Warmblood Breeders: Your Ideal Broodmare?

[phippsie62]

Suppose you were looking to add a broodmare to your program. Your goal is to produce something for the amateur market with great brain and temperament, and you’re aiming specifically at jumper lines.

I assume you would not consider any cross-breeds as the results are too uncertain. But is there a particular registry whose offspring you find especially saleable–KWPN, Oldenburg, Holsteiner, Hanoverian or other?

I also assume you would want the very best pedigree for your goals, for example a KWPN mare with all the predicates, and a pedigree containing great accomplished jumpers. And you would want a stallion with excellent credentials to match.

And ideally you would like to produce a foal with all the good qualities of its sire and dam, and also hope for some improvement where it’s needed.

If you’ve read this far, you may be thinking I’m fishing for answers about whether a mare I own would be a desirable brood mare. No, in fact I’m looking for eventing prospects now, and the one I buy will be a) a mare and b) have great bloodlines just as a starting point. I view this as long-term care insurance.

Yes, I will pay more upfront for high quality. But if I need to place my future mare as a broodmare, I can reasonably expect that a breeder will find her credentials desirable enough to pass on, and she will have a useful career. (Whereas, what can one do with an unrideable gelding, except retire him?)

So is there an ideal brood-mare profile? And is my thinking about the placement opportunity for my prospect reasonable, or not?

Thanks for any insight.

[VolteSomeday]

I will defer to the experienced breeders for specifics, but I would say that there are a number of factors that [should] go into making a mare a desirable broodmare to a reputable breeder even beyond her breeding and temperament.

In your scenario, you would be selling (presumably) an “older” maiden with hopefully a competition record, who is being retired from sport for hopefully non-heritable reasons.

I was involved in such a sale recently, of an exceptionally well bred (multiple 1.60 jumpers in top and bottom of pedigree), imported, 11 y/o Holsteiner with a good record at 1.30, who was also incredibly flashy and lovely to be around. Our focus was on finding her an excellent home (which we did–and fingers crossed for a baby next year!), but this was not a high dollar “recoup your purchase price” type sale as it is admittedly a bit of a gamble for the breeder since she is not a proven producer.

[Laurierace]

Almost all warmbloods are cross breeds so you would be looking at thoroughbreds and Traks primarily off the top of my head if you aren’t interested in crossbreds. To me the ideal broodmare is the one who is successfully doing the discipline you are hoping the prospective foal will do but most importantly one you would be head over heels overjoyed if you got an exact replica of instead of hoping the stallion will “fix” all of her flaws.

[Halt_Near_X]

Not a breeder, but I bought a filly last year and like most filly/mare owners considered a broodmare career as a second career option for her.

I will be taking her to get approved when she is old enough, and if her scores/feedback warrants it, will consider having her do the mare performance test also. My thought is that if I think a broodmare career is a valid option for her, I should set her up for success there, too.

Logically, she’s going to score better at approvals and in a MPT while she is young and healthy than she would after an injury severe enough to end her performance career. And it would be one less cost for a potential breeder to shoulder, so should make her more appealing.

So you might also want to look at if and where she is approved, not just if and where she is registered. Or what the logistics would be for you to get her approved if she wasn’t. Extra cost now, probably won’t be reflected in a higher sale price as a broodmare, but might help secure her a better placement.

[phippsie62]

Thank you for responding and the great tip on approvals. I just placed a mare who went through the keuring in the Netherlands and has all the certifications. I’d love nothing so much as to get another like her, and that’s why I put a “right of first refusal” in the transfer of ownership to the breeder, so I can have first chance at any filly she produces.

[weixiao]

In addition to things already mentioned, here are a few thoughts:

A good dam line is nice to see. I look at performance of the mares and their offspring and many people are looking for very strong marelines these days. This is not necessarily a deal breaker for me, but is useful information when evaluating a mare. If there isn’t a lot of performance, I try and evaluate why there isn’t. Some questions I ask myself: Is it becuase the mares were only ever used for breeding and never made it to sport themselves? Did they have a short sport career and then retire to breeding? Were they owned by a breeder that just uses this model or not? Do most of their offspring end up with amateur riders that aren’t taking horses to 1.50m/1.60m? Is it a line that only has a few offspring or is it a line that has 50 ET babies in it? Are they jumping the young horse classes with good stables and then not making the cut to go to the next level? Etc. It can be especially hard to find the hunter offspring since their breeding and registered name doesn’t always follow them but it is getting easier.

Type is also important and having a mare that is easy to cross can be helpful. Many of the famous, established stallions need mares with blood so having a mare that carries a lot of blood herself may open up more stallion choices. I’d imagine especially for eventing that would be important. A mare that isn’t too small and isn’t too big is also helpful in expanding the options for crossing her.

I think that having a mare that could produce for multiple disciplines would be helpful for this kind of scenario. Especially since my understanding is that breeding for eventing is less lucrative in general, in an ideal world you might want a mare that has a good enough dressage pedigree and is a good enough mover to be appealing to that breeding market as well, or would be appealing to hunter or jumper breeders.

Personally, I prefer not to see linebreeding in the first 4 generations for breeding animals.

FFS carrier status should be considered. Some people don’t mind using a carrier and just make sure to breed to non-carriers. Others prefer not to use them. A mare that is not a carrier will have a broader broodmare market appeal. OCD, kissing spine, and other conditions that could be heritable would ideally be avoided as well.

A generally nice to handle, good tempered mare is important too. You want one that is easy to catch, nice to be around, and will be nice to have in the program and to have a foal learning from. Stable vices like cribbing would be a deal breaker for many (although not all) breeders.

[phippsie62]

Thank you for adding all these considerations when looking for the “ideal” broodmare. I’m trying to educate myself.

[Dressagelvr]

Saying that warmbloods are just crossbreds vastly simplifies hundreds of years of selective breeding.

You want a warmblood mare with a proven pedigree.

If you are interested in learning about warmblood breeding I strongly suggest The Making of the Modern Warmblood: From Gotthard to Gribaldi by Christopher Hector.