Well, I hate to rain on your parade, but I agree with Seigi and Tim.
You can get a whole lotta semen from stallions with extremely high marketability, for the price of an older stallion. And that’s key, right there. Marketability.
Tim is right about the fact that if you get an older stallion for cheap it is because (a) he’s not getting the bookings and (b) his foals aren’t selling and/or © his foals aren’t the quality that Europe looks for. He’s a cull, who has been replaced by a new hot little number that breeders are clamoring to get their mares in to see.
Even if you want him for yourself and you spend time and $$ finding the right mares for him, you STILL have to market him. Extensively. If you don’t market him, then clients won’t know much about him and thus won’t be lining up down the street to buy his kids. Threfore, he will need to be ridable, showable, and make a good impression on breeders at breed shows and/or jumping/dressage classes. Breeders are a saavy lot - just read any thread on here and just about half of them are discussing the pros, cons, traits of every named stallion out there.
The way I see it, if your heart is really set on stallion ownership, you are better off coming up with some serious cash (or find some help with investors and create a syndicate) and go to Europe and buy a superior quality young stallion just fresh off the SPT within the top 12 of the class, and bring him back home and market him like crazy (this is big bucks) and hope he fills full bookings year after year … or raise your own by breeding a top of the line mare to a top of the line stallion (and this also required big bucks).
The only way you’re going to get an older stallion who is still hot and marketable is by forking out well over 50,000 Euro, err, more likely higher than 100,000 Euro +++. Everything is for sale, but only for the price the owner want to let the horse go for. The hotter the stallion, the more required to get a deal done and bring him home.
Are you going to recover this cash output in his babies??? I don’t really think so. Any stallion is only worth keeping a stallion if (a) he pays his own way, but preferrably provides you a profit, and (b) you can recover income through sales of his kids, and © he provides meritable genetics to the market as a whole.
I dunno - I’ve had stallions - owned some, ridden and shown other people’s, whatever. Some had full bookings. Some I’ve recommended people geld because they barely paid for their own hay. I’ve yet to replace my last stallion, and while I’m considering it, I would be going into it with my eyes wide open because I KNOW the kind of money required to purchase or raise a homebred to market. You have to create marketability for him and his kids… and the money it takes to do this also buys me a heckuva lot of semen. So, that’s kinda repeating what I already said beforehand. Buying the semen is to be free of the various associated management/marketing situations that come with stallion ownership. Stallions can be intensely rewarding especially if they’re handled, exercised, and managed correctly, and I used to love riding and showing the stallions…but they can also be a money drain if he’s not the flavor of the month. And, if HE isn’t the flavor of the month, then neither are his kids.
AND -0- vet bills for the breeding except just one scan to confirm what I already knew! That got the mare’s repo system ‘going’ and I was able to settle her again with shipped semen and so this worked out very well for me. Maybe I am lucky though…It can be great if you get a really well mannered older fellow AND have good trainer help and guidance AND you can ride him, too. Also, you can always geld him and just ride if the breeding does not work out so well.
