With this Stallion Directory in your hands, as a mare owner you must be considering what choices lay ahead for the upcoming breeding season. This is an opportunity to fully evaluate your objectives and to recognize where your choices impact our national standard as a breeding community. Have you reflected over the past breeding season and its outcome? Have you objectively evaluated the quality of your last foal crop and those that came before?

Good breeding requires often making tough and realistic decisions. In order to achieve our goals, we often need to be open to a healthy dose of reality. The most common pitfall for all of us is the “breeder’s trap”…where we continue to breed a beloved mare whose foals continue to bear difficult challenges. If OCD consistently shows up in your program, though you’ve addressed nutrition and perhaps switched stallions time and time again, it is likely time to cull that mare. If the movement of offspring produced out of a particular mare, despite her top titles and individual accomplishments, continues to fall short of what you’re aiming for, she may not be the producer you dreamed of. Has temperament in her offspring consistently been an issue? If the fertility of a mare each season brings frustrations and financial challenges to all involved, is she really worth breeding this year, especially in today’s economic climate?

These may be rather sobering considerations, but breeding can be a risky and difficult equation to begin with. We must work together to optimize the effort that what foals we put on the ground here in North America have the class and quality to stand up to the more global marketplace our sporthorse industry has become. As breeders, we have the obligation to not only meet the local market but to also consider the national standard.

We often hear that buyers head to Europe to find the quality they are looking for. As breeders, we are the sole parties in the position to change this standard. It is often difficult to balance passion and realistic decision making, both of which are rooted in your personal breeding goals. In North America, we have all the same categories of breeders as in Europe. We have breeders who simply breed for personal pleasure and passion; breeders who are professional minded and strive to produce foals that meet the global standards; and breeders who are somewhere in the middle…interested to learn and experience breeding and who have yet to experience enough to know their best choices. It is important that we constantly strive to put the best quality foal on the ground, despite which breeder you are, and that we maintain a local and global awareness with respect to quality. A wise person once said it costs as much to raise an average foal as it does a good one!

It is also important to remember that breeding does not produce immediate success. While it’s critical to objectively evaluate any past breeding results you may have, it is best when you can consider the outcome of a particular combination at four or five years of age in order to truly understand its outcome. The rideability, athleticism, and soundness of that individual will be much more fully realized when developed, even early on, as a riding horse. Keep this in mind as you consider following new breeding trends where the qualities of a stallion’s influence may not yet be known, in addition to that of your mare’s.

While the many considerations of a successful breeding may seem daunting, it can be helpful to take the longview about how to achieve your goal and break down each step. The commitment you are making as a breeder begins with the scrutiny of your own mare and the careful selection of a stallion. Be sure that you feel you are working with a stallion owner who works with you and is committed to your success. Be certain that the quality of the service or frozen semen you receive has guarantees of quality and that you are not buying blindly. It can be expensive to experience this kind of breeding disappointment; protect yourself at the outset.

As you consider how to manage your mare through her pregnancy, consider her nutrition and get expert input on how to manage these needs so that the outcome of her pregnancy is not negatively impacted by lack of proper nutritional management. The mare’s pregnancy must be optimally supported with a careful balance of nutrients and minerals, supporting the foal’s development in utero from conception to birth, and on through its growing years. It can be expensive to overlook this critical area, opening up to all kinds of veterinary bills and disappointments.

As you consider where your mare will foal, be sure that you have experience working for you and that the situation will be healthy, safe, and appropriate for a mare and foal. This cannot be over stressed, as a regular boarding or training facility is all too common of a mare’s foaling place and may truly not be appropriate if the mare/foal cannot be properly separated from the rest of the population. Common disease can and will readily affect both the mare’s pregnancy as well as the newborn, so find an appropriate, safe situation to foal out your investment.

As you consider your foal’s first year of life, who will handle and educate that foal so that its acceptance, trust, and respect for people will be optimized? What will be the foal’s day to day routine, through the hot months of the year, through the colder ones if they occur in your area? How will the foal’s needs be met after weaning? The healthiest environment for a foal is to have peers its own age to grow and develop with, having space and freedom to move about and exercise those developing limbs.

As you consider the growing years, who will provide the handling and education for the youngster as he/she learns about the farrier, veterinarian, and possibly even breed shows? The time invested in raising a youngster with calm, quiet acceptance of these situations will greatly increase its value in our marketplace and the longterm happiness of that horse as an individual.

Lastly, as you consider the starting years for this youngster, the time when he/she is first educated as a riding horse, have you identified your resources for a positive experience and outcome for the youngster you’ve already invested so much into? More and more, professionals are choosing to focus on young horses. Be sure to find an excellent resource for starting your youngsters undersaddle and consider the individual who may be needed next in line as a resource for educating the horse toward its discipline. You may need to find different trainers for different stages, or utilize resources outside your own skills to achieve all these phases of training successfully. It’s a time to think about your longterm goals and not to minimize the investment required in order to meet them.

Clearly, if marketing the foal you produce along the way is a goal, then begin now to understand what it will take to successfully market a youngster. Network with trainers and find local breeders groups that might facilitate this objective.

We can produce and raise quality horses here in North America, but it takes an objective view and true commitment from start to finish. We can change the standards of quality that buyers expect to find in our own country and we will, as we approach breeding with a global standard in mind. We are a nation with great passion and resources; let’s direct them effectively and continue to build our sporthorse industry with quality, integrity, and national pride!