Romney: " I joked with Ann about sending her to Betty Ford..."

[csziggy]

64. The horses are expensive because of the amount of training needed

To get them to the top levels.

I've bred and raised horses that went to top dressage levels - not while I had them but after I sold them. I did not get a lot of money for the horses but once the buyers put years of work into them, the horses were worth a lot. And those horses were not professionally trained - the best one I ever sold was trained by her owner who was in college at the time she bought the horse from me. ten years after I sold the horse (as a weanling) the young woman was was competing successfully against Olympic caliber riders. It took ten years of training, riding nearly every day, to get that horse to that level.

Some people will pay a lot for a horse that is already well started with its training, but I respect the riders who take their horses along the way themselves.