The Problem with Gypsy Horses (It's not the horse!)

The Gypsy Horse breed, otherwise known as the Gypsy Vanner, Irish Tinker, Gypsy Cob, and a host of other names, is plagued with a host of issues, that have very little to do with the horses. In fact, it really all just has to do with the breeders, and sadly, the vast majority of the breeders. So I wanted to take some time today to talk on this, since this is another breed I really like.

(All riding/driving photos belong to Jennifer Rose from her No Worries Beach Trail Rides and all "naked" horse photos belong to Gypsy Jenn from Gypsy CaraVanners)

Where it all started

So let's talk about where everything started going wrong. Quite truthfully, everything can trace its roots right back to the very beginning of the breed in America. You see, the Gypsy breed was created by the Gypsy people over in the UK originally to pull their living wagons. They wanted a horse that was as much a piece of art as their homes were, so they added the color, they needed a horse strong enough to pull these vans made of wood, with people in it, and cast iron stoves, and their belongings, but not so big as a Shire or Clydesdale because they couldn't afford to feed it in one way or another. So the Gypsy Horse was made.

So this couple "discovered" this breed and decide to import the first few in the 1990's. When they sold the first few, these horses brought tens of thousands of dollars, with legends telling of some selling in the hundreds of thousands. And here is where it all went wrong. You see, this price, vs the several hundred dollars for buying from the UK breeders and the few thousand to import, created a race to own these horses and cash in on them. People would pay $5000 give or take to buy a horse and get it over here, and then turn around and sell them for tens of thousands. Weanling foals for $15,000-$25,000, adults even more so. The people in the UK weren't fools either, but some of their buyers were. They jacked up the prices and some even sold half breds as full breds to the gullible foreigners.

Issues with the Registry

Well the next big issue, other than the average man never being able to afford these horses, and many people importing plain crappy breeding stock, was the fact that multiple registries started popping up.

Rumor has it that the Gypsy Vanner Horse Society (here forth to be called the GVHS) became something of a scam and a group of elitists. Where your horses could only be registered if they were from the original importer's breeding stock or horses they imported themselves. I'm not going to say that's true or not, and their side of the story is that they didn't accept other horses because they were bad in conformation and temperament. Honestly, I can see both sides being the case. So at least two more registries popped up, although I think it was actually three. These whittled down to the Gypsy Horse Association (GHA). So now today you have two main competing registries for the same exact breed of horse; the GVHS and the GHA. And honestly at this point, I believe the GHA has way more horses registered with it. (Quite frankly the two need to stop being petty and just merge but I see them sticking it out until one simply slowly disappears)

Falling Prices

Now of course, the prices were destined to fall. That's half the reason why so many people were desperate to get any horse imported and sold in the beginning that they could, because they knew such high profit margins would be ending and rather soon. Let's face it, those lucky enough to get into them in the beginning got rich off this breed. Which is what led to their inevitable down fall. You see, because even as prices fell, other than a few people who just wanted this beautiful and calm horse, people were buying these horses and starting breeding herds to cash in on their still large profits to be made. Even up to 5 or 6 years ago, top weanling foals were asking $10,000-$15,000. What wasn't to love? Beautiful, small horses, with excellent temperaments, that brought in big money. Unfortunately, the breeders had little to no foresight beyond that. The market for Gypsy Horses from the start was a market comprised solely of breeders selling to breeders. DING DING DING. And the #1 issue for the Gypsy Horse IIIIIIIISSSS this: Even today, the vast majority of foals born are just sold into someone else's breeding herd. And that's extremely sad. If this one problem could be fixed, the Gypsy Horse market would be extremely more stable and the prices might finally stop falling. (Yes, they are still falling even with the majority of foals today selling around $6000)

So lets talk about all the reasons the prices are falling for Gypsy Horses.

Not to beat a dead horse or anything, but the issue of the market being breeders selling to breeders is in my book the #1 reason why the prices continue to fall. A market such as that cannot be sustained as eventually people run out of room for the new horses being bred every year.

Unscrupulous breeding. Everything associated with this issue brings this into the #3 reason the prices continue to fall for this breed

~ Let's not kid ourselves here, the community of Gypsy Horse breeders is just as bad as many back yard quarter horse and Arabian breeders out there. Oh I hear it coming "There are many great and reputable breeders out there like myself!" Sure there are. Except you breed every mare every single year don't you? (98% should be saying yes to this) In case you haven't noticed, the market sucks. It could benefit from a few years of low foal numbers.

This isn't even to mention people such as a certain larger breeder in TN who imported several amazing stallions and then pretty much anything with a uterus. And here in lies the problem. Pretty much, since again this is a market comprised of breeders selling to breeders, Every. Single. Filly/Mare, is sold for breeding. EVERY. SINGLE. ONE. It doesn't matter to anyone if she should be breeding. Not to the seller, not to the buyer, and not to the buyers of her foals. NO ONE GIVES A SHIT (excuse the language). And sadly, the colts aren't much better.

You see, a breed cannot do that, and certainly not as the regular thing to do. In other breeds this is called back yard breeding, in Gypsy Horses this is pretty much the regular way of things. Never have I ever, seen a filly/mare for sale, unless it medically had something wrong with it, marketed as a companion horse or even a work horse. NEVER. In fact, 95% of the time, people go out of their way to describe distant distant names of mention in their pedigrees and their color genetics. All things that only matter if the horse is to be bred.

With colts it's the same exact thing. In fact, it's only in the past couple years where I've seen anyone even bother to geld their colts. Most breeders still to this day sell all their colts as stud colts. Or even worse situations like this: $8,000 a stud, $6,000 a gelding. Ummmm, no. THAT IS NOT OK. As a breeder, it is your responsibility to decide if the colt you bred deserves to keep his jewels or not. And even then, that's not a 100% guarantee he should get to keep them when he's older as he may not make very nice babies. I have seen everything from horses that are conformational crap shoots, to mares who wont let people near her foals, to plain mean horses being sold as breeding stock. Gypsy community, you need to get your shit straight. And these practices need to be tabooed. If you ask me how such a thing could be fixed, I would answer by suggesting what the American Kennel Club does. Issue two types of papers. Pure bred companion papers, where you have the proof of begin full blooded, but it's offspring cannot be registered. And Pure Bred Breeding papers, where the owners have purchased the breeding rights to the animal from the original breeder and it's offspring can then be registered. Oooooh that would solve so many issues itself.

(Honestly, the issues are so bad, I'm surprised we haven't seen more of this breed ending up in the slaughter pipeline. Especially all the colts/stallions that are generally mostly unwanted. Even geldings have very little value in this breed) What are they good for? And the #2 reason why their prices are falling? (Yes, I know it's out of order but I'm going from start of life on here) People have absolutely no idea what a Gypsy Horse is actually good for. In the UK they had a purpose, to pull the living wagons of the Gypsy people. Here, they don't have one other than being a pleasure horse. And let's face it, you can get a horse that's a lot less upkeep than a Gypsy Horse for a whole lot cheaper anywhere. Trained horses are everywhere for sale for just a couple hundred dollars and there is nothing wrong with them and nothing that a Gypsy Horse can offer that they can't. Except the hair. America is FULL of well trained, cheep, level headed, sweet, talented, and pretty horses. What does the Gypsy Horse have to offer besides its hair? Which in and of itself is a massive deterrent for most horse people. Sure it's pretty, but it's also a hassle. It needs to be taken care of or it looks like crap, it breaks off, it's a breeding ground for a number of health issues, it makes it hard to see health issues with the legs, it needs to be groomed, and if it's white it stains and is no longer so "pretty". Just because Gypsy Horse enthusiasts are willing to take care of it doesn't mean the majority of other horse people will be. You have any idea how long it takes to brush a mane or tail that thick? Not to mention the feathering. So yes, the hair is extremely important and beautiful, but for many people it's also a deterrent and not something they're willing to pay thousands extra for.

You top this off with the fact that nobody trains their Gypsy Horses and you've got a bad thing going for you. As stated before, the entire point of many of these horses is just to be breeding machines. I know of very few people who have taken the time to train ANY of their Gypsy Horses. Most of the time they're simply halter broke, which also means most who compete in the shows are only doing halter shows. Great for saying if they have good conformation, nothing to help them though with telling people what they can do. And you know, breed demonstrations and Tractor Supply days are great and all, but that's still now showing people what they can do. Tractor Supply days only show that they're nice. Great, so are millions of other horses. Demonstrations only show that the breed can indeed be ridden.....in circles around a ring. Yippy.

And you know, when I mention this point, or those examples, people tend to get upset. "Well what are we supposed to do? These are excellent." No they're not! They're bare minimum at best. Take them out on group trail rides and to local events, take them to the rodeo, sure they'll suck but there's nothing wrong with some funny draft horse barrel racing, donate a few to local therapies, give lessons on some, take them out driving in town. Do those sorts of things because honestly, it's all they're really good for, and there's nothing wrong with that. You see, they really can't fulfill their original purpose here and they can't competitively compete against other breeds in high earning sports. They can't really reign, or cut horses, or jump, or compete in pulling competitions. They can sort of do it, but the lighter horses will out compete them in any of the usual competitions and the giant drafts will beat them in pulling competitions.They might be able to do some farm work like other draft ponies, but here they run into the issue again of being too much upkeep to be worth it. Why bother with a horse with so much hair that requires so much upkeep when they could instead buy a Fjord or Halflinger? So yeah, message to the breeders. you breed need to step up to the plate, train your horses, take them out into the REAL WORLD, not little demos, or shows, or Tractor Supply, and SHOW people what they can do. Talk to them about your horses. Tell them what it's like to keep a Gypsy Horse, the good the bad and the ugly. Don't try to sell their temperaments. There are thousands of other horses out there just as sweet and level headed as any Gypsy. Don't try to sell their beauty, people already know if they think their pretty or not. But people have questions, and those are usually, how much effort does it take to keep one? How much time and effort does their hair take? What can they do? These are things that need to be answered, not swept under the rug. So, What is the problem with Gypsy Horses?

Quite frankly, the breeders. The breed itself is a great breed just like any other one out there. They're sturdy, strong, pretty, calm and willing by definition, and usually overtly affectionate. Breeders need to straight themselves and each other out though. I only know of two people who use their Gypsy Horses for things other than breeding (outside of the occasional pleasure rider), and ironically they're both for beach rides, just on opposite sides of the country. If the Gypsy Horse community could stop unscrupulously breeding anything and everything, find ways to sell to non-breeders, and show the rest of the world what a Gypsy Horse can do (which means actually training them and using them for something other than breeding them), they could solve at least 95% of their issues.

You see, because the breed quite simply, cannot afford for their prices to fall anymore. If people start asking for less than $6000 then they're in a loosing game. Profit shouldn't be a taboo word when it comes to breeding animals. Nothing can be sustained if it only looses money. This fact alone was proven with draft breeds such as the Shire which lost their worth with mechanization and almost went extinct as many breeds of horses did. I've had so many horse breeders tell me "I never make a profit off of breeding. In fact I loose money." And they're proud of it! That is madness. There is NOTHING wrong with having a profit margin from breeding and selling horses. (In another post I'll talk about how I came to that price and my reasoning here) So breeders, in order to save your breed, you need to get yourself as a community together because all the issues lie with you, and not this great breed of horse. If you're a non-Gypsy owner reading this, I really hope that you do consider this breed as a future prospect because they truly are a wonderful breed. Any extra upkeep is worth it for many reasons that can probably never be put into words. The breeder community needs to work on some of their issues, but they're also some great people as well. There are many great breeders out there and more great horses than not. This breed isn't actually plague with too many horses with poor conformation or with bad attitudes. And these are some of the most understanding people I know of who are mostly more than happy to take some form of payment method to purchase their horses. I recommend this breed a lot and I could sit here for another hour listing reasons to buy them, and one day I might just do that. But for now, I'm going to wrap things up here. Until Next Time!