North American Foal Auction

[system]

Hello Everyone,

I am new to this forum, a Canadian breeder and International Event rider, now riding mostly dressage.

I am planning to launch a North American Online Foal Auction in the near future and I would like some input as we are in the development phase of the website and auction software development.

Purpose of the auction is provide a select showcase of foals across the registries who have the potential to become advanced level horses in either dressage, eventing or show jumping.

Top Foals will include the main sport horse breed registries, and request and breeders present their “top foal” of that year. Selection criteria will be developed and maintained by ensuring all accepted foals have at least placed in the top 5 the Provincial or State breed shows/Registry inspections and reviewed by an advisory board to ensure high quality offerings.

So can you please respond the following:

Website design: buyers will be able to scroll through the list of auction horse by the one page list including sire, dam, price, breeder, photo. Anything else to include here? Suggestions?

Marketing of the auction will focus on literature disseminated at FEI competitions for all three disciplines, Kentucky Young Horse Championships, Rolex, Pan Ams and future WEG.
any other suggestions?

Suggestions on timing of the auction? Spring and Fall?

Suggestions to make connecting with breeders and grow this? Offering DVD and print catalog necessary ? or only downloadable in format (PDF)

Any other development ideas are welcome and discussion is welcome as I embark on this project for 2010-2011. Launch time is not yet known but I hope at the latest to have a Spring Auction if not late fall.

Looking forward to your suggestions and comments.
If you wish to join my email list for ongoing communication please email me at jverenka@gmail.com

Jenna Verenka
North American Top Foals-Online Auction

[YankeeLawyer]

A few thoughts:

Top Foals will include the main sport horse breed registries, and request and breeders present their “top foal” of that year. Selection criteria will be developed and maintained by ensuring all accepted foals have at least placed in the top 5 the Provincial or State breed shows/Registry inspections and reviewed by an advisory board to ensure high quality offerings.

That would virtually eliminate almost all of the top foals in the US. First, some registries, such as AHS (Hanoverian), do not rank or score foals at inspections. They do name top colt or top filly if there are enough entries, but at the larger sites frequently several might be that good - and they are not ranked. And many foals are not presented for inspection until the fall anyway.

You could consider breed show results, but many of the performance-oriented breeding programs do not show in-hand and even the barns that do frequently do not show their foals and instead wait a year or two.

So, I think you may have to select based on photos, video, pedigree, and performance records of parents and sibs, for example.

Regarding timing, given that it is a foal auction, I don’t think you have much choice other than to do it in Fall, or maybe late summer, because a lot of foals do not even hit the ground until May or so. The Elite auctions in Germany are held late summer.

Regarding marketing, I think advertising at FEI events is nice, but not sufficient because that is unlikely to be the greatest part of your market as it is no secret that top riders typically are not big customers for foals (there are exceptions, but not many). So you need to be sure to reach breeders, good amateurs, and those that develop young horse with a view towards the upper levels. I would recommend getting a banner click-through ad on the Chronicle online, and get the word out on websites like dressage daily and eurodressage. You might also contact Phelps Media to see what it would cost for them to promote it.

I would skip the print catalog as it seems an unnecessary expense. I think you must have an online downloadable catalog, and if you could also offer a DVD that would be great (some have slow internet connections and streaming online can distort movement; DVDs are better in that regard).

[stoicfish]

Have you seen this http://www.onlinefoalauction.com/ ?
It might be a good source of info.

[Sunnydays]

YankeeLawyer made some great points - especially re qualification of foals. Many breeders never take their foals to a breed show. In my area, for example, there are none.
And the German Hanoverians also do not score foals, usually picking a Champion, a Reserve, sometimess a “Best Jumper Foal” or a “Best Colt” or Best Filly" That varies by year. And in Canada our inspections usually include 18 to 25 foals, whereas some smaller inspections number 4 or 6 - Is that comparable? Further, many foals do not make it to inspection, but are branded through the outreach program. If one breeder has 5 or 6 foals for inspection, but can only ship 1 or 2 (with moms) to the inspection site (due to distance), the others, who may be of excellent quality, are home-branded.
An ambitious project!

[hluing]

Some inspections don’t even occur until the Fall. You said the major WB registries…will you also be including thier poony registries (ie/ Weser-Ems, ISR Sportpony, etc)?

[system]

Other thoughts

Hello,

Thank you for the input. I indeed will include the pony registries and in terms of marketing, that you for the suggestions. This is a long term project and I will be utilizing this forum for suggestions and input as I go along.

Jenna Verenka
Top Foal
Performance Sales Online