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What is a Sport Horse Really Worth? -- Inside Valuation, Transparency and Market Truths
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In this episode of the ICONEQ Podcast, Laura St Clair is joined by equine appraiser and expert witness Tanja Schnuderl to discuss how sport horses are valued in today's market. From foals to Grand Prix horses, they examine the role of performance, pedigree, training, and documentation -- and why greater transparency is essential for a stronger, more professional industry.
Contact Information:
Tanja Schnuderl of www.theequineexpert.com
Laura St Clair of ICONEQ
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Hello and welcome to the Iconic Podcast. I'm Laura St Clair, the CEO and co-founder of ICONEQ, the modern sport horse platform that makes the horses, the people, and the services they provide fully searchable like never before. Today I'm here with Tanja Schnuderl. Tanja is a senior appraiser and international expert with the Equine Experts. Tanja, tell us a little bit about what you do and your background.
Tanja Schnuderl of The Equine ExpertSure. My background combines my experience in both the legal and the equine industry. I've been involved in horses my entire life. I grew up in Germany. I started riding during my childhood, continued leasing, competing during my teenage years, and then just the upcoming decades just focused on bar management, horse care, horse behavior. My professional journey began in the legal industry after high school in Germany. I completed a three-year education to become a legal secretary, and I worked in law firms in Germany, in the US over about nine years. I added a Bachelor of Law degree. And during that time, of course, I was still writing, competing, and working part-time in barns before transitioning full-time into the equine industry as barn manager. So let's talk a little bit about the work you do in the legal field. In my capacity as expert witness, I was a member of the equine expert that is a multidisciplinary equine expert witness firm, which is a lot. And I'm an expert witness specializing in bar management and horse behavior. Expert witnesses are generally used in lawsuits and legal matters. They are specialists who help explain the topic of their expertise in courts. They provide professional opinions to help attorneys, the judge, the juries to understand details of the case that they are working on. So the regular jury members obviously are not necessarily horse people. And if something happens, um, like a personal injury, a case, or if value needs to be established, it's really hard for a non-horse person to understand not just the terminology, but also all the details that go into that. And basically, I'm the one that explains all the horse stuff to people, to the attorneys, to the judge, to the jury. So they have just a backdrop of information so they know what is standard in this industry, how do we do things, anything horse-related, so they can better evaluate the case at hand.
Laura St Clair of ICONEQIt's not an easy job, I'm guessing, because one of the things that the horse industry in general seems to be known for is the lack of transparency. Especially, I feel here in the United States, it's very, very difficult to know what things truly sell for. Am I right?
Tanja Schnuderl of The Equine ExpertRight. You're exactly right. Lack of transparency in this industry is concerning. That goes for starting with a sales agreement, that sales contracts can be very vague, or there might not even be a sales contract at all. Attorneys that I work with are flabbergasted that horses are being sold. And I'm not talking about a $2,000 horse. Those that is a lot of money, and they're being sold on a handshake. And that is just very unique to this industry. And you'll see it on horse ads on social media where there rarely ever is an asking price included. There's just without the trend, just transparent market data, horses can be just priced arbitrarily or inflated. As a buyer, it's really hard to find numbers to just get an idea what a certain horse would sell for. And in creating appraisals and finding comparables, you look at comparable horses that are being sold or are for sale in the respective marketplace. Even auctions sometimes don't. A lot of the European auctions, like you said, they will publish the sales prices, or at least some of them. Um not all auctions do. And um then you have sales platforms online. A lot of those prices are also just inquire for price. So it is really very hush-hush and very hard for buyers to get a good idea of what the fair market value is for different disciplines or or different horses.
Laura St Clair of ICONEQIt really is a challenge in this industry. And I mean, on the flip side though, I know breeders will say that there is a different price sometimes depending on who the buyer is. And and I understand that as well. I mean, if a top professional comes and wants to buy something that that you've bred or a young horse that you have, the prestige that comes with that future of that professional with that horse, yeah, you would bend over backwards to make a transaction work. So I understand the natural uh tendency to want to leave some of these things a little bit open-ended, but it creates a lot of uncertainty in the market.
Tanja Schnuderl of The Equine ExpertYeah, absolutely. I I very much agree. It there's big differences in who is going to buy your horse, what their financial situation is, what the future plans are for that horse that you're selling. Especially as a breeder, I think breeders take that even more into consideration because you put so much time and money and love and sweat and tears into creating this healthy, wonderful fold. So most breeders are very protective of what is this buyer going to do? And is it is this baby gonna receive the training and development as I would hope for it to receive?
Laura St Clair of ICONEQAbsolutely. It's such a different transaction than we're used to with with things like real estate or buying a car or something. That's absolutely the way it should be. Tell me about the appraisal process. Give us an overview of how you value a horse.
Tanja Schnuderl of The Equine ExpertRight. Well, most commonly we do fair market value. That's what we appraise for. What is this horse worth right now? And sometimes you go back in time if if there was an event that might have changed that value or that horse passed away, um, all of these things. But generally the question is what is this horse worth right now? And you typically start by just assessing assessing that horse and all the various factors like the how old is this horse, what breed is this horse, is this horse registered, what is the pedigree, what is the training level, what is this horse's job, what is the performance history? Is this horse insured? Are there any ongoing health issues? All these factors so you get a good assessment of this horse at hand. And you will obviously review all the paperwork, all the documents, you talk to the owner, you might do an on-site inspection, you look at pictures, at videos, and and all these things. If if it's breeding related, you look at offspring and mares covered, and then you will determine the marketplace where the horse that you're appraising is most commonly traded. You would buy a trail horse probably in a different place that you would buy a high-level performance horse, right? So there are great trail horse auctions, then there are private sales for mostly performance horses where your agent or your trainer, or you set you yourself as a horse owner, sell or buy, as well as um online platforms where you will advertise and and buy and sell. And um, once you pick the common marketplace, you will start looking for comparables. And comparables are horses with similar characteristics than the horses that you're appraising, and you will look at what they have recently sold for or are for sale, and then you calculate the current fair market value. And obviously, a lot of research goes into that, and like we just talked about, sometimes it can be really hard finding good comparables because you really have to track down the prices that these horses sell for. If you see on a sales platform, sometimes you don't have a price listed, or you have to verify the asking price, is obviously most often not the actual price that this horse ended up selling for. So you verify your numbers, you can look at auctions, um, and then you calculate the current fair market value for the horse at hand. Excellent. Very good. Um, what about folds? They are actually pretty pretty straightforward because we base it on the same methodology that insurance companies use, which is you will take three times the stud fee. Complicated is because, and I just had two people recently contact me to appraise folds or yearlings, and they say, well, the insurance will just take three times the stud fee. But obviously, there's a lot more money that goes into the whole process from buying semen into having an actual foal. You have the mare, all the vet cost expenses that occur with that. And it's a long way from buying a dose of semen to a healthy foal hitting the ground, right?
Laura St Clair of ICONEQAbsolutely.
Tanja Schnuderl of The Equine ExpertThree times the stud fee is not really cutting it. And it it's uh uh it's obviously a little outdated. Things that um you can do, and I have appraised foals or yearlings at at a higher value than three times the stud fee if they have been inspected, for example, and they hold maybe even hold a a premium, or they they have been awarded something at an inspection, or there are successful siblings or siblings the same age that have just been recently sold that that would establish market value where you can compare that to each other. But generally, what insurance companies and also appraisers use is three times the stud fee. And um, if you don't want that to be the value, there are options like inspections and and you know, doing your own research, looking into, hey, what has this sire produced recently? Is there something comparable to my baby? But again, research is is consuming and often hard. Um, but your appraiser will do that. And um, those are things that would increase the value of foal and then yearlings. It's this weird age gap between, you know, the foal and the horse starting under saddle and and actually, you know, being ridden, being able to perform, so you have a performance record. So it's there's a big gap in between where it's really hard to um establish the value because it is hard to put a number on potential, right? And you look at that horse, but this has so much potential. Potential is hard to express in a number.
Laura St Clair of ICONEQYeah, so we end up falling back to, you know, like you say, a cost, basically kind of a cost-based approach. The challenge with our sport horses, challenge, but also one of the one of the positives, I guess, uh from a breeding standpoint, is that, you know, when you think about stud fees for other types of horses like thoroughbreds, they're big numbers, right? And they're live cover, front rules. Whereas with our warm bloods, uh, we're we're we can use AI, even for the the finest stallions in the world, the stud fees are are quite, you know, uh reasonable comp comparatively. But it's, you know, it makes it very challenging from a cost standpoint, then because we all know that the stud fee ends up being at least really small percentage of what you have in those babies. And especially like you say, as you as you continue to raise them, they're two and a half years old, you've got quite a bit of of money and energy, and probably some veterinary done you some, you know, some radiographs along the way to make sure everything's looking good. And, you know, that could certainly help you probably with your valuation, but you've got quite a bit of money in those babies at that point.
Tanja Schnuderl of The Equine ExpertAbsolutely.
Laura St Clair of ICONEQThe other challenge that I think a lot of breeders run into uh and owners is that if you are um capable of doing the training yourself, it seems to penalize you because oftentimes you can stay in a paid for training for these months, um, but it seems a little bit harder to be able to justify the training if you're the owner and the trainer. Is do you find that that's the case as well?
Tanja Schnuderl of The Equine ExpertUm, that is true. If you are a very skilled amateur and you start training your horse yourself, um you will not be able to add anything from those training-related costs to the value of the horse. Whereas if you send your horse off to professional training, to someone who does that for a living, insurance companies will usually accept 50% of the cost professional training, not the board. So if you put your horse in full training board, the board is excluded from that. But the training cost itself, most insurance companies will accept 50% of the training cost just to be added to the horse's value.
Laura St Clair of ICONEQOkay.
Tanja Schnuderl of The Equine ExpertOkay, interesting.
Laura St Clair of ICONEQLet's talk a little bit about what makes our horses valuable. I mean, just broadly, um, when we look at some of the things, you know, historically and I what what separates well-bred warm blood from a top seller at an auction, or what are those things that are driving some of the really extraordinary prices?
Tanja Schnuderl of The Equine ExpertI think, especially with those really high, high-priced auctions, it is just that the breeder and the training, those are such household names. Or like the PSI auctions in Europe where you see all these horses come from excellent breeding facilities, from very selected training programs. So it is just you start with the notion that this is a high, high, high quality horse. And then you have the um excitement of the auction. It's international. A lot of these horses are being sold to all sorts of countries. So there is a bit of a competitive edge. Once the bidding starts, you know, it is the bidding fever hits in. So um that is certainly a part that drives those extremely high values. But overall, breeding for sure, breeding the bloodlines, if you have a sire that has highly successful offsprings, it is to be assumed that this offspring will also be equally successful, right? If you have correct confirmation, good health, good condition. And then also if, depending on the age of the horse, if you have a show record, how has this horse performed? And that is one of the key indicators for performance, performance horses. You can have a uh you can have a wonderful warm blood at home that performs all the high-level movements, but it will not count if you don't take it out and compete. That will be the only verification that this horse is a successful competitor. And to be fair, I mean there there is a difference between riding your horse lovely at home and whether this horse will perform in a show atmosphere. Will this horse perform being surrounded by a ton of other horses and spectators and dogs and kids and announcements and decorations, being away from home? That is accurately so. That is a different, different type of games. If you can take this horse out and this horse will still be able to perform under all these show circumstances, then you have a proven, confirmed, whatever, third-level horse. Um, cooling at home is great, but the show record is that will really nail down the value on your horse.
Laura St Clair of ICONEQYeah, I think you're exactly right. And it's an independent opinion from a qualified judge.
Tanja Schnuderl of The Equine ExpertAnd that is the essence of a performance or com competition horse. So that you need proof of that. If you want to have a a certain value on your performance horse, you have to you have to bring proof of performance.
Laura St Clair of ICONEQAnd that reminds me of a horse that that um I think we've talked about. There was a filly that sold November, I believe, of 2023 by San to Alati and out of a mare named Diamond Girl. And I think she sold for around 150,000, maybe 160,000 euros uh to a Canadian, a well-known Canadian owner. And it's funny because I, you know, I on Facebook, I mean, it's, you know, a lot of people readers would say, well, you know, my got a hole that moves like that too. And, you know. And I, you know, when you look at that, and I'll I'll include that one in the in the in the I think I can still include a video in this in the show notes for the podcast. But when you look at, you know, I when you look at that mayor, she was uh a a successful Grand Prix mare, the dam. And you see the video of this mare with the foal. She was 20 years old, the mare, and a moving beautifully beside this lovely foal. And and that says a lot, I think, too, in terms of not only an exciting sire, a popular young sire, uh, but also the proven dam, an absolute top performance horse herself. And the fact that she uh looks so fit and so fantastic at 20. I could see every every euro of value in that.
Tanja Schnuderl of The Equine ExpertUm yes, like you said, this mare, and historically speaking, breeding has been so valiant focused when a lot of breeders agree that so much, like up to 60%, I believe, comes from the mom. And if you have the dam being such a successful, healthy, up to high age mare that carried this fall to term, I can see how people are excited and are willing to spend good money on that because that that dam was such an incredible competitor.
Laura St Clair of ICONEQSo spectacular. Absolutely. I completely agree. So let's talk about some other horses that we do. I mean, at least some rumors of sizes. But what do some of the the top ones, you know, what have they sold for? And I mean, the one that of course so many people um have heard about for years was was the sale of Totilas. And so that sort of set like in at least in Warm Bloods, you know, a benchmark of an absolutely incredible stallion. And I don't know if there is even verified what was actually paid, but but I think I was around 11 million euros.
Tanja Schnuderl of The Equine ExpertI believe so too, yeah.
Laura St Clair of ICONEQYeah, yeah. And then the other, I know there was a a show jumper um that was bought, MHS Going Global, um, that was bought Athena Onassis in November of 2016. And I think he was around 12 million. Who else do we know of that's you know, who sets the the high end of the horse price market in in warm bloods in sport horses?
Tanja Schnuderl of The Equine ExpertI believe those are two of the top-tier examples. And obviously his show record is is is incredible, um, which clearly driven that price. And there are, I mean, in especially in the US, I don't think it is as common in Germany as it is here that you have so many advanced, highly skilled amateur riders that are financially able to spend a lot of money on very well trained, very well-bred horses and compete at a level with other professionals who do that for a living. And I think that is that is unique to the US, that there are so many dedicated amateurs who that's what they do. That's what they spend their time, their money, their resources on. And they are very successful competing against professionals, which obviously requires them to have equally competitive horses. And they're willing to spend the money to buy them, um, which also drives drives the prices of these high-level performance horses. But I believe, yeah, Totilas and, MHS
Tanja Schnuderl of The Equine ExpertGoing Global, that is the top tier, and at least of what we know. And like you said, it's especially in in those circles where these super high-end horses, rarely ever, ever is there any even just price range being documented or or even made public on what these horses sell for. Um, but yeah, that is between 11, 10, that is the the top tier.
Laura St Clair of ICONEQYeah, yeah. I think a bargain compared to some of the thoroughbreds.
Tanja Schnuderl of The Equine ExpertWell, racing is is its own little bubble within the horse industry, I suppose. It's really its own little world.
Laura St Clair of ICONEQYeah, yeah. I actually think we are quite the bargain. Let's let's talk a little bit about Totilas because being a stallion too, there would a huge breeding component. And that comes into play mostly with stallions, of course. But let's talk a little bit about that and how you value that.
Tanja Schnuderl of The Equine ExpertWell, the the breeding aspect, of course, that is for a lot of competition horses, that is the second career or a career in addition to just the the sport that they're in. Um, but of course, that is very attractive as a horse owner to not just be so successful and have this incredible horse, but also secure future ongoing income by putting this horse out at stud and have P.S. sell the semen. So if there is just if there is an injury, if there's nothing, you know, confirmationally or or physically wrong with this horse, if it's a pasture accident or something, and this horse is not able to regain the performance level it had before, um, but was very successful at some point in time, then that is a great alternative to, you know, still have still have this horse maintain the value and also make money with it, um, to put it at stud and and sell the semen.
Laura St Clair of ICONEQYeah, it's a pretty good annuity, I think, for those for these really in-demand stallions, for sure. For sure. And then also the the fact that with our horses, we, you know, we can we have the security of being able to um freeze semen so that we can use it in future years, even if something does happen. So that that helps a lot as well. Let's talk a little bit more about how owners should think about their horses in terms of adding value. We've talked about adding training, but what if you if you had a blueprint, say that you uh have bred a horse yourself, how would you advise someone to help progress and document and move forward so that so that that owner could be not only set up to to properly justify value when they go to sell the horse, but also maybe to justify value to the underwriters if they decided to get insurance. Right. Or syndicate, diversify, you know, those kinds of things.
Tanja Schnuderl of The Equine ExpertYeah, absolutely. That's also that's an a very interesting aspect in in valuing horses for multiple owners, syndication, all these things. But the key word I think you used was document. Document things for your horse, starting with all, of course, their registration papers, inspections, breed-specific inspections, if you can. Like I said, always drives value if the horse has been inspected by a proper inspector and um has has participated and earned. If you send this horse off into professional training, keep the invoices so you see how much money you put into training. Insurance documents, as soon as this horse goes under saddle, take it out, take it to a show. And if it's not a recognized show, if it's a schooling show, keep the records. That, you know, that let's help. If it's not a recognized show record, it will at least still confirm the training level that that horse was at. And those are fairly inexpensive to do. And you should take it out, keep the records, put it in a file, keep all your paperwork, insurance documents, if whatever your insurance is is willing to add to the price, um, documents over um the sire, um, siblings or or half-siblings that are similar to your horse, keep tabs on them as well. And once you actually sell the horse, put it in your records, especially as a breeder, so you know what a certain type, what the bloodline, the bread, the breed. So you can, if you breed multiple horses, it is great, and it'll be your own little system to track and see what the babies sell for. So you can see the difference in sire, dam, whatever, but um, what you bred, what it sold for, how long you kept it, and it'll give you an a good indicator um on what is what is the demand at the market right now.
Laura St Clair of ICONEQAbsolutely. Absolutely. I think that's a great idea. I didn't even really think about the fact that just, you know, even if you have horses that are maybe a little bit different in bloodline, but a lot of your breeders have a certain reputation for breeding a certain level of quality. And I would think that if they've sold some, and as long as they have good documentation, bills of sale and proof and so forth, those are comparables too of program can produce. Exactly. Yeah, and I've I've done that before with breeders, establishes value. Yeah, absolutely. Well, I know we want to do some future podcasts. We've already talked about that. But one of the things I I'd love to just get an initial comment um on from you is you know, that some of the new things in our world with our sport horses, and the the latest, it seems to be uh cloning. Yes. And and it's it's fascinating and and kind of looking into the crystal ball. Do you have any any thoughts? I mean, you know, all of a sudden it it's just it it's mind-boggling when you think that you might have something like some of the horses we've talked about that sell at the very high echelon. The fact that they could be clone and then potentially could be breeding stallions, just it's a very interesting future.
Tanja Schnuderl of The Equine ExpertYeah, it's extremely interesting. And I'm I'm so excited to see where this is going to go. And obviously, there's a lot of unknown variables at this point about, you know, long-term, you know, if there's if there are any long-term issues, and performance-wise, if the clone will really be as performing as the original, and if polo is any indication, it very much looks like it.
Laura St Clair of ICONEQAnd and it's it it really will be fun to see what happens in the industry. I I really appreciate your time today, Tanja. This has been so incredible. I I really feel like in closing, I really feel that you know, with our own horses, when we find something that we get excited about, um, a horse that we want to be with every day, that we enjoy, a horse that has the talent that we need, and we have the talent that that horse needs, when we find that match, that is that is an priceless. And uh I'm I hope that we that we all find that. Um thank you so much for joining us on the podcast. And we look forward to many future conversations.
Tanja Schnuderl of The Equine ExpertMy pleasure. Thank you, Laura.
Laura St Clair of ICONEQTanja, if people want to reach out to you for any help with valuation or any questions, um, how do they reach you?
Tanja Schnuderl of The Equine ExpertSure. Um, they can reach me. Uh just go to the website, um, theequineexpert.com, and reach out.
Laura St Clair of ICONEQAnd I'm happy to chat with you. Fantastic. Thanks everybody for listening. And Tanja, thanks for being on the podcast today.
Tanja Schnuderl of The Equine ExpertAbsolutely.
Laura St Clair of ICONEQBye.
SpeakerBye.