a fair price for a Polo horse in your area?
I'm interested in your view on what is a fair price for polo horses in your region and how you would categorize different quality levels (i.e. age, able to play low/medium/high goal competitively, bloodline, previous owner..etc).
In Australia for a solid, safe reasonably fast low goal 6-10 year old pony costs between AUD $10,000 to $15,000 depending on how well connected you are and if there's a middle man are involved in the transaction.
In Australia for a solid, safe reasonably fast low goal 6-10 year old pony costs between AUD $10,000 to $15,000 depending on how well connected you are and if there's a middle man are involved in the transaction.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Luis Martel / www.dosbanderas.us on -
Hi Hugh, hope you are ok.
Interesting topic this one. You got to the point " a fair price ".
My opinion, based in horses Ive sold from my own breed and with no middlemen involved, is the following.
Low goal ponie clean and able to play up to 15 goals between 5,000 to 15,000 US dollars
Medium goal, able to play in the range of 16/24 goals. I would not sell a horse solid player in 20 goals for les than 25,000
High goal ones, there is no price for those. Depends on how much is the buyer willing to pay, his needs, sponsor, etc.
Of course that there are many factors involved in pricing a horse, seller backround, horses quality, middle men involved and buyer knowledge. In my opinion the less they know about polo & horses the more they pay for a ponie.
All the best
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Permalink Reply by Dr. Inge Schwenger on -
Hi Hugh, I would agree from our German sight to that what Luis just wrote. Put the USD price into Euro (the transport from Argentina I think is a bit more expensive) - you end up with about 10.000,- to 15.000,- Euro for a low goal pony. To some of my absolute beginners I recommend buying a routined elder horse (surely must be absolutely healthy) from somebody seeking a horse which is faster for more advanced polo. These horses are sometimes available for about 7000,- Euro and help the player to get used to the game.
Some players buy their horses from racing course for a price of about 3000,- Euro sometimes even less.
These horses need first a very good eye to sort them out for starting polo and it is always a work of more than one year to train them, sometimes with no effort. But its a way.
Besides that I have to mention, to breeders, selling horses is, that a polo horse is only a polo horse if it is able to play. We have some people in Germany, starting to breed, but they are neither really experienced in training horses nor in playing polo. For somebody seeking a horse and trying it, it is not possible to see, if the horse is just able to stick and ball or - which is an absolutely different matter - to play! So as well in this matter we urgently need some quality criteria for horses beeing sold on the polo pony market. In my opinion a horse, which is sold as a fully trained and prepared polo pony needs minimally one, better two seasons of tournament polo (it is not enough, let this horse play some kind of grass-rout polo in -8 goal teams!).
Best regards from snowy frozen Berlin
Inge
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Permalink Reply by Hugh Evans (PCW Editor) on -
Thanks Luis & Inge. Interesting that the prices seem to translate fairly evenly from one region to the next. It would be good to get a clear classification system in place so that less experienced buyers could more easily find what they need. Perhaps there is a role for a pony buyer's advocate who is paid a fee to properly inspect and matchmake ponies to buyers, similar to what we have in the real estate market in Australia??
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Permalink Reply by Luis Martel / www.dosbanderas.us on
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Hi Hugh,
In my opinion what buyers need is a fair and honest agent focused in customer satisfaction.
When somebody reaches me looking for horses I do that kind of job. A first selection by searching the kind of horses needed among my friends or serious sellers. Then I inspect the horses and try them by myself . Once the buyer is here he will try the horses and if there is anyone of interest I will send my vet, specialized in polo ponies. A fee is charged if there is any transaction done.
I hope I can be helpfull to anybody in the near future.
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Permalink Reply by David BOUCLIER on -
you are absolutly thrue
I amplaying polo for 12 years now and I think the polo poney prices from argentina are out of mind now. I was desperate and 5 years ago I bought my own farm, created my own polo club and start to work with course horses and my god today I am free again with excellent horses , perfectly trained.
I know when they were born, they are ten times more beautiful than polo poney from south américa and more sympathic than farm horses.
I bought something like 5 per a year and now my cheptel is incredible
the only way is to find the good trainer
see you soon in my place
polo club des alpilles
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Permalink Reply by Sandra Funk on -
It's not nice of you guys and patrons to think, there is a financial problem, so prices of poloponies should get cheaper!
Okay, it's expected that there will be less demand on horses this year. There will be a lot of "used" horses around, because of players stopping polo or even reduce their amount of horses. Patrons will pay less for the pro-players, they offer less payment for the grooms, less job offers in total, but...
hay and oats - feeding costs are raising, stable renting has to be paid the whole year, vets charging always the same, breeders will not be able to sell the same amount of horses as last year with the same or more costs, and you expect to get the horses even cheaper?
This should not the way of thinking if you don't want to be tricked and cheated!
Show the persons you know for years that you belive, everything will be okay!
A bad horse eats the same as a good horse and don't buy a cheap horse this year, because it was an offer and later you say everybody polohorseseller are all cheat and swindler. Wait and buy the good horse from the person working for you or in your club next year to a worth normal and costs fullfilling price! Everybody will survive!
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Permalink Reply by Luis Martel / www.dosbanderas.us on
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Sandra I totally agree with you.
Only chance to buy cheap is crap horses that will be "on sale" due to expenses, as you said there will be no reduced price in food, vet, etc..
Also there would be an opportunity with people giving up the sport, and thats all.
If you own or breed good horses you rather keep them in the pastures at a low cost and wait
Regards to everybody
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Permalink Reply by Kate Campbell on -
In my experiance, polo ponies are special, no doubt about it. I play polo on a very limited budget, especially compared to what i see some people can spend on ponies and keeping them. Whilst training and keeping fees will probably remain static and even increase, local horse prices in my area have decreased dramatically in the last 6 months. it is now possibly to get well bred and pure bred, healthy (most importantly) youngstock in my local area for an outlay of less than 1000 sterling (these are not polo ponie breeds btw, just a general observation on the horse market in general). A thought that was impossible just 12 or 18 months ago. Horses always have been and wil be risky purchases. For me personnally, I need to get polo ponies within the next year in order to 'feed the habit' and more importantly improve my game. But with limited facilities and limited time, i will probably not be able to get a string, but one or two ponies are a distinct possiblitly. I by no means want to take away from the most execellent riders and breakers that I have met and am in awe of around the world, but at my level a fair price is therefore what you can afford to risk, as injuries and vets bills can render even the most expensive polo ponies redundant in an instant.
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Permalink Reply by Luis Lagomarsino (polobreeder) on -
Hello, I´m a horse breeder, trainer and player. In my personal experience is totally true what BOUCLIER said "all you need is a good trainer" but is easily if you have your own breed because you can know how to prepare them better to be polo ponies. A horses who was born to run, will run, but then if you want to make him a polo horse or showjumping horse you have to re train him, and that will cost more than if you breed for the real sport.
The prices depends on the seller, the cost to have good horses is high, I agree with Luis on that, the training is long, I start training and keeping my horses in box when they are less than 2 years old, and they become real polo ponies at list at 5 years old.
In that time, you have to break them, train them, feed them, live them, take them again, play, play play, live them, give rest, etc.
The vet, farrier, food, vitamins should be always.
That is a big cost per horse, so a polo pony can not cost less than 6000 dollars for a low goal handicap.
To have a High goals polo ponie is a dream, is that difficult, you can get 1 in 100 and you will keep all that 100 as that 1.
If you have your horses free in a land and you don´t train them, you just catch them to play, you can´t said that horse is 10000 dollars, but is you keep them like the high goals player do, of course that will be the less price to wait.
Hope to be clear. See you in Argentina anytime.
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Permalink Reply by David BOUCLIER on
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for a perfect horse 5 years old we ask 12000 €
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Permalink Reply by Luis Martel / www.dosbanderas.us on
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Hello David,
What do you mean by a perfect 5yo horse ? able to play what level, 10 goals, 20 goals or more ?
regards
Luis
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Permalink Reply by Felix J. Olmos on -
All said is fine and dandy! and the reality is that good horses can be obtained if you search and have some knowledge or someone with the knowledge who is not going to be a middleman and have no interest wether you purchase this horse or that horse. When I say good horses I am not reffering to high goal polo ponies, thats for the pros and pros only. When people who are starting in the game realize what really goes on and how long really it takes to train a horse out of the track they start understanding and realizing that polo doesnt have to be that expensive, granted its expensive, but at medium or high goal tournament level its way out there. NOT EVERYONE WANTS TO BE A PATRON NOR PLAY MRDIUM OR HIGH GOAL POLO. It has become way to fast and allot more dangerous regardles of how safe the horse is. When pros and club owners realize that their is a huge market and demand for amateur polo polo will continue to grow, NOT EVERYONE WANTS TO BE A PRO OR CAN BE. So, with that said, I belive that reasonable prices can be found for reasonable polo ponies. I have more than a few, I play four times a week and stick and ball twice and after years of getting beat by exorbitant stabiling fees I learned how to do it like the pros do, theres a cost effective way wich ovecourse nobody tells the newcomer because they shoot out those famous arrogant words "this is polo" I write this not with the intention of offending anyone nor putting anyone down, this is all an art and respected at that, butat some point the abuse needs to stop because we are turning away potential future players and diminishing amateur and low goal polo.
© 2013 Created by Hugh Evans (PCW Editor).
