Newbie question - how to pick a stallion? Where do I even start?

[snaffle635]

I am thinking about breeding my mare next spring and am just starting to learn about the whole breeding process.

I want to spend the fall/winter learning about breeding and begin a stallion search.

I’m on the first ad-page of the COTH Stallion and Breeder Guide - and I’m already overwhelmed.

I understand that I should pick a stallion to offset any conformation weaknesses my mare has. But beyond that, how do I choose?

I’m looking for a hunter stallion with good temperament that will produce amateur-friendly babies. I plan to keep the foal. My mare is super-brave, not spooky, and a beautiful mover. She’s a bit bossy and a little on the forward side. Conformationally, she’s a smidgen downhill and a little pigeon-toed.

Any advice or recommendations (books, websites, etc) are welcome!

TIA! ~ Lisa

[GraceLikeRain]

I’d look through her lines and start doing some preliminary searches on here to read about her lineage. There are numerous posts talking about popular lines, successful crosses, etc. that would be helpful in establishing a solid foundation of knowledge to start asking more tailored questions.

By downhill and pigeon-toed, how extreme are we talking?

[NancyM]

Everyone has an opinion, and this is your chance to explore yours. You seem to have some idea already about what you need to compliment your mare. Look at the offspring of any stallion you think you may be interested in. Look at as many of the offspring as possible. Look for similarities in those offspring. That will tell you what that stallion MAY produce. These traits may be what you are looking for, or they may be what you are NOT looking for. They may be conformation traits, or personality traits, both are able to be inherited. Stallions without offspring to view are an unknown quantity, to breed to one of those is a leap of faith, and probably not a good plan for a first time breeder. You may look for crosses in pedigrees that are similar to your mare that have worked well before, for other breeders. This is known as “nicking”, and some breeders follow these lines religiously. But other times, it makes no difference, and does not do what it has done before. That is the thing about breeding horses, nothing is ever for sure in advance, no matter what someone promises you.

Another thing to keep in mind is cost. If you decide to breed to a stallion that is far away, on a different continent, or AI only, your expenses will be greater than if you can find a live cover stallion close by that you like, and there is no guarantee that spending more money will buy you any success, either in getting the mare in foal, or in quality of offspring. IMO, a stallion that can not and/or does not live cover mares can reveal a bad disposition in that stallion, if natural cover makes him crazy and unmanageable, or he can’t learn how to politely cover his mares safely, perhaps he does not have the best disposition to sire your foal. That is my opinion, and I have always been involved with live cover stallions only. All stallions produce foals that are arranged on the “normal bell curve” of quality. That is, some percentage of poor quality individuals, a larger percentage of below average, average, and above average individuals, and a small percentage of “freaks” who are superstars. “Freaks” do not “breed true”. That is, breed a freak to a freak does not depenably get you another freak. It doesn’t matter what discipline you are talking about, but racing is the only discipline where this can be anywhere near this can be accurately measured, or is even tried to be measured. So other disciplines are far more of a crap shoot than racing is. And racing is indeed a crap shoot in this respect, even with 400 years of selective breeding previously . It is perfectly possible to breed the best race mare in the world to the best stallion in the world, and get a horse who can not win a race, this happens often. So the same goes for hunters, jumpers, any sport discipline. You must go into this plan understanding and accepting that fact. If your mare and the stallion you select both fall somewhere in the “average” or “above average” part of their respective bell curves, you can hope to produce a foal of similar quality, and a freak is always possible too, because that is where freaks come from. Also possible is a poor quality animal, who will either have to be put down as an unsound failure, or may be able to be a low level recreational horse/pleasure/trail horse. This is not known in advance, or predictable.

So you pay your money, and do the best you can with your choices, and hope for the best. Do not get sucked in by marketing or advertising, or people who make you promises in advance. Listen to what people say, but you make your own decisions.

Good luck, and enjoy the journey.

[JB]

@snaffle635

I’m looking for a hunter stallion with good temperament that will produce amateur-friendly babies. I plan to keep the foal. My mare is super-brave, not spooky, and a beautiful mover. She’s a bit bossy and a little on the forward side. Conformationally, she’s a smidgen downhill and a little pigeon-toed.

There are definitely several threads here about those very types of stallions, so that’s a good place to start.

Other things to do are look at winning Hunters (regular, or the Derbies if that’s your thing) and find out their pedigrees as best you can.

One thing I did, which I know is not always possible, or possible with enough of those horses, is to find out what their dams looked like. If all you can find are dams very different from your mare, consider he might not be for you. OTOH, if all the horses have the same looks, “twins” if you will, then it almost doesn’t matter who the mares were, as the stallion is clearly pretty capable of producing pretty reliable results.

It will help your particular case if you can post your mare’s pedigree and a conformation picture, as she may have something in her close pedigree which makes someone go “OH, I know the perfect stallion for that line”.

I looked for a long time, and focused way more on the offspring of the stallion, rather than what he had done. I don’t care if he’s a winning Regular Conformation Hunter for the last 10 years - if he’s not producing Hunters, he isn’t a good Hunter sire (for me).

There are also stallions who got aimed at Dressage or Eventing who have also produced high level Hunters, so don’t get hung up on a “hunter stallion” - the right one might have never showed over fences

[csaper58]

@snaffle635

I am thinking about breeding my mare next spring and am just starting to learn about the whole breeding process.

I want to spend the fall/winter learning about breeding and begin a stallion search.

I’m on the first ad-page of the COTH Stallion and Breeder Guide - and I’m already overwhelmed.

I understand that I should pick a stallion to offset any conformation weaknesses my mare has. But beyond that, how do I choose?

I’m looking for a hunter stallion with good temperament that will produce amateur-friendly babies. I plan to keep the foal. My mare is super-brave, not spooky, and a beautiful mover. She’s a bit bossy and a little on the forward side. Conformationally, she’s a smidgen downhill and a little pigeon-toed.

Any advice or recommendations (books, websites, etc) are welcome!

TIA! ~ Lisa

Breeding horses is not an endeavor to enter into without considerable planning.

Have you decided on a budget?

Is the mare registered?

You said you plan to keep the foal. but sometimes things don’t work out the way we plan. You might want to make sure the foal will be ‘sellable’ just in case.

First you will want to make sure your mare is sound to breed. Has she ever had a foal? How old is she? These are things to discuss with a vet.

Next you need to decide if you want to breed your mare locally, or have semen shipped. The more people help the horses to breed, the more expensive it gets.

Will you foal watch or send the mare to be foaled out? If you have a job off your farm, working and foal watching can get exhausting.

Will you have the time to handle/train a foal as it grows into a young horse?

Good Luck, come back with baby pics next summer!!!

[snaffle635]

@GraceLikeRain

I’d look through her lines and start doing some preliminary searches on here to read about her lineage. There are numerous posts talking about popular lines, successful crosses, etc. that would be helpful in establishing a solid foundation of knowledge to start asking more tailored questions.

By downhill and pigeon-toed, how extreme are we talking?

Thanks, GLR. I’ve searched her sire-line here before, but couldn’t find much. She’s a Danish Warmblood by Kaiser Karl. A few generations back are Krack C and Rousseau. I don’t know much about the dam’s side.

When I say downhill and pigeon-toed, both are very slight…not to the point that they’re detrimental to her performance. She received an RDH designation in Denmark, which (I think!!!) means she meets conformation criteria, as well as a riding test for jumping. She’s a super-nice mare and has been pinning well at A shows in the 3’3" performance hunters and national hunter derbies.

[snaffle635]

@NancyM

Everyone has an opinion, and this is your chance to explore yours. You seem to have some idea already about what you need to compliment your mare. Look at the offspring of any stallion you think you may be interested in. Look at as many of the offspring as possible. Look for similarities in those offspring. That will tell you what that stallion MAY produce. These traits may be what you are looking for, or they may be what you are NOT looking for. They may be conformation traits, or personality traits, both are able to be inherited. Stallions without offspring to view are an unknown quantity, to breed to one of those is a leap of faith, and probably not a good plan for a first time breeder. You may look for crosses in pedigrees that are similar to your mare that have worked well before, for other breeders. This is known as “nicking”, and some breeders follow these lines religiously. But other times, it makes no difference, and does not do what it has done before. That is the thing about breeding horses, nothing is ever for sure in advance, no matter what someone promises you.

Another thing to keep in mind is cost. If you decide to breed to a stallion that is far away, on a different continent, or AI only, your expenses will be greater than if you can find a live cover stallion close by that you like, and there is no guarantee that spending more money will buy you any success, either in getting the mare in foal, or in quality of offspring. IMO, a stallion that can not and/or does not live cover mares can reveal a bad disposition in that stallion, if natural cover makes him crazy and unmanageable, or he can’t learn how to politely cover his mares safely, perhaps he does not have the best disposition to sire your foal. That is my opinion, and I have always been involved with live cover stallions only. All stallions produce foals that are arranged on the “normal bell curve” of quality. That is, some percentage of poor quality individuals, a larger percentage of below average, average, and above average individuals, and a small percentage of “freaks” who are superstars. “Freaks” do not “breed true”. That is, breed a freak to a freak does not depenably get you another freak. It doesn’t matter what discipline you are talking about, but racing is the only discipline where this can be anywhere near this can be accurately measured, or is even tried to be measured. So other disciplines are far more of a crap shoot than racing is. And racing is indeed a crap shoot in this respect, even with 400 years of selective breeding previously . It is perfectly possible to breed the best race mare in the world to the best stallion in the world, and get a horse who can not win a race, this happens often. So the same goes for hunters, jumpers, any sport discipline. You must go into this plan understanding and accepting that fact. If your mare and the stallion you select both fall somewhere in the “average” or “above average” part of their respective bell curves, you can hope to produce a foal of similar quality, and a freak is always possible too, because that is where freaks come from. Also possible is a poor quality animal, who will either have to be put down as an unsound failure, or may be able to be a low level recreational horse/pleasure/trail horse. This is not known in advance, or predictable.

So you pay your money, and do the best you can with your choices, and hope for the best. Do not get sucked in by marketing or advertising, or people who make you promises in advance. Listen to what people say, but you make your own decisions.

Good luck, and enjoy the journey.

Thank you so much for the excellent advice! I’m really interested in your thoughts on live cover vs AI…I have so much to learn!

[snaffle635]

@JB

There are definitely several threads here about those very types of stallions, so that’s a good place to start.

Other things to do are look at winning Hunters (regular, or the Derbies if that’s your thing) and find out their pedigrees as best you can.

One thing I did, which I know is not always possible, or possible with enough of those horses, is to find out what their dams looked like. If all you can find are dams very different from your mare, consider he might not be for you. OTOH, if all the horses have the same looks, “twins” if you will, then it almost doesn’t matter who the mares were, as the stallion is clearly pretty capable of producing pretty reliable results.

It will help your particular case if you can post your mare’s pedigree and a conformation picture, as she may have something in her close pedigree which makes someone go “OH, I know the perfect stallion for that line”.

I looked for a long time, and focused way more on the offspring of the stallion, rather than what he had done. I don’t care if he’s a winning Regular Conformation Hunter for the last 10 years - if he’s not producing Hunters, he isn’t a good Hunter sire (for me).

There are also stallions who got aimed at Dressage or Eventing who have also produced high level Hunters, so don’t get hung up on a “hunter stallion” - the right one might have never showed over fences

Thanks for the great advice. My retired horse was by Sandro Hit and was a wonderful hunter (unfortunately retired at age 10 due to a compressive myelopathy, sigh). He was also super-fun to flat, and we had fun doing a hunter-princess version of dressage. (I’m sure the dressage gurus are cringing.)

Here’s a pic of my mare: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10154983689418379&set=a.235053263378.134041.720433378&type=3&theater

Would love to hear some stallion suggestions. As I mentioned earlier, she’s incredibly brave, not spooky, but definitely has her own opinion about how things should be done. When I imported her two years ago, she had been doing eventing and thought all jumping should take place a maximum speed.

[snaffle635]

@csaper58

Breeding horses is not an endeavor to enter into without considerable planning.

Have you decided on a budget?

Is the mare registered?

You said you plan to keep the foal. but sometimes things don’t work out the way we plan. You might want to make sure the foal will be ‘sellable’ just in case.

First you will want to make sure your mare is sound to breed. Has she ever had a foal? How old is she? These are things to discuss with a vet.

Next you need to decide if you want to breed your mare locally, or have semen shipped. The more people help the horses to breed, the more expensive it gets.

Will you foal watch or send the mare to be foaled out? If you have a job off your farm, working and foal watching can get exhausting.

Will you have the time to handle/train a foal as it grows into a young horse?

Good Luck, come back with baby pics next summer!!!

Thanks, csaper! I am going to spend the fall and winter planning, which includes a financial plan. Yes, the mare will definitely be foaled out. I’m meeting with a reputable breeder here in the midwest soon to tour her facility and learn about her program. I want my mare to be with other mares and foals and to have someone with experience managing the process. (This breeder is also a vet and had about 8 foals this year.)

She’s 9 and has not had a foal yet. I’d breed next spring, so she’d be 11 when the foal was born. That’s not too old for a first foal, is it?

[Dutchmare433]

@snaffle635

Thank you so much for the excellent advice! I’m really interested in your thoughts on live cover vs AI…I have so much to learn!

One thing about the live cover vs AI thing. It sounds like you’re wanting to breed to a warmblood stallion. You’ll be hard pressed to find one that does live cover at all. I’m sure they’re out there, but they are far from common.

I agree with others who say to look to the progeny of any stallions consider and the dams of those progeny. That’ll give you an idea of what the stallion “stamps” and what the mares are contributing.

I’d encourage you to look at some of the dressage stallions who have a combination of dressage and jumper lines.

[Katona]

There’s been a lot of excellent advice here. I’m going to add one more thing. Get your mare’s reproduction checked out before you pay for a stud fee. A reproductive anatomy scan, as well as a culture and cytology now can save you a lot of heartache in the future. Some all-purpose vets do enough repro work that they are perfectly fine for your purposes. However, if your mare has an infection or conformational issues (or your general vet doesn’t do much breeding) you may need to find a Theriogenologist in your area.

Do take the time you have to research the processes as well as stallion options. And always have the idea in the back of your mind that this foal may have to be sold at some point due to currently unforeseen circumstances. Make sure you give that foal as much potential to be desired as possible.

[melula]

Is she part of a registry or is there a registry you like that is popular in your area that could approve her for breeding? That would narrow down your list of stallions. Start calling larger stud farms and see who they would suggest for her. Most folks are keen to discuss their stallions. When you get a short list, you can start pouring through video and offspring records.

[Hej]

[QUOTE=snaffle635;n9865838]

Thanks, GLR. I’ve searched her sire-line here before, but couldn’t find much. She’s a Danish Warmblood by Kaiser Karl. A few generations back are Krack C and Rousseau. I don’t know much about the dam’s side.

When I say downhill and pigeon-toed, both are very slight…not to the point that they’re detrimental to her performance. She received an RDH designation in Denmark, which (I think!!!) means she meets conformation criteria, as well as a riding test for jumping. She’s a super-nice mare and has been pinning well at A shows in the 3’3" performance hunters and national

Yes, RDH ​​​​​​means she is in the main Danish stud book and scored well in the riding test as (probably) a three year old. An RDH mare is certainly registered, do you not have her papers?

Does she have a brand? It would be on her left hip, a crown over a wave with the last 3 numbers of her registration number. If so, you should be able to find out more about her breeding from either Dansk Varmblod or NADWA (North American Danish Warmblood Assoc.)

Knowing her dam line could help you choose / eliminate a stallion as a good match for her.

[snaffle635]

[quote="“Hej,post:13,topic:437047”]

@snaffle635

Thanks, GLR. I’ve searched her sire-line here before, but couldn’t find much. She’s a Danish Warmblood by Kaiser Karl. A few generations back are Krack C and Rousseau. I don’t know much about the dam’s side.

When I say downhill and pigeon-toed, both are very slight…not to the point that they’re detrimental to her performance. She received an RDH designation in Denmark, which (I think!!!) means she meets conformation criteria, as well as a riding test for jumping. She’s a super-nice mare and has been pinning well at A shows in the 3’3" performance hunters and national

Yes, RDH ​​​​​​means she is in the main Danish stud book and scored well in the riding test as (probably) a three year old. An RDH mare is certainly registered, do you not have her papers?

Does she have a brand? It would be on her left hip, a crown over a wave with the last 3 numbers of her registration number. If so, you should be able to find out more about her breeding from either Dansk Varmblod or NADWA (North American Danish Warmblood Assoc.)

Knowing her dam line could help you choose / eliminate a stallion as a good match for her.

Thanks! Ugh, I have her papers…just can’t find them right now. Yes, she’s branded. I found her original sale ad online and got her pedigree.

Dam sire is Mago (TB). Dam is Sabrina. Dam’s dam sire is May Sherif.

If anyone can help, that would be awesome!!!

[rocksolid]

I always start out with the following rule: If you have an unproven mare then breed to a proven stallion. If you have a proven mare, then you can breed to who ever you want. And by proven, I mean proven by what she produced. After that I look at conformational improvements and other items.

[Hej]

@rocksolid

I always start out with the following rule: If you have an unproven mare then breed to a proven stallion. If you have a proven mare, then you can breed to who ever you want. And by proven, I mean proven by what she produced. After that I look at conformational improvements and other items.

This is terrific advice!

If you want to register the foal as a Danish Warmblood, don’t think you are limited to stallions advertised as DWB only. Many stallions that are registered as other WB breeds are approved by DWB, so check the stallion adverts carefully or ask the owner.

[Ticker]

It seems, by your posts, that your mare is by a Holsteiner stallion out of a TB mare… Which you can approximate that your mare is 50 percent Holsteiner and 50 percent TB. Holsteiners have very concentrated genetics…which means they can reproduce themselves , Holsteiner with Holsteiner, with less variation than other horses from open registries.

I would take this mare back to a stallion with a significant amount of Holsteiner in the pedigree to take advantage of those concentrated genetics. As an example, Furstenball is out of a C-line Holsteiner dam. I use him as a dressage sire on my Holsteiner/TB mare. Not sure he is used for hunters, but his pedigree might be useful as a comparison tool for your mares pedigree.