Anyone who has shopped for a horse in the last five years has felt it. Data from one major European sales site showed that asking prices rose more than 30 percent during the pandemic, and professionals in North America described made horses nearly doubling in price. [Add how prices changed for a type of horse you know well, such as a children’s hunter or an amateur jumper.] For sellers, the real question isn’t whether prices went up, but whether this is the market’s new baseline.
Part of the jump came from a surge in demand. Barns were among the first places to reopen during the pandemic, people with more time and savings turned to outdoor hobbies, and online sales opened up auctions that had once been mostly local, putting more buyers in front of every horse. At the same time, supply shrank, with the American Horse Council counting about 6.6 million U.S. horses in 2023, down from 7.2 million in 2017. More buyers and fewer horses is basic economics, and the result is higher prices.
Costs have also increased. Board, training, vet care, shipping, and now import duties on European horses all make it more expensive to produce a sale horse than it was a few years ago. Every one of those costs comes out of the seller’s net. That means some of today’s higher prices aren’t inflation in the market so much as sellers trying to break even.
So, is it sustainable? The pandemic surge may be over, but prices haven’t fallen: Irish auction reports describe 2025 as an exceptionally strong year for sport horse sales, with demand picking up again in 2026, and here in the U.S., the World Sport Horse Sales in Ocala set a new record this spring. My read is that the top of the market will hold, because proven, sound horses are scarce and the buyers at that level are less sensitive to the economy, while the middle market is where any softening will show up first. Since sellers can’t price far below what it costs to raise and develop a horse, I expect prices to flatten slowly rather than collapse.
What are you seeing in your local market: are prices holding steady, or still going up? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
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