Blue Hors drops Doolittle for poor foals

[Tiki]

Wow, Kareen, sounds just like WalMart over here taking over everything. They build a giant store that sells everything:

• clothing at bargain basement prices, so they drive out the clothing shops
• food, so they compete with the grocers with lower prices
• put in their own drugstore, which not only wipes out the single owner drug stores but also seriously competes with chains - which were the first to damage single owner drug stores
• hardware and tools, so they wipe out all the small hardware stores
• small appliances - same thing
• cheap furniture - etc, etc, etc.

[paintjumper]

how old are his oldest babies?

In my metamorphosis from the American stock breeds, QH and APHA, I have done a LOT of reading and learning about how the WB registries work. In my quest for knowledge, I have attended some inspections as well. My question is how can they (stud farm) know how his babies are going to turn out? They have got to be babies, right?
I have seen a lot of “premium” babies do nothing U/S and I have seen “merit babies” or whatever each registry calls the “lessor” correct ones go on to great careers. If you believe in your mare, which you should, and if she has a Doolittle baby sleeping in front of her while she munches her midnight hay, and it is a carbon copy of that great mare…(and looking into the future crystal ball, that baby does great things…like become a TEAM horse)… how is that bad. That foal carries great bloodlines from mama AND Daddy and is a TEAM competitor. If the reason the stud farm threw all the babies and their owners over the cliff is because he does not “stamp” his foals, as some have suggested, so what! Breed him to great mares, let him bring his bloodlines to the equation.
The babies that are not so great, just like every stallion in the world has on occasion, let them filter out as all the other babies in the world do.
It will be interesting to watch these babies’ futures… I for one, as a stallion owner for more than 25+ years, think this stinks… and would NEVER do this to a person that chose one of my stallions, over the 1000 others being offered. I consider those foals produced by one of my boys, to be an extension of my farm. Our “contract” is not over with a call from the vet that the mare is in foal. I want to do EVERYTHING possible to make that foal and his new owner a success.
Don’t get me wrong, there is NOTHING wrong with the truth, a genetic defect or some conformational issue that renders the foal unusable for sport, (think the QH’s Impressive or Poco Bueno) needs to be revealed, but not some flimsy excuse that all his babies are a little too course, or they all look different (like mama). Isn’t that a complaint of his daddy DS, his babies can be a bit ugly for quite a while? Should they pull him too, why not?
Doolittle got great scores didn’t he, he was the winner, right? So I doubt he was extremely difficult to handle, but even if that IS the issue, I have read a gazillion times on this very board that soso stallion is not an ammy ride, or that “he produces a pro ride”, so what. That is good to know but does not render the stallion unusable to the entire world.
There are PLENTY of stallions to choose from for the breeding mare owner, so removing one from the list is not the issue, it is HOW it was done. It is a poor business practice and shows very poor character, shame on them.

[Coppers_mom]

Kareene, I think it’s a bit brash to blame all that on the big meany head stallion stations. The natural flow of things is for people to open, then some get out while some stay the same and others get bigger.

You make a lot of big statements, inferring that they use the stud as a tax write off, are destroying small breeding operations, etc. Honestly, it comes off as if you’re jealous.

[Kareen]

Very much agree with your pov paintjumper.
As far as Walmart goes, they didn’t make it over here for some reason. The press read they couldn’t get the better over Aldi and Lidl… Trouble is the studfarm-walmarters don’t even offer discount prices lol.
Monopolism has never done any good whether politically or anywhere else I know about. I for sure would laugh my butt off if some of these ‘substandard foals’ turned into great sporthorses resulting in one of these weird turns stallion-reputations sometimes take in the long run.

[Tamara_in_TN]

[QUOTE=Kareen;4622203]

Monopolism has never done any good whether politically or anywhere else I know about. I for sure would laugh my butt off if some of these ‘substandard foals’ turned into great sporthorses resulting in one of these weird turns stallion-reputations sometimes take in the long run.[/QUOTE]

I wanted to thank you for your post on the old studs having to close for one reason or another

it may go far to dispel the myth that german/EU horse breeders are old millionaires funded by a semi socialist state who make money “hand over fist” (with both hands)

my friend has a small breeding farm in Bremen and the hoops he has had to jump thru would make most breeders here just give up totally

thanks again

Tamara in TN

[DownYonder]

[QUOTE=Kareen;4622203]
I for sure would laugh my butt off if some of these ‘substandard foals’ turned into great sporthorses resulting in one of these weird turns stallion-reputations sometimes take in the long run.[/QUOTE]

Agree with this. Let’s don’t forget that Doolittle’s sire Don Schufro is not known as a foal maker, either. But I don’t know too many dressage people who would not love to have a DS for a riding horse, or a DS daughter for breeding.

[Kareen]

Jealous of what? I am happy I make a decent living without purposefully hurting someone else’s business and am among the few percent of people who pay taxes on their horsey-income at the end of the year.
Like I said it’s not much of a secret where the funds come from that fuels those oligarchist structures. Nothing I or anyone else invented. BlueHors=Legoland Money. PS=Multimillion € businesses all over the world. The ‘some go down’ effect: Yes but that’s exactly the point. Georg Vorwerk and the likes are the calibers that founded the success I and every other sporthorse breeder is benefiting from to date.

The Vorwerk-Stud was founded in the 1870’s. Are you saying the sporthorse breeding world today would be the same without Furioso II, Rubinstein or Rohdiamant?

They took the risk to not only acquire and bring in those stallions that have turned into line-starters. I nowhere see anybody to foot that bill now nobody with that longterm-goal in mind. All there is now is a big cash machine. What did happen to all the glorious superstars the bigger ‘global player type’ studfarms have launched by the dozen? Why do they get disposed of after such short use and how is their true value to the breed ever supposed to become clear if they are only allowed to produce one, two, three foal-crops or even die prematurely like so many of the hyped young guns did?
Did anybody read Burkhard Wahler’s christmas letter this year? I must see if I can find it some place. He so spoke out what concerns me about this.

[stoicfish]

Kareen,
I think it is an interesting idea that economics characterize the breeding process and therefore the horses we will see. It used to be the horse market had consumers that used the animals for more practical reasons, now it is hobby for 99.9% of the people. It could just be my experience, but I see many people taking up riding that do not have a long history with horses. These people are going to rely on brand names and marketing more then anything, plus there is a prestige factor which is a big part of it.
However, I am not sure you can blame farms like Blue Hors for this trend, in fact I would say they are a result of consumer demands. It is happening with many products, Ikea instead of the local carpenter. They are high profile, efficient in producing the product and making enough money to continue or even grow.
Will the over all quality suffer? Maybe, but no one is stopping me from offering to buy Doolittle and prove them wrong (unless the brain surgery is taken place). I guess when you have a free market dictating instead of a group of breeders at the state stud(tax funded), things will be different. But either way it is publically funded, except now the public gets to vote (good choices or not).

[siegi_b]

There’s also the fact that as people get older they cannot run their farms anymore, and, in a lot of cases, the kids are not interested in pursuing an “agricultural” career. There’s a fair amount of that going on in the German horse world right now.

[FMulder]

Actually, having heard Kareens account, it does seem that there is a good case for her statements. Perhaps her direct German approach is a bit hard for our English speaking sensibilities, I have a Dutch administrator and she speaks in a very straight way, which makes me smile a lot.

But she does make a good point, I wasn’t aware of the studs closing down, except for Vorwerk and Seifert. Perhaps they were studs which concentrated on the breeding rather than the business side, which is always dangerous. I often wonder how certain studs that I deal with stay in business, and in fact during a conversation with a big name in French breeding discovered that the majority of stud farms in all countries are normally only days away from bankruptcy, but the sale of a horse here and some breedings there always saves the day. I won’t reveal names because that would be unprofessional, but your eyebrows would be round the back of your heads if you knew who!

It’s no secret that Kempkehof have leased out all of their stallions, and now just concentrate on selling horses because they have found that to be more profitable. And they a few superb horses including Mighty Magic and the best Sandro Hit stallion son that I have met. But they find it more profitable to lease them out and just get cheques each month.

Certainly, I would worry me for the sake of the market if the big guns completely took over. I thank god that I have invested in stallions that already came with big reputations, and that under my ownership (for better or for worse) they have increased their breedings against the previous year. I hope that they stay big enough that we don’t get swallowed up by the big guys. I keep my operation very small and have Graf and Kannan stationed in places that I know will help the marketing push and gain me sales, even using agents that I know can do a better job than me. Efficient distribution channels seriously help, and a good understanding of markets. Perhaps these days it is important to be business first and horse second if you want to survive financially and you don’t have outside income.

Regarding the original post, I’m not sure what to think either way about the Blue Hors thing. On the face of it, it seems honest and open.

[Coppers_mom]

[QUOTE=siegi b.;4622578]
There’s also the fact that as people get older they cannot run their farms anymore, and, in a lot of cases, the kids are not interested in pursuing an “agricultural” career. There’s a fair amount of that going on in the German horse world right now.[/QUOTE]

Exactly. I think it’s incorrect to blame big stallion stations. It’s not as if they’re Wal-Mart, and offer much lower prices for the same thing, which is what would drive out small stallion operations. They do have the money to advertise, but that’s life.

People get old, people run out of money, people just plain get tired of breeding. I’m willing to bet that the majority of small time stallion owners that have closed wouldn’t say it’s because of some big name station, it’s probably just due to life in general.

And Kareen, this quote is just stupid:
“The Vorwerk-Stud was founded in the 1870’s. Are you saying the sporthorse breeding world today would be the same without Furioso II, Rubinstein or Rohdiamant?”

What in the world? I just have no idea where you would have gotten that. I mean, can’t even fathom. What do those horses have to do with this discussion? Who’s talking about a stud not being needed? You’re just grasping at random staws here.

And you do sound jealous of their success with all your trash talk about them and how they’re “purposefully hurting someone elses business”. Sour grapes. I understand it sucks when things come easier for others, but that’s life. It’s like whining that someone won a class because they have more money. Doesn’t make sense, and it’s certainly not their fault that they have a better horse/more money/better trainer/whatever.

[ahf]

I’ve known Kareen from these boards for…iDK…8 years? More?

She is the farthest thing from a whiner I have ever met. You are making this personal, and that’s not kosher.

She is the product of a family breeding business. You know - the ones that are disappearing to the everlasting detriment of warmblood breeding. Her family has been breeding Hanoverians for DECADES. (Since when Kareen, the 50’s?) She is completely unique in her experience - she has been watching breeding decisions being made, observing the outcome, since before she could talk. THere is no one here in America that can trace their marelines back half as far as she can. You can’t buy they kind of knowledge she’s had bestowed upon her pretty much by osmosis.

She now makes the breeding decisions for that family farm. Starts the young horses, raises her family, and is an equine vet to top it all off.

You and I will never know a quarter of what she does. Her wonderful quote earlier in this thread about sparrows from nightengales applies here.

I also am fairly shocked you don’t understand the Furioso, Rubinstein reference.

[clint]

Ditto everything ahf just said. I’m just shaking my head…

[Donella]

I think the number of responses indicating bewilderment at the concept of culling a stallion who produces inferior offspring very telling of the mentality of American breeders. Sorry, but this is EXACTLY why we lag so far behind the Europeans.

A stallion produces OBVIOUS conformational faults in a large number of his offspring ( many of which are perfectly obvious at birth) and we are all shocked that he is culled from a breeders program?? Stallions are supposed to be able to IMPROVE the mare base. Period. Simple as that. And if they don’t, it is the conscientious owners responsibility to deal with that fact accordingly.

Jeez people, wake up and listen to what you are saying!

As another point of reference, the KFPS ( Dutch Friesian registry) evaluates only around 30 offspring of the approved stallions in order to decide wether or not their breeding liscences will be revoked. And they only approve about five per year world wide.

[Tiki]

Me too!

[Oakstable]

Registeries can revoke breeding licenses. None of us have a problem with that.

An individual owner can decide not to stand a stallion any more but he doesn’t have to throw the stallion under the bus on the internet.

Since Blue Hors stands the sire, maybe they just decided the son brought nothing more to the equation … as simple as that.

(I wish COTH would require posters to identify themselves. There are high quality people here with names and opinions, and others with opinions.)

Sally

[paintjumper]

I don’t think so

To start with, no one here is saying to keep breeding a horse producing OBVIOUS conformational faults. For that matter, what was his foal’s OBVIOUS conformational fault? Do you know, specifically?
What we are saying is you don’t throw your clients under the bus. I don’t think there is enough time to decide…barring a serious conformational flaw, whether this stallion even had a problem. It wasn’t VERY obvious or he would never have been allowed to breed but one year, unless you account for that extra 100K that the stud farm was raking in!!! Are they planning to refund every stud fee they received during the 2nd year?
The few foals I have seen look fine and the Danish judges were not found with large knives chasing the poor babies around, nor did they mob the stallion’s stall and hang him from the rafters, so why publicly dash every foal out there? Now, if all the foals belonged to the stallion owner, fine. I wonder just how many actually are owned by the stud farm? Very few I’ll bet. I’ll say it again, I was taught better, this is just not cool.
It’s no wonder many mare owners think stallion owners are such elitists.

[Coppers_mom]

[QUOTE=ahf;4622859]
I’ve known Kareen from these boards for…iDK…8 years? More?

She is the farthest thing from a whiner I have ever met. You are making this personal, and that’s not kosher.

She is the product of a family breeding business. You know - the ones that are disappearing to the everlasting detriment of warmblood breeding. Her family has been breeding Hanoverians for DECADES. (Since when Kareen, the 50’s?) She is completely unique in her experience - she has been watching breeding decisions being made, observing the outcome, since before she could talk. THere is no one here in America that can trace their marelines back half as far as she can. You can’t buy they kind of knowledge she’s had bestowed upon her pretty much by osmosis.

She now makes the breeding decisions for that family farm. Starts the young horses, raises her family, and is an equine vet to top it all off.

You and I will never know a quarter of what she does. Her wonderful quote earlier in this thread about sparrows from nightengales applies here.

I also am fairly shocked you don’t understand the Furioso, Rubinstein reference.[/QUOTE]
Where was I ever questioning her knowledge? Nowhere. I can certainly disagree with someone without doubting their experience. I just don’t think it’s fair to say that big studs like Blue Hors are not only the reason for smaller studs closing, but that they are forcing small stations to close on purpose. That’s a big, and flatly untrue statement No one is purposely doing anything, and that’s what Kareen was claiming. Her having a world of knowledge doesn’t have anything to do with it.

And I get the reference, I just think it was ridiculous for her to jump from me saying that “it’s not fair to say that big studs are the only reason some are going out of business”, to saying I’ve somehow implied that smaller operations didn’t contribute or that those stallions weren’t needed/helpful. I mean, do you really think none of those stallions would have been purchased if it hadn’t been for the small breeders? Do you think that none of the stallions owned by big operations have been influential? It just wasn’t relevant at all to what we were discussing, and I don’t see why she brought it up.

Finally, I did nothing but say she sounded jealous. You bringing up her experience is more personal than I ever got. Unless you count my general “Someone’s always going to have more and better” comment as personal, though I was under the impression that that fell more under the common knowledge/general saying type of thing. It’s true, and the way she’s carrying on about those mean rich people with all their money purposefully keeping down the little man, calling them hobby breeders with a certain connotation behind it, and acting like they only have the studs, and are therefore ruining breeding as we know it, and digging at how Blue Hors “just bought Romanov, now there’s a breeding achievement” reminded me of when I whined about other little girls having nicer ponies than me when I was a kid. Someone’s always going to have more, nicer, and better. That’s life. No need to tear down others like Kareen has been.

[Arathita]

[QUOTE=Coppers mom;4622197]
Kareene, I think it’s a bit brash to blame all that on the big meany head stallion stations. The natural flow of things is for people to open, then some get out while some stay the same and others get bigger.

You make a lot of big statements, inferring that they use the stud as a tax write off, are destroying small breeding operations, etc. Honestly, it comes off as if you’re jealous.[/QUOTE]

Describing Kareen’s post as calling the large stations “big meany head stallion stations” is simplistic. Like other disciplines, dressage sport and breeding at the highest level requires significant infusions of cash. Most of this cash does come from a family or spousal business not related to horses. The horse business is the write off, or where the profits go. Older family breeders are edged out by wealthy stallion owners with money to burn. Name a large competition/breeding barn in the US or Europe who makes enough money to compete at the top level from horse business. Anky and perhaps the Bartels are the ones who come to mind. Who else? Now name large comptetition/breeding barns in the US or Europe who are built from/rely on trust funds, family money, or money from a non-horse business-often via spouse. This latter group far outweighs the first group.

Kareen is correct. Not jealous.

I also want to add, so I edit here, that that there is much frustration from long term family breeders who are very careful and studious about breeding to the ‘popularity’ breeders who purchase stock rather than breed. One approach is “usually” based on vast adn specialized knowledge and an desire to improve the breed, the other approach is “sometimes” based on marketability (desire to make money despite the long term consequences of the breeding decision) and without much knowledge. I believe that is the point being raised.

[Coppers_mom]

[QUOTE=Arathita;4623100]
Describing Kareen’s post as calling the large stations “big meany head stallion stations” is simplistic. Like other disciplines, dressage sport and breeding at the highest level requires significant infusions of cash. Most of this cash does come from a family or spousal business not related to horses. The horse business is the write off, or where the profits go. Older family breeders are edged out by wealthy stallion owners with money to burn. Name a large competition/breeding barn in the US or Europe who makes enough money to compete at the top level from horse business. Anky and perhaps the Bartels are the ones who come to mind. Who else? Now name large comptetition/breeding barns in the US or Europe who are built from/rely on trust funds, family money, or money from a non-horse business-often via spouse. This latter group far outweighs the first group.

Kareen is correct. Not jealous.[/QUOTE]

Stating that they have an outside source of income isn’t what I was calling brash. I’m well aware that horses are a massive money pit. What I was calling brash was stating that the big stallion stations are the sole reason for smaller stations closing, and that the large stations were doing it on PURPOSE. Now, do you think it’s correct that anyone would go into such an expensive business just to shut someone else down?

Edited to add:
I’m not arguing that smaller stations aren’t shutting down. I just think that the reason is more likely to be that there was a large group of very good breeders in the same age group, and their kids simply don’t want to keep it up or they’re just getting out of it, not that large stallion stations are eliminating their competition and purposefully ruining their livelihood. THAT’S what made me make the “You sound jealous” comment. That she was making it personal, and saying “They’re doing it to him/her/us on PURPOSE!”.