No I am not kidding you. 600,000 Euros is the sum that someone paid to Performance Sales International last December for a 4 year old horse.
When I read that, it got me thinking a bit about taking the horse on from a riders perspective. What I mean is, if someone came upto me and said "Right, I've got a great horse here, he's 4 years old, a dead cert to be a future champion in dressage/showjumping and I want you to ride him. Oh yes, by the way, he cost me 600,000 Euros." I am not sure that I would be able to cope with the pressure of then bringing that horse on to the very top level it could reach in it's career. I would be scared stiff of injuring it in training. OK, so the price of the horse isn't going to affect the vet's bill, but, as an owner, the last thing you want when you have just spent that sort of money, is the horse to get an injury. No, as an owner who has just spent the price of a fair-sized house on this little, olympic prospect, you want it out there competing, starting to earn some of the initial outlay back. in this case, the owner may never actually make a profit on the horse, because it's a gelding, so there's nothing coming in on the breeding side. Actually, it's probably for the best that it IS a gelding - can you imagine what it would have cost if it had been a stallion?