Ya know, it’s not much different than selling cars, but with race horses you’re also sellin’ the dream….

by Wallace Wyss –

Some who know me know that cowboy hat I wear in some pictures is not just a pose.

I be one.

Oh, I don’t do the heavy lifting, not like I did in Montana when ridin’ the Bitteroot Range back in ’60 but I do feed the horses at the ranch where I hang my hat and sit down with the ranch owner and figure out: “Well, do we run with this one or is he out the door?”

To our author, these horses remind him of when he went to the Porsche factory and found a storage yard where they had old race cars parked, some fully prepped but never raced, that could be used as street cars…it’s like buyin’ a dream.

So long story short, the other day I listed two thoroughbreds on Craigslist for $1,000 each and started getting calls within 45 minutes.

Now what is interesting to me, a guy who has bought and sold many collector cars from Bizzarrinis to Ferraris, is that these horses have a built in status, sorta like say a sports car that’s been raced or at least prepped for racing.

Now I think, and I don’t think it’s just me, that there’s a certain amount of status to owning a horse for trail ridin’ that’s track raced.

Sort of like when Bruce Meyer drives his Iso Grifo A3/C up to the Malibu Trancas Cars & Coffee and it’s got all this racing stuff on it and someone jibes him thinking it’s just a poser’s car: “What’s that—a race car?” and he can grin and answer “First in class, Le Mans, ’65.”

Adds a little oooomph if ya know what I mean.

So I got these two race horses, one four years old and one a bit long in the tooth at eight years old, but looking good, and one of them, the stallion, was trained for racing but never entered, sort of like a race car all prepped to run and then the organizers eliminated that class so it had no place to go.

But he still has an ace in the hole, he can still procreate (lingo: stand for stud) and he’s related bloodline wise to Seattle Slew which was a very successful horse.

The other male horse did race, though not at the Derby or any headline event. But it finished second, so that’s, used sports car like, being able to say “It ran with the winners, finished second in (fill in the year) at Los Al.”

Now of course, used horses are like used cars. Only worse. They can look good. But they can die on you in a second. With a used car you just rebuild the engine. But with horses, certain injuries, they can’t do anything because horses don’t cotton much to wearing splints like humans.

And then there’s the nature of the beast. There are those who think cars have no soul. They are wrong. Some do. Joe Scalzo, a skilled writer who worked with me on CAR LIFE, once wrote an article about race cars that try to kill you, cars that drivers were scared to drive after another driver had an unexplained wreck in the car.

Some horses can be out to get you too. And others are lovable. Like these two. Good natured. I’d keep one myself but hey, this is bidness, and can’t be having no soft spots, not when there’s a $2,500 bill for hay to be paid.

But that’s a goal someday, maybe when I relocate to the ranch in Mendocino, to have a horse, and ride into town on it, and maybe somebody will ask: “Looks Arabian. Ever run the track?” and I can say “Second at Los Al 2012” something like that.

Oh, by the way, if you got a hankerin’ for a thoroughbred, my contact email is Photojournalistpro2@gmail.com. I’ll throw in a cowboy hat if you buy one…..

Let us know what you think in the Comments.

Wallace Wyss

 
 
THE AUTHOR: Wallace Wyss is the author of 18 car books. A fine artist, he is currently painting portraits of some of the more significant postwar sports cars on commission for owners.

 
 

Summary

Article Name

Used Horses For Sale

Description

Race horses can be like race cars but different.

Author

Wallace Wyss