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How to decide if horse has broodmare potential?

Re-posting this because I accidentally posted on the wrong BB last time! I have a 7y/o mare in training. She’s a good horse, naturally balanced and an easy keeper, but came with some training baggage. If we can’t get her straightened out, the trainer advised exploring the option of selling her to a non-riding home as a broodmare. She does have papers, a lebensnummer, and was inspected “silver premium” as a foal with RPSI. Her issues under saddle are most likely from inconsistent training throughout her life, not a genetic or health basis. But she’s definitely not a “proven” sport horse with a show record or anything like that. She’s very green, and to the extent she isn’t, she needs remedial training. I adore her, she’s such a smart horse and loves to jump, so I really hope we can work it out! But if not, I just want an idea what other career options she might have.

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As far as having a premium award as a foal - that is nice but it really doesn’t mean that much. Her worth as a broodmare would depend more on her breeding, conformation, movement and or jumping ability. You could always take her to an inspection next summer ( I think most are done now) and get an assessment and see how she scores as a mature horse. What has her dam produced? If all her siblings have good competition results that is a plus even though she is an outlier due to her training baggage.

If i was considering her as a broodmare I would be very interested in her dam’s production record and that of her siblings.

I think this can be a really really hard thing to fully unwind. Most horses bounce back from bad training very quickly with good training. Those that stay “tricky” often have underlying physical or mental challenges. Even if she’s sound in body, if she’s not mentally resilient, that should be a consideration as disposition is both nature and nurture for a foal. There have been so many threads about “tricky” horses on here where an eventual physical issue was uncovered. Personally, I’d be hesitant to breed a horse that did not demonstrate value as a performance horse unless there was something very very special about the horse

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Generally, I like a broodmare to have “earned the right to reproduce”. That is, has had a successful sport career, or at least showed she had the talent. So this is up to the owner, what one owner thinks is “earning the right” may be different from another. Obviously, conformation, soundness and disposition are also important. Pedigree comes into it for some people, sometimes it can be a plus. But in sport disciplines, if the horse is from an unknown family, if she has everything else, she’s worth a try IMO, because true talent can come from all sorts of places, not just “known” lines and “popular” families. Outcrossing combats inbreeding issues, and is always important to consider, especially these days with all the AI that goes on, narrowing the gene pool.

Finally- “mothering skills”. This is often dismissed these days, veterinary work often compensates (which is damaging in the long run IMO, propagating the next generation of poor broodmares). Broodmares need to be 1) fertile, 2) well built to carry and produce a foal, 3) want to be a mother, want to take care of a foal, and 4) have GOOD milk, and lots of it. Many of these things are unknown with a maiden mare, but some can be identified even in maidens. Mares who do not have a “nurturing nature” often do not make good broodmares. The owner sinks $$$$$$$ into breeding a mare who does not want to be a broodmare, only to have the mare kill the foal when it attempts to nurse. Believe it, it happens.

Basically, some semblance of the above issues should be considered in advance of attempting a broodmare career. But above all, the human involved must believe that this is a good idea, and have a plan in place. Different people will have different plans for the offspring, should it be successfully born and survive. There are no guarantees of success of any sort with the plan to breed a mare and raise a foal. But it can be fun and educational for an owner. If it works out well, the human congratulates themselves on making good decisions. But much is actually pure luck, or lack thereof. The trick in your situation will be to find a human who thinks that breeding your mare is a good idea, and is willing to sink $$$$$ into the game to pursue their plan. True success will take some years to identify one way or the other.

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I don’t have any problem at all with breeding stock not having a performance career. If they have one, that’s a bonus, because it proves their talent and trainability.

But that is irrelevant, on its own, when it comes to how that passes on.

If the mare’s pedigree is full of proven performance horses, especially if she has any full siblings with proven performance offspring, the odds of her producing low quality offspring are pretty low, assuming you choose a stallion well. If the stallion has produced all kinds of offspring doing what I want to do, who cares what he did/didn’t do.

You would do well to get your mare to a breed inspection next year for a mare approval. The experts will evaluate her conformation and if you can do a MPT (Mare Performance Test), they can see how she rides under a little pressure (strange place)

Inconsistent training should not make for training issues. Poor training does that. And that can include “good” training with a poor fitting saddle, or feet that hurt, or having chiropractic issues that weren’t addressed and treated as a “bad horse”.

Being green, she just needs a TOTAL restart. Assume nothing. Start as if she’s never had anything done, and find the holes and fix them.

If you start looking at stallions now (posting a conf pic of her, and some movement videos, here, to get some potential suggestions), and find a few you really, find out what registries they are approved with, and of those, see who’s the closest to you next year. Then get her to the inspection, and see what the experts think. They should have no problems at all suggesting complimentary stallions for her.

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