Horse-brokering business is thriving in Millbrook

MILLBROOK —  Following a long and storied history of buying and selling horses, formidable horseman David Hopper has recently relocated to Winley Farm, finding that downscaling his specialized business and transferring aspects of his responsibilities to his longtime assistant, Katie Lynch, has been the correct move.

His former business location along Leedsville Road in Amenia, Longreen Farm, served the enterprise well since he moved the business there in 1970 from Lakeville, having grown the Amenia property over several years to offer 30 stalls and an indoor arena that was added in 1974.

The Leedsville Road farm has been recently purchased by Hope Rising Farm and is providing an expanded space for its growing therapeutic equestrian program.

During an interview on Thursday, Oct. 5, Hopper and Lynch described history, philosophy, and the business of buying and selling champion horses to a worldwide equestrian community.

Beginning with the historical aspects, Hopper said that through the early 1980s, close to 100 Thoroughbreds were being sold each year at Longreen Farm. His business partner at Longreen Farm, the late Ira Shulman, was finding horses at racetracks in Arizona and the American Southwest and sending them back east to Hopper.

In 1983 Hopper started going to Europe to buy horses, first to Denmark, and then to Holland. He said that he continues to source most of his horses in Holland through contacts he made in those early years.

In 1993, Hopper and Shulman had split the business and Hopper began to broker horses under the business name of David Hopper Inc. Through the early 2000s, Hopper was selling about 50-60 Warmblood horses every year. Horses he has sold have competed at the Olympics, World Championships, and the Pan American Games in all three major disciplines with good results.

“It was always to learn from David,” Lynch recalled, noting that she first joined the business in 2016, fully committed to the mentored experience. She has been managing the business for the past six years, always learning and supporting day-to-day operations.

Lynch’s day-to-day work is to train the horses for competition, amateur or professional. She described their sale horses as the types best suited to the show jumping, hunter, equitation, or eventing dressage equestrian competitions. 

“I’ve worked for a lot of good horsemen over the years, but David has a particular kind of genius for what we do,” Lynch said. “He can help a horse learn how to think,” an essential trait in competition.

That gentle temperament and ability to learn are keys to selecting horses, both Hopper and Lynch explained about the acquisition process. Additionally, each horse under consideration is thoroughly radiographed and clinically evaluated by veterinarians before purchase.

“The basics are hard; they are what you need to practice the most,” Lynch said of the patient process of training a horse to compete.

“I care about the horses’ well-being, day to day,” Hopper said, also important to solid training.

“I still enjoy training horses as much as I did when I was a teenager. I’ve been buying and selling horses since I was 16 and living in Lakeville, Connecticut. I’m turning 80 next month,” Hopper said.

Hopper said that he used to have a large operation, selling 60 to 100 horses each year. Now his horses number six or seven being trained at any one time, and he sells about 20 to 30 horses annually. He spoke about diminishing returns when there are too many horses to be tended to.

Hopper said, “It’s important to maximize the profit.” “We are looking to stay small and have a good crew.” The business presently has three staff members.

He will often buy horses as foals and have them shipped to the U.S. when they are grown, Hopper said. When they are young, they are more affordable, although untrained. It can cost as much as $8,000 to transport a horse by air to the U.S., he noted.