seeking a broodmare

[kybred]

I have a small farm in Kentucky. I am interested in finding a good broodmare as a start up for breeding racing stock. Does anyone know of a mare that is currently available? The November breeding stock sale is approaching - a heads up about a good mare would be greatly appreciated. I see far too many start up farms go belly up, and would benefit from the great pool of knowledge in this forum. I have so much more to learn; most of which will come from experience and expertise advice.

[Hold Your Peace]

You didn't mention a price range so I'll assume it's unlimited.

You might pick up Hip 188 in the Fasig Tipton November sale.

She didn't produce a foal this year and won't produce a foal next year as she's not currently pregnant, but hopefully that's not a sign of things to come as she's only 12.

Breed her to Smart Strike and you'll get a foal bred on the same cross as Horse Of The Year Curlin (by Smart Strike out of a Deputy Minister mare).

That should get you started.

Or if you do have a price range in mind both for a mare and for stallions you might be breeding to next year folks could probably come up with some other options for you.

[CS]

I have a small farm in Kentucky. I am interested in finding a good broodmare as a start up for breeding racing stock. Does anyone know of a mare that is currently available? The November breeding stock sale is approaching - a heads up about a good mare would be greatly appreciated. I see far too many start up farms go belly up, and would benefit from the great pool of knowledge in this forum. I have so much more to learn; most of which will come from experience and expertise advice.

Advice is worth exactly what you pay for it. You already acknowledge the fact that you have seen "far too many start up farms go belly up" so why seek free advice from strangers on an internet forum? No offence to the members here, but most are not in the KY market. And - what is the incentive for those that are experieced enough to help to want to offer you free advice that they would otherwise be paid to render?

My best advice to you is to get yourself a qualified bloostock agent to help in your purchase.

[Bill from WA]

Good advice CS.

Bill

[LB]

The November sales catalogues (Fasig Tipton and Keeneland) are both absolutely filled with good mares. In this economic climate, it's a great time to be buying. So without having any idea what you're looking for, it would be impossible to make any suggestions.

As was pointed out above, taking advice over the internet from people, most of whom have never even been to Kentucky, is a very risky way to get started. Perhaps you'd be better off watching and learning in November, and then buying a mare in January?

[chicago78]

There are tons of good mares, but I would make sure that if you're getting started, to at least buy one that is in foal. That way you can decide whether to race the baby or try to recoup some of your investment by selling it as a weanling. The November sale has mares to fit any budget, so you won't have any trouble finding one there.

[kimberley mine]

Before you go to the bloodstock advisor, I suggest you ask yourself these questions:

1. What is your breeding goal? If you want a good hard-knocking horse to race for fun, you'll look for a different kind of mare (who is IFT a different kind of stallion) than if you're looking to sell yearlings commercially.

2. What is your track target? If you really like turf racing, for instance, and would like a horse who runs primarily on the lawn, you'll look for a different kind of mare than if you're interested in a horse who will run primarily on dirt.

3. Know your breeder's award program inside and out. Are you willing to consider foaling out in another state if the breeder's award program and statebred racing program suits your breeding program better than foaling out in Kentucky?

4. Expect to spend a lot of time doing research. A mare may look good on paper, but if she doesn't suit your breeding program, you want to know that ahead of time.

[Hold Your Peace]

I have a mare who is a half-sister to a yearling Godolphin paid more than $5.4 million for. And I could let her go for say 1/10 of that = $540,000.

Or I have another mare who is a half-sister to a 2yo Godolphin paid $900,000 for. And I could also let her go 1/10 of that - $90,000.

* Horse Trader Alert *

Don't let anybody say I didn't try to "help".

[hpkingjr]

One of the first mistakes we made was to only have one mare and hence one foal. A foal raised by itself is a spoiled nervous weakling many times.The foal needs exercise and competition from other foals. By itself it doesn't have the life experiences to make a good horse (my opinion).

If you start with a pregnant mare , buy two mares or buy or borrow a weanling from another farm. Horses need to be horses first, racehorses second.

[fastappy]

Here is some free advice that I find very valueable. Sorry, I didn't have a link!

Bang for Your Buck
The manager of one of America's top Thoroughbred farms discussed selection of breeding stock at a CTBA seminar
by Rick Simon
from THE THOROUGHBRED OF CALIFORNIA, November 1996

Pedigree, Performance and Conformation.

"Any discussion of breeding stock comes down to those three ingredients," noted Dan Rosenberg, manager of Three Chimneys Farm in Midway, Ky., one of America's most successful Thoroughbred nurseries. 'What we're always trying to do in selecting mares, stallions or matings is to try to balance these elements."

Rosenberg was the keynote speaker at a seminar on Selection of Breeding Stock held at Harris Farms in Coalinga, Calif., on Sept. 28. The seminar was sponsored by the California Thoroughbred Breeders Association, with funding assistance from the Oak Tree Racing Association.

Of course, everyone wants as much pedigree, performance and conformation as possible in breeding stock, but Rosenberg noted that the few mares who are strong in all three areas cost too much for most breeders to afford them.

"The problem is to get the most bang for your buck," he suggested. "Always buy as much pedigree, as much performance and as good conformation as you can possibly afford." In considering pedigrees, Rosenberg believes in the adage, "The family is stronger than the individual."

"Good families sometimes go quiet for a couple of generations," he said, "but they always seem to come back. If I have to sacrifice a strong family close up, I do want the mare to trace back to a very strong foundation broodmare. When the first and second dams are a little weak, it is also important to me to look at the broodmare sires of these first two dams.

"I'm not particularly interested in a mare by an unsuccessful stallion out of an unsuccessful mare who is by an unsuccessful stallion, no matter who the third or fourth dam is. This is not necessarily a matter of a family having gone quiet, but possibly a matter of a family having been poisoned."

While he will go back a few generations to find strong family connections, Rosenberg doesn't want to have to search too far back to find top racing performance. He wants performance "up as close as I can possibly afford." He advises avoiding mares and stallions who had a lot of chances and couldn't win.

'What we have selected for in Thoroughbred breeding for 250 years is not speed or a physical type," he reasoned. "It is an innate desire to win, and it is competitiveness and courage and grit. A horse with plenty of opportunities to win that doesn't win maybe didn't want to win badly enough.

"If I can't buy a mare with top performance, I want to find a mare who showed some real ability," he said.

Rosenberg told breeders and potential breeders in his audience to do their homework in studying a horse's racing record. For example, find out how many starts the horse had and against what kind of company and where. If possible, talk to the owner, trainer and jockey about the horse.

"Pretty is as pretty does," Rosenberg offered, as he turned his attention to conformation. "I have to like a winner of a good race, no matter what the horse looks like."

He told a story about the Tartan Farms dispersal several years ago, when "the smartest people in the world" were shopping and saying, "Have you ever seen such a bunch of crooked mares?"

"The fact is every one of those mares ran a hole in the wind and every one of those mares produced stakes winners," Rosenberg said. 'to me, that's the model."

But Rosenberg does look for some conformation traits when selecting broodmares. He likes a "big and roomy mare" who can carry a big foal, because he feels a small mare cannot develop a good foal in utero.

"I do think a good shoulder and balance are important," he continued. "I don't mind if the knees are a liffle offset or the legs toe in or toe out to some degree, within reason. I do not want mares who are back at the knees or with bad feet. I have found that bad feet are highly inheritable."

Rosenberg says another important consideration is the age of the mare. In an older mare, there is additional information available ‹ her produce record. 'That's probably the best measure," he said.

However, he noted there is a bias in the marketplace against foals of older mares, because statistics show older mares produce a lower percentage of superior runners than younger mares do. Rosenberg believes those statistics are skewed.

"I find, in general, that young mares are bred to proven stallions to get them off to a good start, and older mares are bred to unproven stallions to get the stallions off to a good start," he said. "Since most unproven stallions don't make the grade, younger mares have a far greater opportunity to come up with a good racehorse than older mares.

"It's hard for me to imagine a mare's genetic potential can change with age," he continued. "Fertility is another story. There is ample evidence that once a mare gets past 17 or 18 years of age, her fertility declines dramatically."

Rosenberg noted that people looking to get a big bang for their buck sometimes purchase an older mare and hope they get a filly. He thinks that can be a good way to go, but cautions that the breeder may not get many chances with an older mare.

The Three Chimneys manager also recommends "ruthless culling" as part of the on-going selection process.

"It is important to look at your broodmares every year and determine which ones are performing up to expectations and which ones are not," he advised. "As breeders, we are constantly trying to move the bottom out and raise the level."

That is another reason Rosenberg likes to breed young mares to proven sires.

"If I have bred my mare to an unproven stallion and the first two or three foals don't run, I don't know if I want to get rid of this mare or not," he noted. "If I breed her to a horse I know gets runners and she still can't get a runner, it does tell me something about her."

Rosenberg said the same principles he applies to selecting mares apply to selecting stallions, although he puts some added emphasis on pedigree. "A stallion with a great race record and a very weak pedigree has far less chance of siring good racehorses consistently than a good racehorse with a great pedigree," he said. "I would prefer a stallion be a graded stakes winner, but if not, I would want to have a very good idea of what kind of ability he had. A royally bred full brother to a champion that ran 10 times and couldn't win does not interest me. A fulL brother to a champion who broke his maiden his first time out and never ran again might interest me."

Rosenberg also considers a stallion's 2-year-old record.

"It does seem to be important that he at least was precocious enough to get to the racetrack at 2 and to win," he maintained.

Another thing he considers when selecting a stallion is the number of mares mated to the stud, which he feels is particularly important from his position as a market breeder.

"I need to have enough foals by that stallion out on the racetrack competing to give him an opportunity to come up with a good one and for him to be in the public eye," Rosenberg said. 'VVith stallions that have very small books, you are fighting an uphill battle as a breeder."

As with mares, Rosenberg tends to play down minor conformation flaws in stallions and feels the importance of a stallion's conformation relates more to planning which mares will be bred to him than whether he likes him.

"If he can get runners, I like him," he said. "Once a horse is a proven sire, buyers tend to forgive conformation flaws that they expect to see by that sire."

He recalled an instance at a Keeneland sale when a prominent California owner and trainer were looking at a Mr. Prospector colt.

"You know, I've looked at every Mr. Prospector in this sale, and they're all crooked," the owner said.

"Yeah, but they limp fast," the trainer responded.

In planning matings, Rosenberg recommends breeding strength to strength and avoiding breeding a weakness to a weakness.

"This pertains not only to conformation traits but to racing characteristics and temperament," he said. He feels breeders make a fundamental mistake when they try to compensate for a characteristic of a horse by breeding it to a horse with an opposite characteristic.

"I remember in high school biology learning about Gregor Mendel, the father of genetics," Rosenberg said. "He bred tall peas to short peas, and he didn't get any medium peas. You either get tall or short; that's the way genetics works.

"But I find people who have a great big mare and breed her to a tiny horse thinking they are going to get an average size foal, or they've got this tiny mare and want to breed her to a stallion 17 hands to breed some size into her," he said, carrying the pea analogy to horse breeding. "I don't find it works that way at all.

"The same with speed and stamina. You have a mare that was really quick at five furlongs and breed her to a horse that could run a mile and a half, and you think you will get a horse that can run a mile. I think what you get is something that can't run at all."

Rosenberg also points out that mating two horses with similar conformation characteristics will produce more consistent conformation results.

"You have a mare who presumably is a model of what you are trying to accomplish," he said. "If you breed her to a widely divergent type of horse, sometimes you are going to get what he looks like, sometimes you are going to get what she looks like. It's always a guessing game and the odds are always against you, but if you breed like to like, you narrow that range and are more likely to get what you are looking for."

Rosenberg says there are rare stallions and mares who are strong enough to overcome and improve whatever they are bred to, but pointed out, "Both parents contribute 50 percent of the genetic material. Putting too much emphasis on either the sire or the dam is probably a mistake."

In the end, Rosenberg notes, no matter how careful and selective a breeder is, the odds are against making a profit in the marketplace or making the grade on the racetrack.

"We just hope that one day we can breed one or sell one or race one that makes up for all the others," he concluded. "But this is a wonderful challenge. It is a great combination of art and science. You have to control all the factors you can, and in the end, you just go with you gut feeling and hope you have guessed right enough of the time to get a little bit lucky.

"You have to love this to do it. You have to be at least half crazy, and probably all the way crazy helps, to persevere.




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The Idea Is Excellence

[freshman]

"I remember in high school biology learning about Gregor Mendel, the father of genetics," Rosenberg said. "He bred tall peas to short peas, and he didn't get any medium peas. You either get tall or short; that's the way genetics works.

Nice to hear someone articulate this phenomenon. It's a common fallacy.

[kybred]

I am fortunate to have received such sound advice coming from the voices of experience. hpkingjr, I would have made this same mistake, thank you for your insight. And, fastappy, you have placed the logistics right in my lap. via Dan Rosenberg's "Pedigree, Performance, Conformation". As a molecular biologist I can truly appreciate the reference made to Mendelian Genetics. One can predict with a degree of certainty, what alleles a foal will carry, based on whether the parents are homozygous or heterozygous for a particular gene.
All said, I will be wise to employ an agent, in my effort to succeed. I have made many costly mistakes, and obtaining the "right mare" may be further in the future than I would have liked. In the meantime, I will heed your advice and attend the sales, study the results, and maybe, with the economy the way it is, I may get lucky. I just need to better my odds!
I will continue learning from you all, as well. Thank you.

[Keith]

A strong female family and a good race record would be where I would start and of course conformation.

Here is a few examples of some nice mares

1. Better Than Honour by Deputy Minister-Blush With Pride by Blushing Groom. Grade II winner of Demoiselle S. and she is the dam of Rags To Riches, Jazil, and Casino Drive.

2. Primal Force by Blushing Groom-Prime Prospect by Mr. Prospector 4 wins in 8 starts at 3,$74,251, and she is the dam of Awesome Again and Macho Uno

3. Set Them Free by Stop The Music-Valseuse by Tyrant 5 wins at 2, and 4,$173,275, Pasadena S.,Debutatnte Breeder's Cup S., Eloquent H.,Very Subtle H., and she is the dam of Giacomo and Tiago

4. Baby Zip by Relaunch-Thirty Zip by Tri Jet, 4 wins at 2 and 3,$60,395, Kattegat's Pride H., and she is the dam of Ghostzapper and City Zip

5. Miesque by Nureyev-Pasadoble by Prove Out Winner of Breeder's Cup Mile twice and dam of Kingmambo,East Of The Moon, Miesque's Son,and Mingun.

6. Myth To Reality by Sadler's Wells-Millieme by Mill Reef 4x4 Lalun She is the dam of Divine Proportions and Whipper

7. North Of Eden by Northfields-Tree Of Knowledge by Sassafras placed at 3 and dam of Paradise Creek, Forbidden Apple, Wild Event, and Paradise River who also placed at 3 and Padise River is the dam of David Junior.

8. Weekend Surprise by Secretariat-Lassie Dear by Buckpasser Multiple Grade III winner and 2x4 Somethingroyal She is the dam of A.P. Indy, Summer Squall,Welcome Surprise, Honor Grades, and Weekend In Seattle the dam of Mambo in Seattle

Mares line bred on great mares and outcrossed to another stallion seems to do well

Weekend Surprise 2x4 Somethingroyal
My Charmer 4x4 Baby League
Myth To Reality 4x4 Lalun
Fleur 4x5 Flambino
Relaxing 4x4 La Troienne
Lavendula 3x4 Canterbury Pilgrim
Lady Angela 4x4 Canterbury Pilgrim

I like stallions who produce great race mares because some go on to become good broodmare sires as Seeking The Gold and Deputy Minister has had some very good race mares. I think Lemon Drop Kid could go on to be a successful broodmare sire but I could be wrong because breeding is a gamble and to many of us overpay for hype and potential when we should be paying the big bucks for a proven stallion and proven broodmares but if you don't have the money than why not take a chance on a nice race mare with a lesser pedigree and breed to a proven stallion in the $5,000 to $7,500 price range rather than breeding a poor running well bred mare to an unproven stallion with popular bloodlines. How many people are going to be gambling on unproven horses after taking a beating in the stock market? Shouldn't a horse have to prove themselves to merit such a high stud fee? People who buy and breed high dollar horses most often have made their fortunes in some other profession. Now is the time to get some very nice mares for little money and why hold on to mediocre mares when you can upgrade your broodmare band drastically while the market is down. Just a thought

Keith