Check out this pedigree

[BELLARINA]

Anyone from Florida? What is your opinion on Formal Dinner?
I think I am gonna breed my mare, Lane cruiser to him and the foal will sell in LA as a yearling.
What do you think of this pedigree? Would you buy this foal assuming it looks good?
http://www.pedigreequery.com/index.php? ... NE+CRUISER

[larrygene]

I am not from FL but I happen to like Formal Dinner. He is now 20 yrs old and his stud fee is advertised at $5K. His yearlings avg. $11.4K. It will cost you another $2K -$3K of expenses of board,vet, transportation, etc. So now you have $7K to $8K minimum plus a year of upkeep at home which will send the price over $10K. Not only the cost but the offspring has in my opinion way too much Hoist the Flag 3x3 inbreeding. That could produce one bad attitude!!! And I doubt in LA the foal would bring what you will have in it. JMO

God, there are enough stallions in LA to choose from, why go out of state??? Breed to someone the locals know. You will probably get a better price and not incur all that expense.

Best of Luck,
Larrygene

[casallc]

BELLARINA:

I think you just got some good advice. If you have that much extra money to throw around, throw some my way. I can always use more.

[madelyn]

Perhaps you might spend some time ANALYZING the results of LA sales and then set your mark, expense-wise, accordingly. Breed what the market wants and project to spend below what the market pays. Trying to do otherwise (ie: blow a hole in the market) will usually backfire and the hole will be blown in your own pocket.

[BELLARINA]

I would not go to Formal Dinner if I was paying 5k in stud fees...nope. The farm gave me a great deal! I could not breed to most stallions here locally in the state for the price on the contract.
My thinking was....If I take my foal to a yearling sale and if the foal is by Ide, Osidy, Leestown, Afternoon Delights or any other stallion with great numbers, my foal will have to compete with other foals by that sire For example, The 2 y.o. trinings sale @ Evangeline Downs....
12 Leestown to choose from, 5 Afternoon Del. to choose from, 5 Easyfromthegitgo....do you see where I don't want to have to compete, unless I have a way hot mare and at this moment I don't own any Derby producers (yet).
I was trying to think outside the box. Looking at sales results scares us all and even a great sire can't get you a high bidder if there are tons of other offspring by the same sire to choose from. The Oct. Monroe sale had 14 Afternoon Delights, 13 Ide's, 12 Storm Day.
Is my thinking way off track?
Did anyone see the pedigree this foal would have?

[madelyn]

3x3 Hoist The Flag would set me running in the opposite direction, so no I would not consider buying it (looks aside).

Regarding sales, having a "one off" is not usually a good thing. Having one of three or four can be great, if you happen to have the best looking of them.

[larrygene]

Listen to Madelyn if you are not going to take my advice!!!!

[DDT]

BELLARINA

I have looked at this for a couple of days and for the life of me I cannot understand why you would want to breed to Formal Dinner, the match brings nothing spectacular, in my opinion. If I owned the mare I would look to Dove Hunt in Texas, he is the sire of stakes placed La Joyeria, out of a full sister to your mare. I would also look at Open Forum, but, if I was in LA, and I owned this mare I would take her to Storm Day if they were a good physical match. This would give you 3X5 to Golden Trail and an RF with the half sisters Kelley's Day and On The Trail, in addition, 4X5 to Ribot and 5X5 to Bold Ruler.

DDT

[BELLARINA]

Thank you all so much for your opinions and input, I highly value your time and knowledge! I will take into consideration all your thoughts when making my mating decision.

[Sock Monkey]

It will cost you another $2K -$3K of expenses of board,vet, transportation, etc.

Larry, I'm sorry to break out my nitpicker here, but I think you can get this done a lot cheaper, especially on an open mare. Ocala isn't that far - she could do a breed and return with just an overnight stay and only be out gas money and a hotel room. I did just that the other day with a mare going to Ocala - it was a long trip, but the cost wasn't bad at all.

[BELLARINA]

I found a shipper to do a roundtrip for $600. and they have excellent equipment and references.
Anyone need to put a mare going to Ocala on the trailer?

[geowarrior]

Excuse my ignorance, but is it 3x3 in general that people don't like, or is it 3x3 Hoist the Flag specifically? If it's Hoist the Flag can someone explain why? I've never read anything about inbreeding to Hoist the Flag.

[larrygene]

geo, HTF was known to have a nasty disposition and sometimes to pass it along to his offspring. 3x3 seems a little too close with the chance of that nasty disposition showing up. JMO

[BELLARINA]

Geo-
I don't believe that HTF inbreeding is bad or will give to ill tempered horse. The reason I say this is because I have handled many HTF inbred foals and stallion by HTF himself....very sweet! Not at all like some of the cats as in Storm Cats blood line.
So I called a friend who owns one of the leading TB farms here in LA, he stood a HTF son for like 20 years at stud and he said that was crazy.
IMO....I don't think that matters.

[geowarrior]

Ah, well thank you larrygene. I hadn't heard this about Hoist The Flag.