When video cameras were invented, everybody in horses was thrilled because you could finally show how a horse performed on your web site or send someone a video or the digitized file. Finally, something to attract that long-distance buyer without the person actually having to travel to your farm to see the horse for sale or stallion!
Sadly, some folks have completely missed the point of video.
See Zeus stand.
See Zeus walk around the round bale.
See Zeus...boy, he's dirty, isn't he?
So what? What about this is supposed to make anyone think "wow, I'd love to plunk down $3000 for Zeus. What a great stallion prospect!"
Now, while you obviously can't have riding video of a yearling (yeah, I know, but you shouldn't), I see plenty of other sellers who have managed to create videos that would pique my interest if I were looking for a horse of that type.
Here's a nice one. The AQHA yearling is clean and his mane is done. He's shown moving around both directions at a trot and lope, in a well maintained round pen with even footing. He's a good mover and he seems to be a pretty laid-back guy - there's no head tossing, irritated/annoyed body language or other drama here. Watching this, I can easily envision this guy as a competitive pleasure horse.
Here's another nice video. One thing I really like about this is that the titles have been used to provide important information of interest to a buyer - so even if the video gets passed around all the information is there. She's in a large, safe arena so I'm not being distracted, as I often am while watching sale videos, worrying that the horse is about to hurt itself or get tangled up in something. This filly is wearing her winter coat, but the focus is on her movement and that is being very well displayed here. The only thing I might have added would be some stills from summer to show what she looks like shed out.
As I've said before - it's just like selling a car. You are going to get a lot more buyers and for a better price if it is clean and tuned up. I don't want to hear anybody whine about how their horses are not selling when they show us a dirty yearling circling a round bale - for $3000. Whatcha smoking?
