The hard sell

WITH top-class horses selling for seven-figure sums, some people expect there’s plenty of money to be made from dealing in horses. But as mid-level horses are likely to go for thousands rather than millions, how prosperous is the reality?

Sport horse producer Tim Brown believes it is possible to make money from horses.

“Look at the Schockemöhle empire — they wouldn’t be as big as they are if they weren’t making money,” he says. “It’s like a car or a house — if the fundamentals are right, and you spend time and money investing to improve it, you can make a profit.”

Tim and his wife Antonia specialise in young sport horses, paying on average £15,000 to £25,000 for rising four-year-olds from the Netherlands, producing them for a year and selling them as five-year-olds with a competition record for £50,000 plus.

“We buy horses with the correct