Good luck selling and being "firm" on a price this time of year.  I have seen folks with some really good stock giving them away.  I am actually in the market up here in Michigan for a good well broke Quarter Pony, POA, or small quarter horse or small Paint for a beginner rider.  We are being super picky because the market is VERY saturated.  Definitely a buyers market.  So I suggest not being "too firm" unless you are not serious about selling.

Too many overbred stallions and mares you mean.  There are some nice stock out there going for super low prices.  I was apalled at the last registered sale.  Usually the high end horse is around 20k or more, this year it was a paltry 7500.  That is ridiculous!  The market is saturated, at least up north it is.  I laugh at the prices on dreamhorse.com and equine.com, I check back a month or so and the same horses are still listed on there! 

If the market is so good in the south maybe we out to take some horses down there!

My horse is one that is listed on Dreamhorse,and he is worth every penny of what we're asking for him ($3500) and this is considered a fair price for a safe,gentle well bred gaited horse.

A paltry $7500 would be considered high end for a beginning show horse and probably too much for a nicely trained trail mount in our particular breed.

20K seems pretty ridiculous to me.Maybe that is why the market is a little better down south,altho it isn't great,either.

A well bred Paint or Quarter horse that is well started should bring good money, but the market is so saturated with over production of "good bloodlines" that it is effecting the market.  I can't tell you how many Lena, Doc Bar, Whiz, Lark, Pine, bred horses are out there, too many to count.  They have over marketed alot of these stallions, breeding to mediocre mares to make a buck.  Majority of the horses I saw at the slaughter plant in Illinois were mostly quarters, paints, and thoroughbreds.  One thing I have noticed is that gaited horses are holding their value to a degree if they are well trained, but I am noticing folks hanging onto their well bred gaiters.  They also don't have the numbers in their registries like the stock and hot bloods do (TB & Arabians).  

The market is just responding to the demand. Good,solid,winning show horses will alway command respectable prices. The demand in the arabian world is toward the english horses, much slower in the western/hunt horses since more horses will make a western/hunt horse,few have the talent to be top english horses.

A horse is only worth what someone else is willing to pay for it. There are plenty of horses in the 2000-5000 range that you can be a very picky buyer. Why buy across the country for a 2500 horse when there is one probably in your area?

I have two very nice arabians but so do alot of other people. I have to be realistic when pricing them. Naturally, I think they are priceless but not so much for someone else who might want to buy them.