As you may know, horses can’t be sold until they’ve been owned for a minimum amount of time (6 months) or they’ve been “used” 3 times (raced for racehorses, bred for broodmares - though this would get you past the 6-month timeframe anyway).
What do you guys think of this rule? It was added to avoid two things:
cheating by members who might sell a horse to another member for $1 and then sell it back for $50,000 (though this is still possible, it’s just obviously not immediate)
gratuitous “flipping” of horses - you snag a horse for a bargain price of $5k (for whatever reason) and then immediately turn around and sell it for $200k
I’m not that worried about the latter because if the horse is worth 200k and you get it for 5k, then I think you “deserve” the profit. (Plus you’ll pay sales tax on it >:D)
The former does still worry me, which is why I haven’t taken the rule out. Before I contemplate doing so (and how best to go about it), I figured I’d ask you guys what you thought. Does this rule bother you? Do you like it?
Hopefully, everybody who participates in FF are of high integrity so that the former would never happen and, as you say, if somebody is lucky enough to get a horse for $5k and then resell it for $200k, then more power to them (although, if the re-sale happened right away, it might bring the former into question).
I have bought horses For Sale or at Auction and then, after racing them for a while, decided to resell them and, in a few cases, managed to sell them for more than I paid (although I’ve never been lucky enough to sell them for 40 times what I bought them for, LOL).
My opinion:- You have enough more important things that you are concentrating on, there’s no need to stress out about this rule. You know the old adage “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
The reason I bring this up is because I’m finishing up (I hope!) race entry code - the last bit that needs doing is to check the validity of entering claiming races (e.g. can you sell this horse?). It’s fairly basic to add in the code to do the 6 month/3 use check, but if people are adamantly against it, I won’t bother (because I’m lazy ).
(Though, to be frank, I do rather like this rule because I figure if I’m buying a horse it’s because I want to use it, so the only time the rule bothers me personally is when I want to sell a baby and have to wait until it’s 6 months old to do so.)
I have to say this rule does not bother me at all. If I buy a racehorse then I’d keep it for at least 6 months anyway as it takes time to decide if a horse is going to run well for you.
For a broodmare it may be more limiting if you buy her just for the foal she is carying and want to re sell once she has foaled and she does foal within 6 months of purchase. But i don’t think this would happen often.
I’m going to be happy either way, do which ever’s the easiest.
If it’s as basic to code as you indicate then keep the rule. I think it is better to have it than to not have it, although, as I said earlier, I think the integrity of the FF stable-owners is sufficiently high enough to make it not needed to protect against your former original point.
).