This is an interesting question and I’m sure it ranges significantly.
I expect that stallion owners who have good business practices as far as keeping books go know exactly what they make. However, I wouldn’t expect any of them to disclose their income here whether it be good or bad. I suspect the only way of knowing is to do a stallion owner’s books or to become one yourself!
hony - I, too, know exactly how much I actually make at the end of each fiscal year, but I haven’t broken it down to see how much of that profit was from actual stud revenues, extra collections, board for visiting mares, sales, sales of any excess hay, etc, etc. If my profits were lean that year, it doesn’t necessarily mean my stud fee revenues were down - we had one year where we had 3 water lines break in a row and just under $10,000 later we got them all fixed. If we re-seed the hay fields next year, that will cut into profits as well but again - wont mean there was less interest in my stallion
So - its a tough question for me to answer “straight across the board” because each year, several variables come into play that may adversely affect my bottom line profits for that year
make sense? 
[QUOTE=TrueColours;7692247]
hony - I, too, know exactly how much I actually make at the end of each fiscal year, but I haven’t broken it down to see how much of that profit was from actual stud revenues, extra collections, board for visiting mares, sales, sales of any excess hay, etc, etc. If my profits were lean that year, it doesn’t necessarily mean my stud fee revenues were down - we had one year where we had 3 water lines break in a row and just under $10,000 later we got them all fixed. If we re-seed the hay fields next year, that will cut into profits as well but again - wont mean there was less interest in my stallion
So - its a tough question for me to answer “straight across the board” because each year, several variables come into play that may adversely affect my bottom line profits for that year
make sense? :)[/QUOTE]
That’s why I was asking about gross income.
Thank you for all the detailed info and being willing to answer the question as a Stallion owner. It’s very interesting. GG is very beautiful. And like your said his being a Thoroughbred (with guaranteed color) means he offers a lot of registry options and appeals to a lot of mare owners. It’s not surprising then his yearly numbers might be higher than other stallions.
[QUOTE=ladyj79;7691762]
I’d say you can breed to unapproved or low quality stallions of any breed quite easily and cheaply. Please see the number of “wb-crosses” out of unapproved stock, as well as my personal favorite, the unlicensed friesian stallions now gifting the world with innumerable crosses. I was at a friend’s barn for the first time recently and she points to a non-descript drafty bay mare in a paddock and says “and we have a friesian cross.” My response? “Of course you do!”
And there’s a particular unlicensed stallion I come across frequently who wasn’t licensed “because of injury”, and literally every foal or young horse I see out of him is also unsound…including at inspections last year in Florida. Everyone I’ve ever seen. Unsound.
Lesson? Idiots will breed to cheap crap, regardless of location or breed or discipline.[/QUOTE]
That’s not really what I’m curious about though. I’m interested in learning about the fee income of mid-level nice stallions. Not the ones that are $5,000+ to breed to. There are lots of them out there that are $700-$2000 that are a huge leap upwards from backyard breeder quality.
Why did you chose not to advertise him? Did you not want to deal with outside mares/owners?
[QUOTE=showhorsegallery;7692413]
That’s not really what I’m curious about though. I’m interested in learning about the fee income of mid-level nice stallions. Not the ones that are $5,000+ to breed to. There are lots of them out there that are $700-$2000 that are a huge leap upwards from backyard breeder quality.[/QUOTE]
Sorry to derail, OP, but I was responding to other people’s previous derailment. Although I appreciate you quoting my comment, since it’s something I feel very strongly about 
Although backyard breeder was never a phrase I used in this instance.
In answer to your question, from my experience working for breeders standing approved WB stallions, not much.
[QUOTE=showhorsegallery;7692416]
Why did you chose not to advertise him? Did you not want to deal with outside mares/owners?[/QUOTE]
Although I bred him, he was sold as a weanling and shipped back East where he was supposed to be a gelding. But circumstances got weird, and the woman who bought both him and a mare from me got very ill and asked if she could ship both horses back to me.
I said yes and THEN found out Kinor had never been gelded and had already pasture-bred the mare who was coming back with him!
I was planning on gelding him as soon as he arrived, but even as a gawky 2 yr old (and a rather ill-mannered one as well!) I was captivated by his movement. His dam had spectacular movement that actually was praised by WB inspectors and Kinor had it in spades.
At the time I had about 3 pregnant mares, so he wintered with them without issue while I worked on his manners.
Long story short, his babies from my mares were nice enough that I DID advertised him locally afew times…with not great results. I don’t think the pictures of him at the time were that good, and this is western world…the same mag. I advertised him in was full of ads for Paints & QHs standing for $400-700, just like others have mentioned.
But through BBs and chat room and the endurance world, people started noticing him. I posted videos of him on YT.
However I was working full time and really didn’t want to commit to spending a ton on advertising when I knew I wasn’t likely to get dozens of breedings. In addition, if I wanted to offer shipped semen, any SO will tell you it’s not a simple process to test the stallion, try different extenders, keep quality control high. Through the little bit of work my vet did, it seemed Kinor did not ship the best. He did get pregnancies through shipped, but had some failures as well.
So it wasn’t worth it to me to spend what could be thousands to get him to ship if I was only going to get afew hundreds in stud fees.
However, if you only stand for LC, that means you need to deal with having strange mares on the property and the liability…
Being one person with a full time job and plenty to do with the rest of my WB mares, I just never really promoted him.
But people would show up, or contact me after seeing his video or such…there are a limited number of cremellos in the sporthorse world and virtually NONE in the endurance world, and it turns out that even endurance riders like color.
True Colours will tell you this…the world loves palominos! There are plenty of breeds where no testing is required to determine quality, and this can lead to problems in terms of quality control.
So I paid close attention to the quality of the mares if I could and actually turned down one mare. Kinor was probably not a GREAT stallion, but he was correct in limb, had wonderful bone, strong frame and (IMHO) stunning movement.
He was just wildly athletic and I suspect if I’d had the funds for advanced training (he was sent out for 6 months of u/s training) he could have done well in several disciplines.
I suspect if someone with more resources had owned him they could have done better, but I am of the opinion that breeders & SO need to make every effort to put out quality foals every time they breed. You raise the odds of that when you breed high numbers (like the TB/QH/Paint industry does), but when you have high numbers, you have more culls.
Although they DO appear, you don’t often see a registered WB in a backyard, auction…certainly not out here. Maybe more often back East at New Holland?
I haven’t been to NH in almost 40 yrs, so can’t tell you.
But unless stud fees are very high, you need to breed alot of mares to make $$…I honestly wasn’t sure Kinor was the kind of stallion who needed to have hundreds of offspring…for reasons that have nothing to do with this thread…
Daventry: Why is it that pony stallions can’t have the same stud fee has the WB? Would have thought hunter pony breeders would pay for a high quality stallion?
P.
My one stallion (Connemara pony) stands for $750. The other will be in that range as well after he proves himself. Of course, proven mares can get discounts as well as booking early in the season etc.
My ponies pay for themselves
[QUOTE=Polydor;7693930]
Daventry: Why is it that pony stallions can’t have the same stud fee has the WB? Would have thought hunter pony breeders would pay for a high quality stallion?
P.[/QUOTE]
I would guess it’s because (generally) you cannot command the same price for a mature pony as you can a mature horse. The market is much smaller for ponies.
[QUOTE=Kyzteke;7694070]
I would guess it’s because (generally) you cannot command the same price for a mature pony as you can a mature horse. The market is much smaller for ponies.[/QUOTE]
Yes. While there are a few top pony hunters who have sold in the $250,000+ US range, they are few and far between.
[QUOTE=Kyzteke;7693468]
Although I bred him, he was sold as a weanling and shipped back East where he was supposed to be a gelding. But circumstances got weird, and the woman who bought both him and a mare from me got very ill and asked if she could ship both horses back to me.
I said yes and THEN found out Kinor had never been gelded and had already pasture-bred the mare who was coming back with him!
I was planning on gelding him as soon as he arrived, but even as a gawky 2 yr old (and a rather ill-mannered one as well!) I was captivated by his movement. His dam had spectacular movement that actually was praised by WB inspectors and Kinor had it in spades.
At the time I had about 3 pregnant mares, so he wintered with them without issue while I worked on his manners.
Long story short, his babies from my mares were nice enough that I DID advertised him locally afew times…with not great results. I don’t think the pictures of him at the time were that good, and this is western world…the same mag. I advertised him in was full of ads for Paints & QHs standing for $400-700, just like others have mentioned.
But through BBs and chat room and the endurance world, people started noticing him. I posted videos of him on YT.
However I was working full time and really didn’t want to commit to spending a ton on advertising when I knew I wasn’t likely to get dozens of breedings. In addition, if I wanted to offer shipped semen, any SO will tell you it’s not a simple process to test the stallion, try different extenders, keep quality control high. Through the little bit of work my vet did, it seemed Kinor did not ship the best. He did get pregnancies through shipped, but had some failures as well.
So it wasn’t worth it to me to spend what could be thousands to get him to ship if I was only going to get afew hundreds in stud fees.
However, if you only stand for LC, that means you need to deal with having strange mares on the property and the liability…
Being one person with a full time job and plenty to do with the rest of my WB mares, I just never really promoted him.
But people would show up, or contact me after seeing his video or such…there are a limited number of cremellos in the sporthorse world and virtually NONE in the endurance world, and it turns out that even endurance riders like color.
True Colours will tell you this…the world loves palominos! There are plenty of breeds where no testing is required to determine quality, and this can lead to problems in terms of quality control.
So I paid close attention to the quality of the mares if I could and actually turned down one mare. Kinor was probably not a GREAT stallion, but he was correct in limb, had wonderful bone, strong frame and (IMHO) stunning movement.
He was just wildly athletic and I suspect if I’d had the funds for advanced training (he was sent out for 6 months of u/s training) he could have done well in several disciplines.
I suspect if someone with more resources had owned him they could have done better, but I am of the opinion that breeders & SO need to make every effort to put out quality foals every time they breed. You raise the odds of that when you breed high numbers (like the TB/QH/Paint industry does), but when you have high numbers, you have more culls.
Although they DO appear, you don’t often see a registered WB in a backyard, auction…certainly not out here. Maybe more often back East at New Holland?
I haven’t been to NH in almost 40 yrs, so can’t tell you.
But unless stud fees are very high, you need to breed alot of mares to make $$…I honestly wasn’t sure Kinor was the kind of stallion who needed to have hundreds of offspring…for reasons that have nothing to do with this thread…[/QUOTE]
Nope, not often at New Holland .primarily SB, TB, draft, saddlebred and stock horses.
And fwiw with my stallion the answer was break even. He had done prelim wb inspection with 2 wb registries but not the full testing so did not have that money into it. He was a pinto tb, so also breeding paint and tb mares
I have had as many as 5 approved WB stallions. Over the years I’ve spent scads of money on advertising. With my first stallion, I spent TONS of money showing him and he won over 15 USDF HOY awards, CDS HOY awards and several eventing HOY awards. He has had 2 sons approved for breeding and they both did well showing in breed shows as youngsters. I have one stallion I bred that completed the 30 day test. But I get virtually NO breedings for any of them!!! IMHO breeding is way down in USA and frozen semen has gotten much better and easier to use, so mare owners have all those highly promoted stallions in Europe to breed to and the “flavor of the day” young horses, so there is tremendous competition for the breedings. There are only a couple thousand warmblood foals born in USA each year. Sweden breeds over 4,000 - 5,000 and Holland has 16,000+ each year. And then there is Germany! I would suspect that the majority of mares bred in USA are now being bred with frozen from Europe. Basically the only mares being bred to my stallions are my own! So I make essentially $ZERO gross profit!
[QUOTE=equusaround;7695091]
I have had as many as 5 approved WB stallions. Over the years I’ve spent scads of money on advertising. With my first stallion, I spent TONS of money showing him and he won over 15 USDF HOY awards, CDS HOY awards and several eventing HOY awards. He has had 2 sons approved for breeding and they both did well showing in breed shows as youngsters. I have one stallion I bred that completed the 30 day test. But I get virtually NO breedings for any of them!!! IMHO breeding is way down in USA and frozen semen has gotten much better and easier to use, so mare owners have all those highly promoted stallions in Europe to breed to and the “flavor of the day” young horses, so there is tremendous competition for the breedings. There are only a couple thousand warmblood foals born in USA each year. Sweden breeds over 4,000 - 5,000 and Holland has 16,000+ each year. And then there is Germany! I would suspect that the majority of mares bred in USA are now being bred with frozen from Europe. Basically the only mares being bred to my stallions are my own! So I make essentially $ZERO gross profit![/QUOTE]
Equusaround, I sympathize with your frustration. However, this is a good example of how many stallion owners fail to appreciate what will attract mare owners (either because they are unaware or because they lack the resources to market their stallion effectively). As a mare owner, I do my homework on the stallions I breed to. I have seen mention of your stallions on numerous occasions; I remember seeing/hearing about your younger stallions going through the testing at Silver Creek and they piqued my interest. However, it is very difficult to find information on your stallions. Your website contains no helpful information and I rarely, if ever, have seen them advertised.
In this age of information, I (as a mare owner) want to see pics and video of a stallion, record of his performance and photos/performance records of his offspring. I think that is what many of us expect nowadays, particularly if we are considering breeding to stallions we are not able to visit in person. If the information isn’t available, I move on. The big guns like Hilltop and Dreamscape know how to market their stallions effectively, and as a result get more breedings for their stallions than most. I can imagine how difficult it would be to compete with stallion stations like these who have the resources for significant marketing. However, failure to provide the type of information we have come to expect from the owners of these well marketed stallions means breeders like myself are never going to choose undermarketed stallions without performance records/videos/progeny records etc. even though they may be worthwhile to breed to.
This is one of the reasons breeders choose stallions overseas: operations like Celle provide excellent resources for mare owners and one can easily find not only examples of the many offspring produced by each of these stallions, but also their indices of heritability for various characteristics. For me, it is less about the “fashion” and more about making the most informed choice of stallion using the information available to me.
operations like Celle provide excellent resources for mare owners and one can easily find not only examples of the many offspring produced by each of these stallions
SO critical IMO … my website contains section for offspring by my stallion out of specific WB breeds (click on the appropriate tab), Arab mares, Draft mares, TB’s, AQHA, APHA, etc so it is SO easy for a potential client to pour over pictures from newborn babies up to youngsters that have started their competitive careers. See if they like what is produced with those types and breeds of mares and if they feel he would be a good fit with their mare
Maybe 25-40% of my market are owners with WB mares. Some FEI level trainers and riders that are really “up” on the latest, greatest and most fashionable bloodlines that are available globally and they have the ability to research what they want to produce offspring to compete at the highest levels and they selected a North American stallion based for their mare(s). If the information is there for them when they click on your website - they will come and buy your product. You just have to make sure you tick off all of the boxes they need to see and consider so they can make the decision to use your stallion(s) for their mare(s) instead of frozen from an overseas based stallion that HAS ticked off all of the relevant and important boxes …
I do feel for young stallion owners as I suspect many a young stallion in the USA does not bred many mares-- means not too many foals on the ground–no central place to see foals at inspection because USA too big- lack of pictures from MO – fewer mares next year-fewer foals and it goes on.
I think it can be scary breeding to overseas stallions (which I plan to do in the future someday) when you have never seen them in person and you do not know the whole story-- just the piece being promoted-- and you see the top foals and not the ordinary ones, or below ordinary ones, or the many get that are ordinary or culled performance horses–and you have to rely on hearsay to fill in the gaps. (not all stud books keep the best statistics even abroad.)
[QUOTE=Tradewind;7695510]
In this age of information, I (as a mare owner) want to see pics and video of a stallion, record of his performance and photos/performance records of his offspring. I think that is what many of us expect nowadays, particularly if we are considering breeding to stallions we are not able to visit in person. If the information isn’t available, I move on. [/QUOTE]
Do me a favor, please…look on my website and see if you have the information you are looking for on my stallion’s page. He is young…his first get or just yearlings so I obviously don’t have performance data for his get…
EllenAspen - I took the liberty of looking at your website and here are my comments (for what they are worth!)
IMO - you’ve checked the boxes for riding pictures and jumping pictures. I would want to see better conformation pictures and not from front 3/4 angles.
The offspring tab shows “Hanks offspring”. A google search will not pull up your stallion’s offspring because it wont know who the heck “Hank” is - so if someone is searching - specifically - for offspring by your stallion, nothing will come up when they use his registered name.
I also find the blurring on the edges of the offspring pictures disconcerting. Keep it clean and simple. I also cant form any opinion as to whether I like his offspring, think they are okay, think they’re awful or adore them based on these pictures. They are “cutesy” but don’t show what they are built like or move like. If you only have a few on the ground, you have to make every single one of them count so people can look at their pictures and say “wow!!! I want to look into this stallion more. His babies are stunning!”. Those pictures don’t evoke anything like that for me. I would skim over them and pass and look for the next stallion option instead
Hope this helps!
[QUOTE=TrueColours;7695800]
EllenAspen - I took the liberty of looking at your website and here are my comments (for what they are worth!)
IMO - you’ve checked the boxes for riding pictures and jumping pictures. I would want to see better conformation pictures and not from front 3/4 angles.
The offspring tab shows “Hanks offspring”. A google search will not pull up your stallion’s offspring because it wont know who the heck “Hank” is - so if someone is searching - specifically - for offspring by your stallion, nothing will come up when they use his registered name.
I also find the blurring on the edges of the offspring pictures disconcerting. Keep it clean and simple. I also cant form any opinion as to whether I like his offspring, think they are okay, think they’re awful or adore them based on these pictures. They are “cutesy” but don’t show what they are built like or move like. If you only have a few on the ground, you have to make every single one of them count so people can look at their pictures and say “wow!!! I want to look into this stallion more. His babies are stunning!”. Those pictures don’t evoke anything like that for me. I would skim over them and pass and look for the next stallion option instead
Hope this helps! :)[/QUOTE]
Perfect….that does help!
