Wow. Just wow ...
Here is my take on all of this
My Guaranteed Gold *coloured* TB stallion is a wonderful producer of show prospects and I would hold him up against ANY stallion out there as a producer of hunters and event horses, pleasure horses and to a limited and lesser degree - jumpers and dressage horses
When I got a mare that had a race pedigree and had some success as a race mare and a producer, and was aiming for the commercial
*race* market with that foal, never in a million years would I have bred her to Guaranteed Gold with that goal in mind
If my intention was to have some fun - myself - with
*MY* money, I would have done so in a heartbeat, but that was not the intention here
Other Mare Owners have bred their TB mares to GG with the future intention of racing that foal and I am grateful and very interested in seeing how those foals make out and I am also EXTREMELY grateful beyond belief that it will be their dime, and not mine, that will go towards proving or disproving GG on the track ...
I feel that if I had the bizarre idea of promoting GG as *the* sire of top dressage horses, people would truly look at me like I was nuts - compared to the bloodlines and results that the truly top dressage sires produce. I feel that race sires are viewed in the same manner - results and bloodlines and progeny results count for everything and if you want to buck that trend and make people believe that your stallion can succeed against the established "status Quo" then you had better be damned well prepared to dig deep into your own pockets and establish him yourself
I spoke with another coloured breeder last week that is desperate to have someone partner with her on a wildly coloured 2 year old filly she owns and bred. To her credit at least, even though the sire has nothing in the way of commercial attractiveness, through total luck, the first dam has now produced some serious stakes winners in the last 3-4 years with earnings in excess of 1 and 2 M dollars so this filly does have some credibility in that regard but so far she has found no one willing to spend the time and money to get this filly to the track ...
We all have dreams and I know that we all wish we had the $$$ to support those dreams as far as we want to take them, but the reality is that we need to either follow our chosen dreams ourselves with a large enough bankroll to prove the naysayers wrong or we need to determine the niche market for our stallion and offspring where they have a better than average chance of excelling and making a name for themselves and follow that route instead ...
You know I wish you all the best Carolyn and I hope that you are either able to partner with someone who can help you realize your dreams or you are in a position to do so yourself ...