You decide you’re in the market for an off the track thoroughbred. So, you begin your search online, researching various websites and adds. You come across an ad for a young Thoroughbred mare that is still on the racetrack. When you look at the thumbnail, there is this tacky picture of her with her hind leg cocked, her ears back, looking the opposite direction of the camera. You‘re interested but you need more information, so you call to inquire and ask for more pictures and hopefully some video.
A nice man answers the phone and you proceed to ask him about said mare and ask him for more pictures, better pictures and a video. After some time, you receive a message on your phone with pictures of the mare. Much to your disappointment, you see more horrible pictures with the horse's nose cut off and it’s legs placed all over the place. You think to yourself, 'how can I make a decision on purchasing a horse if I can’t even see how it’s conformation is?'.
Then you get to the video portion and you’re looking at a horse that’s jogging towards the front of the camera for a total of three seconds. You shake your head and say to yourself, 'I can’t tell anything from this video." You proceed to ask for another video, yet the seller is left confused and thinking he had shown enough. It's a 3yo TB mare after all, what else is there to know?
Racing people are only concerned about three things when they purchase an already raced racehorse:
The horse's racing form
If they can improve the horse's racing form
Any major injuries the horse might currently have
In the sellers mind, selling racehorses to people who want to use them for non-racing activities is very foreign. They don’t understand why the horse needs to be standing in a conformation pose. In fact, many might not even know what those words mean. All they know is that they have a horse they have been racing, it has a racing record, and that should be sufficient enough for somebody to buy the horse based upon. After all, that's how THEY buy horses.
The racehorse owner doesn’t know what you’re talking about as far as a floating trot, or an uphill way of traveling, or even what stable vices mean. They don’t understand why the buyer needs to see the horse walk, trot, and canter on a video, in fact you might just end up with a racing video and we all know that doesn't tell us sporthorse buyers squat.
So, you decide to just take a chance on this horse. The price is right, they are only asking $2000 for the horse, which is fair market value for a track broke horse that is stepping down in racing class and can no longer compete at the higher levels.
Next, we move onto having a veterinarian check out the horse for soundness. The race owner balks and once again questions the need for such a waste of time exam on a cheap horse who is no longer useful to him. The truth of the matter is, $2000 is rock bottom dollar amount of money. The amount of money involved in horseracing can far surpass the amount of money one would spend on a GP show jumper and that is just to get the horse to the race, which is no guarantee on it's own, let alone that horse make back even a fraction of what it cost to breed, raise, and produce as a racehorse. To try and be successful in racing requires breeding to the best of sires, which can cost you $300,000 for one foal. That sure is a large chunk of change for an unborn embryo who hasn't proven a darn thing.
To non- racing people, we look at that horse for sale as a young, big project that is not yet proven in the sporthorse world, who going to cost us a lot of time and money to develop into the horse that we hope it becomes. That's a gamble in itself, especially if you board and are limited on how many horses you can have at one time. So, how do we get around this issue? Meeting the horse in person is your best bet; however, if you are unable, finding an aftercare organization or agent with access to the track grounds who can be your go between, they might be able to go down and take the footage and access the horse your inquiring about. They also are familiar with the lingo and can be the translator between the two languages.
The fact of the matter is, the buyer nor the seller is wrong; it's just two different industries trying to co-exist. But even this is just a generalization. There are many racing owners who are horse saavy in other areas and are familiar with what you are needing and looking for and will help obtain the information you need to make your decision.
Ideal sale photo