And its good for business for people to see who they are dealing with. We want American-bred horses to be sought after by American owners and quite frankly KS is just embarrassing. I hope that now that the babies are doing better and they have had a good inspection, someone will take a chance on them and give them a good home.
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Jury still out on âifâ that is even true on the first premiums. Doesnât matter anyway, honestly. If it walks like a duck, âŠ
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Kate, this wasnât just one time where the horses were not cared for appropriately. Yes, maybe you filed a police report, but horses donât just get like that because you were gone for a little while. This was consistent underfeeding. There are pictures of your emaciated horses NOT JUST from the time that you claimed people werenât feeding them.
Congratulations on your results. Really. But this doesnât negate the fact that you have underfed and neglected your horses multiple times. And ultimately, it doesnât matter if you filed a report on the person who wasnât feeding them. Thatâs still on you. You didnât put them in a place where they would be well cared for. You clearly didnât check up on them enough. You did not send anyone to check on them even though you seemingly have contacts everywhere from the braiding world. Donât rest the blame on everyone else when above all they are your horses and your responsibility.
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All of this. Well said.
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Haha everything is sold. I only have 2 for sale. And 2 of next years foals are sold in Utero already.
Yes letâs blame everyone that pays their bills for a service that is not provided. Thatâs exactly who we blame.
You wouldnât just send your child to boarding school and never check on them, right? You wouldnât have your dog with a pet sitter and not ask how it is doing? It is your DUTY as a horse owner to ensure they are treated in the correct manner, whether you are there or not. I have plenty of friends who pay for full service board and still ask other people to check in on their horses. That is your obligation and you simply did not do it. And, it actually shows how little you care too if you canât be bothered to check on them.
Kate, you are talking about one single time that your horses were not fed. The pictures are ample evidence that your horses were consistently underfed and neglected. You can think in your head that you hired the wrong people and therefore that is the one time you horses looked bad, but thatâs simply not true.
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Sure they are.
eta: If by your calculations, you had 12 foals this year. You think any of us are going to believe you sold 10???
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Yes? The the builder of my house contracts out work and now my new roof leaks, I AM going to take it out on the builder who hired shitty contractors. This are your horses and your responsibility. And this wasnât a one off thing. You repeatedly hired people who didnât take care of your horses. This is really a you problem, not a them problem.
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She will never admit to any of it. âIFâ she had any friends to speak of, they could have easily checked on the horses and babies. Itâs not rocket science, but for a souless person like KB, itâs just not in her DNA. My horse is boarded right next to my house and if I donât put hands on him every few days, I get antsy. Itâs in MY DNA to care for other living things.
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You donât seem to understand that the success of a breeding program is not determined by a breederâs ability to sell young stock, but by producing horses that go on to excel under saddle in the Hunter/Jumper, Dressage or Eventing disciplines.
Iâve not seen those results from your âprogramâ.
Have any of the animals you have produced been inspected as 2 yr olds? Do any of the older ones have any competition records? They will have to do more than one foal or yearling inspection to be approved for breeding, so if you really want to make a success of your breeding program, you need to continue on with the process and not stop at foal book inspections.
I get the impression that none of this matters to you, that you arenât really concerned with developing a breeding program that produces good sporthorses, but that your only concern is selling babies, without having any of them trained up to see what youâve really got.
Iâm very glad to see they are finally being fed.
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Honestly, after many, many years of participating one way or another in warmblood inspections for a variety of registries (Oldenburg, KWPN, Hanoverian, etc.), KSâs mindset about inspections and breeding is so, so very typical of starry-eyed newbie breeders who go all ga-ga because their foal got some sort of accolades - when the truth of the matter is that although it may have been marginally better than the other foals at the inspection, it was not anywhere close to being competitive against premium foals at other locations.
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KWPN hands out foal evaluation cards. Can we see those?
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Knowing nothing about inspections, I was actually wondering, does first premium mean first at that inspection? Or is it theoretically possible that there could be an inspection whets no horse is given a first premium? I guess the equivalent in the showing world would be did you get first because youâre the only one in the class, or did you get first because you actually got 70 something percent.
I have to take premium foal designation with a grain of salt. Yes - some stunning foals do grow up to be stunning horses. But I think you can tell more about what the foal will look like as a grown horse by looking at mama. Or what mama has produced as grown horses. Some mares outproduce themselves on a regular basis. I remember one particularly lovely colt at an inspection as a 4 month old. Mama was a very old fashioned type of mare with a LONG back, short legs and rather common looks. Foal did not seem to inherit those traits and was a top foal at the inspection. Next year he was back for the yearling futurity. He looked just like Mom this time - long back, short legs, short neck. Nothing like his 4 month old self. I could not believe it. Now maybe he had reverted to a butterfly at 3 years old but I suspect he looked a lot like Mom. Lots of other exquisite looking foals grow into average looking horses. So foal awards are nice, and bragging rights are nice but I would not consider them that important in the grand scheme of things. Looking at Mom and what she has produced is a much better predictor of what you will end up with IMHO.
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No, there can be many first premiums given or none at all. There is typically a site champion but just because a foal is given a first premium doesnât mean they got first in the whole inspection.
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Ok, so in this case, the inspectors assumedly did see something positive BUT thatâs still theoretical given no evidence from Kate herself and interestingly no post by KWPN-NA, who has been posting about all the inspections. Hmmm.
Edited for editing failure and resulting gibberish. 
Oh this reminds me of a guy telling me about a drop dead gorgeous Appy yearling filly they had taken to a show with their other horses. They were offered 10k (in 1982) for her but the guys dad said no, weâre going to wait until sheâs a 2yo. Uh-oh she developed a case of the uglies. Last I saw was the son riding her in western pleasure classes as a 3yo. No idea what they ended up selling her for but it wasnât big money.
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I have no idea what an inspector is looking for in this âtypeâ. Is it considered a breed or just an organization that the horse is registered with? Anyway, none of her young stock would interest me. If one was free I would consider taking it but I wouldnât even pay 1k for any of them.
I have only attended one KWPN inspection and I found the scoring a little strange. My only point of comparison is AHS. Some big conformation flaws that would be heavily scrutinized by AHS seemed to be ok with KWPN. KWPN seemed to be looking more for the biggest gaits possible, conformation secondary. AHS seemed to be looking more at the total picture. KWPN horses were a lot more different types. AHS were very much all similar sporthorse type. At the end of the day, itâs a good way to get feedback on your horse but itâs also subjective.
I primarily do hunters and I find the KWPN inspection seemed to skew a little more in favor of dressage type. So maybe thatâs part of it. Very few of the horses I saw at the KWPN were what I would pick for hunter breeding, though lots of them were nice. A much larger percentage of the AHS horses looked to me like something I might pick for hunter breeding or at least to grow up and do the hunters.
But also, it could have just been those two inspections. Theyâre the only ones Iâve been to, so I have no other frame of references (other than YHS series and hunter breeding).
I think itâs terrific that foals are getting first premium. That should be the goal. So thatâs great. I donât think people were knocking that upthread. They were more pointing out that the foals that got second premium were ones that KWPN felt fell below standard, and that someone producing second premium foals might revisit their program rather than brag about it as though itâs a âgood thing.â
My question way way upthread had more to do with whether thereâs a viable market for these foals in the 5 figure range and whether any of them were likely to go onto sporthorse careers. It seems like you still own most of them? Which would maybe suggest the market is kind of soft for this sort of foal, at least at the prices youâre asking. Have any of them sold to sport horse homes? Some of them should be at least under saddle now. Have any of them shown and done anything in terms of performance? Yearlings, two year olds, and three year olds can show on the line. Have any of them done that? YHS series? Three year olds and older doing under saddle classes or intro dressage? Isnât that the ultimate test of the program, whether horses are being produced that people want to buy and use for useful careers?
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