I took some friends to the horse auction in Jamesport today. We stayed for about 5 hours. There was only one team of draft horses, a team of 7 and 8 year old black Percheron geldings, about 18 hh, and they sold for $ 3500 per head. I had kind of expected that. But I was totally surprised when buggy horses, almost all of them Standardbreds, were sold: Everyone I saw during that time frame sold for over $ 1500 , a lot of them way over $ 2500 , and a few over $ 4000. The highest one that I saw was around $ 7000. The buyers were overwhelmingly Amish!!
On the quaint side, very often a horse was recommended as one that " the wife can drive", some were announced as " not for the wife".