It is December, the letter to Father Christmas has one word on it, and you have started looking at adverts after the children are in bed. How much does a pony cost turns out to be two questions: what you pay the seller once, and what you pay everyone else every month for the next ten or twenty years.
This is for the parent buying a child's first pony. It covers what published figures exist for the price, why the pony a young rider needs is rarely the cheap one, which running costs do not shrink with the animal, the laminitis risk that comes with many native ponies, outgrowing, and what the welfare charities say about a pony as a present.
How much does a pony cost to buy
Less than a horse, on average, in the one country where we found a national survey of what buyers paid, and that average is the least useful number in this article. The French national horse institute, the IFCE, reported in 2018 that half of the ponies bought for competition cost under €3,000, and that a leisure pony of a recognised breed averaged €1,300 to €1,700 against €2,300 to €3,000 for a riding horse. A pony with no recorded breeding averaged under €900. Those are French figures, now several years old.
Look at ponies that can actually do a job and the gap closes. At the Hanoverian studbook's Verden auction of July 2025, 37 riding horses sold at an average of €16,810.81. At a German riding-pony auction that November, 15 ponies sold at an average of €16,700, according to the auction house's press release as published by reitturniere.de, which does not say whether the prices are net.
| Sale | Animals sold | Average price |
|---|---|---|
| Riding horses, Verden, 12 July 2025 | 37 | €16,810.81 |
| Riding ponies, Ponyforum, November 2025 | 15 | €16,700 |
Two small auctions of young sport-bred animals in one country do not tell you what a family pony costs, and we would not quote them as a pony price. They show something narrower: the €110.81 between those averages is not a discount for size. So the honest answer to how much is a pony depends on what it can do, the same way it does for a horse, and the factors are the ones in how much a horse costs to buy. We found no American body that publishes pony prices at all.
Why the pony a child needs is the expensive one
The advice on this is old and consistent. Utah State University's guide to buying a first horse says a young, inexperienced rider should never be paired with a young, inexperienced animal, and puts it as a rule: the younger the child, the older the horse. Age, schooling, a quiet temperament and a clean history are exactly the things a price is made of, so the pony that suits a seven-year-old sits towards the top of what ponies cost, not the bottom.
Small and sweet is not the same as safe. The Welsh Pony and Cob Society's own standard describes the Welsh Mountain Pony as "hardy, spirited and pony-like", so read the advert for one of the Welsh ponies for sale for its schooling and its age, not its breed. Some breeds buy you time instead: the Haflinger's British society breeds for a horse used "by children and adults", and the US Icelandic association says the Icelandic horse is suitable for both. A Haflinger a parent can also ride is outgrown more slowly than a 12-hand pony.
At the very bottom of the market the cost of a pony is not much money at all. In December 2015 an RSPCA inspector in Wales was quoted by Horse & Hound as saying that ponies bought as presents could cost as little as £10, and that their new owners often had neither the money nor the facilities to keep them. If budget is the issue, a charity rehoming is the honest cheap route: the RSPCA's rehoming fees start at around £150 for a Shetland, as listed when we checked in October 2026.
The running costs do not shrink with the pony
This is the part of buying a pony that surprises parents. The RSPCA's guide to buying "a horse or pony" gives one set of running costs for both: around £35 to £50 a month for vet-fee insurance, up to £80 every six to eight weeks for the farrier, and livery anywhere from about £80 to £900 a month. The British Horse Society's cost guide prices a trim, a set of shoes and a dental visit without any distinction by height.
The bills that come per visit are charged per animal: the farrier, the vet's call-out, the vaccinations, the dentist. The field or stable has to exist whatever the size of the occupant. Feed is the one line that does scale, because horses and ponies eat roughly 2% of their bodyweight a day, though a native pony at risk of laminitis needs its intake managed, as the next section explains.
We have covered each line elsewhere and will not repeat the figures: the monthly bill, livery and boarding, and the farrier. Read them with a pony in mind and almost nothing gets smaller.
Laminitis and the native pony
Laminitis is the painful inflammation inside the hoof that ponies are known for, and the evidence backs the reputation. A British study that followed 1,070 horses and ponies between 2014 and 2016 found that native pony breeds, mainly Welsh, Connemara, New Forest and Shetland ponies and their crosses, had almost twice the rate of laminitis of all other breeds combined (a hazard ratio of 1.9). In the same group, weight gain and a previous episode, especially one never seen by a vet, raised the risk further. Laminitis turned up all year round, with no real difference between the seasons, so it is not only a spring-grass problem.
Another UK study recruited 446 ponies aged seven or over that had never had laminitis. 72.2% were overweight or obese, and 9.9% developed laminitis within three years. And it is not a minor complaint: in the 2014–2016 cohort, laminitis was the most often reported health reason behind the decision to put a horse or pony down, a factor in 25% of the euthanasias recorded.
For a buyer this means two things. Ask the seller directly about any previous laminitis and write the answer down, and have the vet look for it at the pre-purchase vetting. After that, grazing, weight and any testing are decisions for your vet, not for this article. A pony that looks well covered in its advert photographs may already be carrying the weight that second study measured.
Outgrowing, and what happens to the pony afterwards
Children grow and ponies do not. RSPCA Australia, in its advice on when to buy a pony for a child, notes that children grow out of ponies quite quickly, and that ponies moved on from family to family face stress, behavioural problems and a high risk of laminitis with owners who do not yet recognise it.
The pony will usually outlast the phase. In France's national records of deaths, ponies had a median age at death of 16.9 years against 14.3 for riding horses; our piece on how long horses live sets out the evidence. Decide before you buy what happens when your child is too big: sell, loan the pony on to another family, or keep it. Each is a cost you are taking on now.
A pony for Christmas
The welfare charities' advice runs directly against the surprise pony. In December 2015 the RSPCA in Wales warned against buying horses or ponies as Christmas presents without thinking carefully about the future, and asked buyers to consider whether the recipient had the time and money to care for the animal every day for the next ten to twenty years. RSPCA Australia's advice is to buy as late as possible, once the whole family's commitment is certain, because it is irresponsible to take on a pony on a whim.
The same RSPCA Australia advice gives the alternatives: lessons at a good riding school first, then sharing or loaning a pony before buying one, which tests the commitment with less money and a shorter promise at stake. We explain how those arrangements work in loaning or sharing a horse. A block of riding lessons in an envelope still makes a good present, and so does the promise of a search together in the spring.
Where we fit
Hoofine cannot tell you what a particular pony is worth, and no website can tell you whether it suits your child. What it can do is let you compare ponies of the same height and type on the horses for sale, describe the quiet, experienced pony you need on the Wanted board so that owners whose children have outgrown theirs can find you, and point you to vets for the vetting. The trial ride and the vet decide the rest.
