Deciding whether or not to sell (or loan) a horse or pony is never an easy decision. You may have thought of the idea many times and put the decision off for as long as you can. Once the decision has been made it can be even more difficult to compose a successful horse for sale advert. At Right Horse Right Home we will work with you to find the best of homes for your horse and advise you if your advert needs improving.
Here are some top tips to consider when putting that all important advert together.
Images
Images are the most important part of any advert. They are the first thing that draws peoples’ attention to your advert. If the images are not good enough people will not go on to read the detail about your horse. Quantity is not better than quality, don’t include images which are of poor quality simply because you feel you don’t have enough. If you have professional images but don’t have the time or know how to scan them simply take a picture of the professional image with your phone and add the image that way. Make sure the images you use are clear and have been taken recently, in good light.
For those of you who know how to crop an image this is very useful in order to focus in on the horse. The optimum image size when uploading to the website is 400 pixels vertical and 800 pixels wide. Most images are always long enough but some are too high so if you are able to crop and resize your images to 400 vertical that is best, if not we can do it for you. For those of you who would like to have their horse featured on the home page in the slider do supply images which are at least 1200px wide and 500px vertical for them to be considered. Only images which fit our sizing requirements can be used on our slider and the images we choose are at our discretion.
Images that should be included in your advert are;
- Full side body shot of horse stood square in nice surroundings such a a green field
- Action shots to show the horse’s way of going under saddle
- Action shots jumping a variety of different types of fences
Description
Keep it concise, this is the ‘pitch’ part of the horse for sale advert, this is where you want to describe what is special about your horse. Try and complete all the boxes on the horse listing page that relate to the age, breed, sex, height and location of the horse. In relation to the boxes on behaviour & suitability tick which ones are relevant , if they are true, if there are boxes you have not ticked such as “good to hack alone” or “good to catch” then explain in your description why this is the case. Be sure to mention the horse’s achievements and potential, their character and personality and any notable injuries or health problems.
Video
Many prospective buyers will want to view a video of the horse to see its way of going when ridden. This is particularly relevant for horses of high value where buyers will potentially be travelling from far afield to come and try the horse. Be sure that the video is taken the right way up and ideally shows the horse being ridden on the flat and over jumps if relevant. Make sure the video is ideally no longer than 2 minutes but shows a good variety of performance. We ask those who have video of their horse to send the download to us and we will upload it onto our YouTube Channel and link it to your horse advert with us. Downloaded video files can be sent to us either by email (if the size is not too large), via Whatsapp if they are on your phone or via www.wetransfer.com which is free and can cope with any size file if the video is on your PC.
Pricing your horse
Make sure the price is realistic, spend time researching other similar types of horses for sale when deciding on a price can be helpful. Many people will say they at least want to get back what they have paid for the horse. Sadly this is not always possible, did they pay a realistic price when they bought the horse, has the horse retained or increased in value by way of competitive achievements under their ownership, is the horse as well schooled and behaved as when they bought it? So many factors impact on the value of a horse, if the horse is in a very remote location, for example, less people will be inclined to want to visit it so the price needs to be sufficiently attractive to generate interest and motivate people to travel.
Many horses, over the age of 12 will often not retain their value even if they have increased their credibility by way of competitive achievements. This is simply because there is less demand for horses of this age and over and thus they do not tend to command the same price as horses in their prime aged 7-12yrs.
If you are going to include tack and any rugs with the horse be sure to include this in the description (we also have a “tack available” box). The more reasonable the price of your horse, the more applications you will receive to consider. Reducing the price of the horse is always an option if the initial price does not attract the interest you are looking for but alas buyers can be suspicious or sceptical of horses which have been on the market for many weeks where the price has been reduced. If you are prepared to offer the right buyer a trial period or loan with a view to buy be sure to mention this in the description, again this can increase the interest in your horse but it is not without risk.
Do read our full article here on “How Much is My Horse Worth“.
We hope these tips help in writing a horse for sale advert. To list your horse with Right Horse Right Home click here. If you are still unsure how best to sell your horse or why selling or loaning through us is so much safer and more effective do read our other article here on how and why we are different or by all means contact us.
Feel free to leave your comments below on points we may have missed out.