i appreciate it greatly that a stallion owner is so honest. i wish they all would do it.
bloodlines and pedigree is one thing - PRODUCTION however a completely different thing. something that seems to be gotten mixed up by some posters, may i assume?
if blue horse feels they have seen a suffient number of foals from the first crop in order to judge the way they do i’ld consider this a brave and very outspoken statement that requires respect.
usually some fifty foals or so on the ground are widely sufficient to judge a stallions production with respect to exterieur (here we speak of 131). thus, i’ld assume they know what they are talking about and decided to prevent further breeders from risking more “potential damage”?
good for them and all their future breeders!
basically, exactly the same conclusions are made by any stallion owner overhere, too, all the time, every year, with any other (new or not so new) stallion.
what happens here however is that they don’t SAY it - what they do instead is SELL the stallion (often guess where?). as out of side is out ouf mind.
does that do any good to the breed or the breeders?
…
noone speaks about it, the public is not even AWARE of it, yet, existing breeders are damaged, too.
is that a better way to deal with it?
certainly not.
but it is common sense.
thus, i don’t quiet understand the negative sentiment this issue is being discussed with here?
the risk of recieving a suboptimal foal is existing and evident to ANY breeder out there and here no matter WHAT stallion he uses - for those who use new stallions it is always a higher risk.
this is a fact and it doesn’t become any easier to swollow if quality of foals remains UNspoken about at all.
i consider what blue horse does a very reasonable and useful thing to do, specially in a time where a trend to run after new stallions blindly has become a common use.
what needs to be developed is a “new realism” (selfunderstood before marketing stallions became a matter of media&internet) to understand two things:
- breeding a new stallion is always a risk.
- as such, breeding fees for young stallions used to be small in order to enhance breeders to take that risk in the first place. (how it used to be the past - this, however, has nothing to do with the stallion in question, i don’t even know his breeding fee. it is just a note to help explain the general matter.)
- as such, some stud books used to LIMIT young stallions (no matter what pedigree) to a limited number of mares in order to provide for damage control - i wish this mechanism would be applied all over the place MORE, enhanced and conscioulsy. as it is and was a very reasonable and useful habbit in sport horse breeding.
- breeding an old stallion is also a risk.
just that it tends to become a smaller one with every year’s new crop on the ground IF the stallion produces accordingly. exacly the reason why people should go out to foal inspections to get to see the first crops of any given stallions and come up with their own mind to build their conclusions on. if they can’t or don’t want to there is only one thing to deal with the matter:
stay away from nes stallions, stick with the porven ones.
nothing wrong about that and certainly better for the entire breed, too.
if it turns out that any given stallion doesn’t produce within expectations he would be taken o/o breeding any time later, too.
there used to be statements issued by some verbands with respect to why certain stallions were taken o/o business (soundness, character, ridability, lack of performance etc)
… leaving many damaged breeders on the ground, too.
but that is just the way it is.
no such thing like risk free breeding.
however, strong lobbyism these days has it that publishment of such facts doesn’t happen anymore.
stallions of suboptimal production (and there are many…) don’t even get DEapproved by verbands any more for ecxactly those reasons.
breeders are left unaware completely.
is that for the good of the breed?
or the breeder?
certainly not.
but obviously it is widely accepted as a common practice.
thus, if any, it would be appropriate to highly question and discuss common practices of stallion owners world wide whose stallions suddenly disappear from the scene uncommented rather than blaiming one who is brave enough to make a statement like this as early as possibly in order to provide for the only acceptable standard for the good of the breed (and breeders):
damage control and keeping it as small as possible.
i take my hats off to blue horse for their gutts.
respect.
Muddy water disguises many things. I wonder???