Opinions on DHH crosses for jumping?

[MHM]

I swear I’ve still seen frozen semen advertised from Abdullah in the not too distant past. And he’s been gone for a long time!

[EmilyM]

There are also auctions that you can buy straws from that usually go for less than the full booking fee. I have a friend who does that. I want to say it’s the KWPN auction but I’m not 100% sure on that.

[sixpoundfarm]

There are many auctions in the EU and sometimes here that one can purchase single straws (or full breeding doses) from.

[EmilyM]

Do they usually go for less than the full advertised amount?

[Old_Mac_Donald]

I believe lactating mares are to be fed at 4%?

My mare with an 8wk foal at foot is on 24/7 grass hay (100kg round bale) and 1.5kg of protein pellets plus 1/2 cup of oil. She is 15.1 high and usually the size of a wine barrel on stumpy legs (i.e. a bit of a tub tub) and the foal is just dropping the weight off of her.

Still a fatty but goes to show what the foals will take off of them.

Our climate here is very similar to Florida. Hot, humid, currently desert-dry but give it a month and we will be flooding (and still hot). I have 0 grass. 0. All my horses are on plain grass hay. None of my horses have ever been ribby, even the lactating mares.

[Virginia_Horse_Mom]

@MHM

I swear I’ve still seen frozen semen advertised from Abdullah in the not too distant past. And he’s been gone for a long time!

I believe his works very well.

Also, he’s still a good fit for certain modern breeding goals. That’s not necessarily true of some other great proven warmblood stallions from the past. Breeding trends may have gone in different directions. But Abdullah? He’s pretty specific and still a great choice for certain mares I think.

[Virginia_Horse_Mom]

@vxf111

I am puzzled by why someone would need all those straws if they had ANY plan at all. Assuming the partial straws were once full straws that’s close to 50 straws purchased. Even if you used the full straw each time and bred 4-5 mares a year, that would last you a decade. And that’s not even assuming getting multiple doses out of each straw or sometimes using fresh. The stallions are all over the place in terms of type and discipline. What could the plan have BEEN here, if there was a plan?

I’m totally with you. If I do some math in my head in terms of potential veterinary expenses to get embryos from each of these doses that would then be carried by a recip mare… I think it’s easily a breeding endeavor that could and would have approached the mid six figure range in terms of investment.

It’s very odd to think of that sort of capital outlay, and then look at the DHH mares she was using, and then contemplate that she didn’t seem to be investing in feeding, worming, or hiring high quality help.

Sigh. It makes no sense to me either.

@vxf111

Maybe the plan was to be a semen broker, but that seems like a bit of a risky proposition if you have to pay storage fees in the meantime. Looking at all that semen, it’s hard to imagine there was actually a viable business/breeding plan in mind here. It seems a lot more like hoarding

I think most of the doses she has here could be had from other brokers with better professional reputations. It looks to me like she was planning on a lot of ICSI using specific stallions that you really can’t get foals from via other methods. Baloubet de Rouet and Quick Star, for example. But again… I start thinking about all the expense involved in ICSI to get an embryo, then dealing with the expense of a recipient mare carrying it… and I &don’t see how this is a viable business model. I mean… if she had gotten a few quality mares who had jumped 1.4m or 1.5m themselves, and created embryos from them using something like Quick Star via ICSI ? Yes… I could see the eventual foals selling for high prices. Definitely. But foals from DHH mares who have no competition records? Nope. I don’t understand that. At all.

@vxf111

I wonder how the stallion owners feel?! Especially for the deceased or no longer breeding stallions. Maybe they don’t care and money is money and the straw is sold so it is what it is… but if I worked a long time to stand a stallion and now he could have limited offspring due to death or infertility, I’d be sick about the fact that some of what’s left of the semen was being indiscriminately used to breed with very random DHH mares in a program that doesn’t seem to produce much except skinny and poorly looking foals

My guess is they don’t care. Many of these doses are likely very old.

But personally? I am twitching over the Baloubet du Rouet, Darco, Chin Chin, and Quick Star. I hope a really good jumper Breeder who has appropriate mares buys those straws. Especially the Quick Star. He was so cool.

I’m trying to picture what a Quick Star x DHH foal might have turned out like if that had ever actually happened …

It probably would have had a REALLY homely head.

[Tha_Ridge]

@Virginia_Horse_Mom

But personally? I am twitching over the Baloubet du Rouet, Darco, Chin Chin, and Quick Star. I hope a really good jumper Breeder who has appropriate mares buys those straws. Especially the Quick Star. He was so cool.

I know. I have a new top-pedigreed mare who I hope to breed down the road and I’m trying hard to not pick some up. With the provenance/history, I just don’t know if I can bring myself to do so.

[Old_Mac_Donald]

@vxf111

I am puzzled by why someone would need all those straws if they had ANY plan at all. Assuming the partial straws were once full straws that’s close to 50 straws purchased. Even if you used the full straw each time and bred 4-5 mares a year, that would last you a decade.

Chucking some ideas out: supply and demand. Deceased stallions cannot (obviously) produce more straws, so supply becomes limited. Let’s say Stallion X (dec 2020) has a foal that in 2026 becomes a World Cup horse. Everyone suddenly wants a Stallion X baby. Those remaining straws become more valuable. Like art, once the artist dies the production of new art from that artist ends.

The other idea is that if you own a straw, that is one straw out of circulation. Reduction of the number of Stallion X babies drives up the price of your babies.

In theory, this is how Big Business drives up prices (or drives down prices). Big Egg got caught with egg on its face doing this: shipping eggs overseas so there was a sudden “domestic egg shortage”. Suddenly people would pay $10/dz for eggs.

In reality, this doesn’t always translate across to the horse world but I’m guessing some breeders are narcissistic enough to think they are market influencers. AH was another, barnblind about her Cradillo offspring.

[foursocks]

@Virginia_Horse_Mom

I’m trying to picture what a Quick Star x DHH foal might have turned out like if that had ever actually happened …

I have a Quick Star grandson. He’s already got LOTS of knee action, really doesn’t need any more!! Of course, he’s from a well-known and respected breeding program that uses horses with proven competition records (um, actually from the jumper ring), and both sire and dam are royally bred.

[Rumorhasit93]

But personally? I am twitching over the Baloubet du Rouet, Darco, Chin Chin, and Quick Star. I hope a really good jumper Breeder who has appropriate mares buys those straws. Especially the Quick Star. He was so cool.
[/quote]

I have a Baloubet x Cumano mare and she does not need more knee action. I cannot imagine breeding Baloubet (French trotter), to a DHH and expecting something that can jump or move well (for h/j purposes).

My dream is to breed my mare to Casall who throws lovely flat knees movers.

[fordtraktor]

I love Chin Chin. My dressage horse is by a Chin Chin x Glennridge stallion, out of a dressage mare. He has the absolute best temperament. I actually think he would have made a lovely hunter if I was still doing that. He’s the type you could float the reins and jump around like a big pony.
—-

On the bigger subject, Kate posted on FB that a single person was causing her to have to give up her breeding program.

She isn’t wrong. That person is Kate. Kate has done this to herself by having mares and foals in horrible condition for years, and always blaming someone else.

[Softhands]

That last sentence is pretty telling. “The only ones …” REALLY?

[Railbird]

Some of these stallions have breeding doses that are more than 1 straw to get the counts needed. Some she trashed for low quality semen. But I guess not too bad to sell to someone else

[skydy]

@fordtraktor

On the bigger subject, Kate posted on FB that a single person was causing her to have to give up her breeding program.

She isn’t wrong. That person is Kate. Kate has done this to herself by having mares and foals in horrible condition for years, and always blaming someone else.

Exactly.

[Trak_Eventer]

If you’re talking about the Trakehner Abdullah, he has been in the American Trakehner Association’s SSA.

[Virginia_Horse_Mom]

@Railbird

Some of these stallions have breeding doses that are more than 1 straw to get the counts needed. Some she trashed for low quality semen. But I guess not too bad to sell to someone else

Yes… I noticed she is trying to sell a frozen dose of Nabab de Reve.

[Virginia_Horse_Mom]

@Rumorhasit93

I have a Baloubet x Cumano mare and she does not need more knee action. I cannot imagine breeding Baloubet (French trotter), to a DHH and expecting something that can jump or move well (for h/j purposes).

My dream is to breed my mare to Casall who throws lovely flat knees movers

I commented on the other thread on the same topic in the Dressage forum about Kate’s September post excitedly announcing how she crossed her mare “Ivanka” (who is by the DHH stallion “Dondersteen”) with Galoubet himself. Kate has apparently created frozen embryos from this cross. Galoubet/Dondersteen …

I admittedly still can’t get over the idea of this cross, and I suspect you might appreciate exactly what I am saying about it being problematic if you see actual video of Dondersteen in action… I mean… he seems like a super cool horse to drive… but crossing Galoubet on a Dondersteen mare? That’s just… something.

Dondersteen 2014

Kate has video of the mare up on Facebook. She’s big with pinto markings, and when you watch her in the field, she’s got tons of knee action and DHH head carriage.

[Railbird]

Apparently the royaldik explodes when defrosted and she credits to giving her mare an infection and the ut majeur frozen was so bad she wanted a refund rather than a second dose for her LFG if I remember correctly.

I swear I don’t stalk the woman, but her train wrecks are just so memorable I can’t forget them

[Warmblood1]

@Scribbler

I expect there is a lively secondary market in frozen semen, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Kate and others bought at a discount and traded tubes that have been in a vets freezer for years. I could completely see someone offloading tubes, and someone else seeing a chance to make a profit, while these tubes never leave the vets freezer.
…

Thus frozen semen has become a pure commodity that can be bought and sold and speculated on without ever having touched the tubes.

My guess is going to be that Kate gathered up or acquired for a bargain price a bunch of tubes far exceeding any use value for her very modest backyard breeding program, perhaps from some other breeder retiring or liquidating or abandoning them in storage. And that she has been participating in a fairly unregulated secondary market to try to make some cash. She’s certainly advertised tubes on FB before this latest fiasco.

I doubt she ordered all these direct at full price.

Yes, you summed this up well.

@EmilyM

There are also auctions that you can buy straws from that usually go for less than the full booking fee. I have a friend who does that. I want to say it’s the KWPN auction but I’m not 100% sure on that.

Multiple NA registries do this every year, not just KWPN. A good proportion of NA stallions participate in the auctions. You can also find some hard to find frozen semen at times as well.