I came upon my bred by chance, as I had always been horse crazy but had never seen or heard of a Haflinger. I had always wanted a horse, and when I moved to Michigan, an adult student of mine had a free horse she offered me. It was kind of older style, small and unregistered, but it was a horse! I learned everything I could about the breed, attended shows, i.spections, talked to breeders, etc., and found out that some breeders with top modern, sport horse type breeding stock lived close by. The rest is history! 
I visited them and fell in love with a very modern, tall mare that was in foal to a National Champion stallion that I loved. The mare had a beautiful filly which I got to name, but the owners were not interested in selling. A few months later they called and offered her to me. It was way more than I ever imagined spending at the time, and since I didn’t have the funds (I was a full-time grad student), I had to turn them down. But, as fate would have it, a credit card offer arrived in the mail that day, and I was able to take out a cash advance for a deposit, and they took payments for the balance! Absolutely crazy, I know, and I would not recommend buying a horse that way, but it turned out to be one of the best investments that I ever made.
That was in 2000, and that mare grew up to be the foundation of my breeding program, producing one outstanding foal after another. Every one has gone on to be a winner on the line and under saddle in sport horse disciplines, with one or two on track for FEI level in the coming years.
I acquired my next keeper mare in 2007, and fulfilled my goal of purchasing my own imported stallion of a rarer line in 2010. At that point I started researching sport horse and Warmblood registries and presenting my horses there, as my breed registry had no focus on performance and was not meeting the vision of where breeders like myself saw the breed heading. My stallion was presented to AWS in 2010, then to Weser Ems and RPSI in 2012, and was entered into Stud Book I for both. He went to the stallion testing in 2013 (the first of his breed in North America to do so), and did an outstanding job, which really gave new life to my breeding business. I now have six mares of breeding age. Since I don’t breed all of them every year, I’d like to get that number down to three or four in the next year. I feel incredibly fortunate to be living my dream, and especially to finally have it at least paying for itself. I’m hoping this year and next year will be profit years. 
ETA: I was very careful in researching the bloodlines and in the selection of mares and a stallion with excellent conformation, type, movement and temperaments. I also invested the money in training, inspecting, and showing them, as they needed to prove themselves first before producing offspring.
This is my stallion, www.newhorizonshaflingers.com/stellar
My elite foundation mare, www.newhorizonshaflingers.com/Rosie.html
Her daughter by a supreme stallion who will be a future broodmare for my program, www.newhorizonshaflingers.com/Chela.html
And my RPSI premium mare, whose first foal by my stallion just received Gold Premium at her RPSI inspection, www.newhorizonshaflingers.com/Ricola.html