So Expensive- Why Reining Horses are So Expensive
June 27, 2025
It can feel prohibitively expensive sometimes, the cost of a reining horse. As the largest barrier to entry for some many have lamented the cost of a reining horse. With the average foal commending a price tag of $10,000-$15,000, hearings averaging $20,000+ and trained horses starting around $35,000 it can feel like a huge investment just to get into the sport. But why do reining horses cost so much? Are breeders and sellers making a killing on sales?
Let’s start by looking at what it costs to make a reiner.
To begin with a breeder needs a mare. Whether a mare carries her own foal, or a recipient mare is used and a breeder only purchases an embryo, the cost still isn’t cheap. Good broodmares will range in price from $10,000 to well over $50,000 with it not being unheard of to spend well into the six figures on a top broodmare. Even just purchasing an embryo will easily run you the same cost, plus the cost of the recipient mare lease. And that’s only the purchase price, her yearly upkeep is important. Feed, farrier, and vet all add up. When looking at my average yearly costs on our broodmares it often breaks down as follows:
Feed (grain and hay) $4,000
Farrier $540
Basic vet $300
Basic care (wormer, fly spray, etc) $250
And this does not include my other input costs of keeping her such as the ranch, upkeep of the ranch, taxes on said ranch, etc. When we break those down on a yearly basis, I assign a break down value of $2400 a year to cover those expenses, and thats spreading the costs over 30 horses so a smaller operation might actually have a higher cost when they break down mortgage, insurance, upkeep, taxes, etc across the few horses that they keep. Not to say that the horses are going to actually pay your. Mortgage, but for the sake of financial transparency let’s all be honest about the amount of money leaving my bank account on an annual basis (laughs nervously in broke horse girl).
So let’s stop here and look at just what does it cost to have a broodmare, before you have even bred her. We’ll assume on the low end because your girl is a bargain hunter. My last broodmare cost me $15,000. Now my college professor told us that a broodmare should be able to pay for herself with 2 foals, but let’s give ourself more grace and say she’ll pay for herself in 4 foals. So then for 1 foal my cost for the mare is $3,750. Now let’s add all of these basic costs together.
Broodmare- $3,750
Ranch to keep broodmare $2400
Feed for 1 year $4,000
Farrier for 1 year $540
Basic vet care $300
Basic care $250
TOTAL $11,240
So just to have the mare for a year, before an even think about a foal is $11, 240. Now some people will tell you that they do it for a lot less, and I applaud them, but I also ask are you really adding in all of your actual costs? ALL of them? A business isn’t going to just overlook its overhead when calculating profits. Money out the door is money out the door, and lets be honest with horses a lot goes out so lets just be really honest with ourselves about how much that is. And good on those who are able to do it for much cheaper. My horses do admittedly live like royalty as they should.
Ok so now I have the mare and I’ve decided to breed her. Now she was just a $15,000 broodmare, decently bred but the black type (go read my how to survive sales season article to learn about that) and admittedly a little lower down on her pedigree so I’m not looking to breed her to the most expensive stud on the market. For her I’m thinking a nice junior stallion (young and still hasn’t really proven his offspring yet so the fee will be lower). So I go to my good friends at Cedar Ridge Stallion Station and pick out a great match with a stud fee of just $1500. Now let’s get this girl bred! Here’s a pretty average breakdown of what I spend on that
Stud fee $1500 (booking and chute fee are included in this price)
Semen pick up fee $100 ( I live local)
Vet exams and breeding fee $700 (assuming mare catches on the first try and needs no extras)
Medications $200 (I can get lucky and need nothing, or I’ve had mares that this was their monthly expense)
TOTAL $2,500
Now no one tell my investments guys as I definitely lie and tell him I spend almost nothing on breeding (if you’ve ever bred you’re laughing at my lie too). But ok so now we have a mare and she’s out in the pasture and bred and we’re assigning a cost to that of $13,740 for the year it’ll take between breeding her and waiting 340 days for her to foal. And yes I’ve been exceptionally lucky in that my mares typically take on the first try and so are bred and happily sitting in their fields growing a baby pretty quickly. I’ve watched friends struggle and spend tens of thousands on trying to get mares bred, and know many who will have $20,000 invested just in breeding fees over a few years just to get one foal on the ground. But I’m going to thank my lucky breeding stars and for the sake of this article we’ll stick to the nearly $14,000.
Now comes the fun part…. BABY!!!
The sleepless nights on foal watch al become worth it when this precious bundle of legs and fluff hits the ground. But as soon as it does the spending keeps going. 12 hours after being born we have the vet out for a check up, to run an IgG test to make sure antibodies passed from mom to baby, and then we always run plasma for all of our foals. It’s an added expense but worth it when I see how much healthier out foals who get it are and how much nicer they develop.
My average bill? $1000 and worth every penny.
I mean really look at this cutey and his momma!
Now for the sake of keeping this article from being a novel let’s speed up a bit. To get this foal to a point that’ll we’ll sell him as a weanling we’ll have $18,485 invested to have that baby. By the time he/she is a yearling? $22,230
The Legacy Sale (a primarily yearling sale) average for 2025 was $20, 202.76, and this is the sale for some of the top horses in the country.
The reality is that most breeders lose money breeding and raising horses. It is not a profitable business strictly due to the amount of money it costs to do things right. Do some make money at this? Absolutely yes, there are plenty of breeders who have worked out a formula to generally break even or make a profit from breeding, but the reality is that on average most of those breeding do not make money at the end of the day. Why do they do it? Passion for the horse, love of the sport, and the joy of bringing new reining horses into the world.
Training and Showing
As much as I wish that reining horses popped out of the womb fully trained and ready to show, sadly this is not a reality, so much like human children, horses also need to go to school to learn to be productive members of society.
The average reiner is started the beginning of its 2 year old year and shown towards the end of their 3 year old year. Now that 2 years of training does not make a finished horse, that is a started Reiner that is ready to make its first trips into the show pen. A seasoned show horse takes 3-5 years or more to develop.
The cost of that? When I pull my client’s average bill for just training, vet and farrier for a year (assuming no injuries or more expensive veterinary needs)
$20,000/year
and we are one of the more affordable programs.
Now that is just training. Showing? The typical bill my client sees is about $1,000- $1,400 for an affiliate level show, up to $5,000+ for a major event (and that is a very conservative number compared to what some programs charge to show)
So looking at the input costs for an owner who has raised a reining horse up from breeding the mare to showing at a Futurity (assuming 3 affiliate level shows to expose the horse to the show environment, and 1 major event)
Breeding to Yearling- $22,230
2 year old year training- $20,000
3 years old year training and showing- $28,600
Total $70,830
Sticker Shock
Yes I double checked the number above. Yes I also cried a little inside as I thought about how many horses I’ve raised from breeding to showing (horse rule 101: NEVER do the math on how much a horse has actually cost you)
But sadly for my bank account, the number above is indeed a reality, spaced out monthly over the years where you don’t notice it as much until you do indeed run the numbers and sit staring at the calculator questioning all of your life choices. And many owners have much more invested into their horses, some have less. But that $70,000 price tag is a reality for what is invested into the average reining horse from breeding to its first year showing.
Makes that $35,000 finished reining horses into look cheap now doesn’t it?
Sales Price Realities
The old saying goes that “a horse is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it”, and that saying is very true. I may have $70,000 or more wrapped up into a horse and he may only be worth $20,000 or $50,000, he could also be worth $100,000. Even in today’s higher priced market most reining horses do not sell for as much as owners have invested in them. But next time you start shopping for a new reining horse, please appreciate the investment that someone has put into that horse to get it where it is today, and maybe be a little nicer to sellers when asking the price on one.