What do you prioritize with a potential Broodmare?

[ziggywiggy]

I have been bitten by the racehorse bug and I’m on a fact finding mission to ground myself as I’ve gotten it into my brain that I want to buy a broodmare one day (not this year, maybe not next year but the idea has already taken hold and it’s been popping off in my head for like a month against my better judgement). I’ve started reading Racehorse Breeding Theories by Frank Mitchell, and I’m not sure if there’s better or newer material I can review to wrap my head around all of this. In my head I would be breeding for yearling sales and hoping to break even(a gamble and probably a pipe dream I know) and my first purchase would maybe be a mare in foal who hopefully has a couple on the ground already. They would go straight to a boarding farm in Kentucky or Florida to foal out and be bred back so they could have Fl or Ky status. Then once safely bred back possibly back to my property for however long they can safely stay here before being sent back to ky of fl to foal out again. (The other option is Louisiana, which would be closest but would have to board year round). That is the rough sketch in my brain of what I would do but I know everything that can go wrong will go wrong and in the end it’s very possible to end up with having spent a ton of money with no mare or foal to show for it.

All of that to say, what would you look for if you were looking to make an investment (eek) in a broodmare to produce sales yearlings?

Edit:also any book recommendations on the good bad and ugly of breeding horses of any type would be appreciated

[NancyM]

Well… all I can say is that you have to find a mare who you believe in, for whatever aspects you feel are most valuable. Performance, conformation, attitude, soundness come to mind first. But if things look good, in person and on paper, the cost of purchase can be amazing, because everyone is looking for those things. And there are no guarantees of success in advance. The sales topper mare may not produce an offspring who has any success at all. And unless your last name is “Musk” or “Gates” or whatever, you will go broke really fast.
As a poor person, your choices will be limited because you can’t bid against the big guys. Which is OK, because you can still find success. Because no horse knows how expensive they were when purchased, nor how “popular” their families are or are not.
So you have to figure out what is important TO YOU, in a mare. The obvious things are obvious to everyone. The intangible things are personal to YOU. You have to figure out which horses you admire in recent history, that may be available to you, and look for those individuals in a pedigree you are looking at. You have to look at the conformation of that individual, and her nature. And her race record. And her produce record if she has one. And WHY she is being sold or offered for sale. And finally, you have to LIKE her, in order to put the money into her with your plans. You may be right, you may be wrong, only time will tell which.
I can’t comment on your plans with keep and care and travel plans for your mare. I have always kept mares at home, and bred to local stallions who are affordable and whose offspring I knew well. I mostly raced my own, locally only, not big time. Also, the stallion manager you choose to work with is important… don’t send your mare to an idiot. For anything. Because there are idiots out there, and it’s best to avoid them if possible.
To upset yourself, read Fredirico Tesio’s theories of breeding racehorses. Because everyone thought he was crazy at the time, but he had amazing successes. This will be your future, the surprises that you didn’t think were possible.
Good luck. Don’t go bankrupt or be taken advantage of.

[Laurierace]

First step is to decide if you are breeding to sell or breeding to race for yourself because those two things are so different it’s almost like they were different breeds. If breeding to race you need to decide where you will be racing them and who your trainer will be.

[LaurieB]

Since you’ve said you want to breed for the yearling sales, I will tell you what is most important in that aspect right now.

You will want a mare who is BIG, CORRECT, and PRETTY (preferably bay). Second consideration would be her sire and family, because how her “page” looks in a catalog will determine her offsprings’ placement in a sale. Race record immaterial. Produce record immaterial unless she has already produced horses with black type.

Right now, there are only about fifteen stallions in Kentucky that are a “sure thing” (as much as that’s ever true in horses) at a sale. There are none outside KY. All of them are priced at 100k and up.

Can you breed below that number and go to a sale? Sure. Big and handsome always sells. Will you make a profit? Possibly. It depends on if your stallion has a big runner at the moment you’re selling, and how high your expense are to get the yearling to a sale.

FWIW, I would prioritize totally different things if I was breeding to race (which I am.) But that’s the TB sales outlook at the moment. I know it sounds pretty bleak. That’s because it is. All of which doesn’t mean that you can’t have some fun doing it. But you need to have a high tolerance for risk, and a strong ability to roll with the punches.

[ziggywiggy]

Sales is where I’m leaning right now, yearling sales most likely.

[ziggywiggy]

Unfortunately I live in a state with zero benefits to racehorses, hence having to foal elsewhere. Also just not being super knowledgeable and wanting them to be with a farm that knows what they’re doing for the foaling process.

[Willesdon]

A cautionary tale. My father and I belonged to a breeders club, set up and run by the UK National Stud, some years ago. It had some 950 members who put in a one-off sum of £1000 to purchase and breed a band of brood mares with good commercial bloodlines. The foals would be sold each year. After 6 years the club would be wound up, mares and young stock sold, and any remaining monies would be distributed back to the club members. It was very well managed by industry professionals. It was fun because the club aim was to introduce TB breeding to a wider public. We had really good seminar days, talks from big names and also some great parties with fellow club members. But in six years, from our 6 mares, we lost one to colic, sold one when her pedigree got a big boost from a close relative doing well on the track, lost a couple of foals soon after birth and, finally, bred just one single winner, a horse exported to Turkey.

My suggestion is to study and learn and watch and listen and move very cautiously and slowly into breeding. Some people are lucky with horses but most are average. As the wise man said, the way to get rich breeding horses is to start off being very, very rich.

[Laurierace]

My advice is don’t do it. With all that shipping around and sales prep etc unless you have a gigantic budget you are very unlikely to break even. You are going to need at least 25k for a stud fee and will need a mare that is worthy of breeding to a 25k stallion.

[Texarkana]

As someone who was breeding TBs in a state with no racing program trying to do what you were describing, I found it shockingly hard to find board in Kentucky, Florida, even Indiana and Ohio. I had worked in race breeding for a number of years and didn’t see that one coming.

Most places are full with year-round clients or HUGE clients rotating large numbers of mares and foals in/out. Someone like me with only 1-2 mares and couldn’t afford to keep my horses there full time had a hard time getting my foot in the door to secure board.

But… everyone was super supportive of me in about every other way. I was also shocked at just how darn nice, encouraging, and helpful people were to me.

I’m on hiatus indefinitely these days, which is ironic because I’m back in a state with racing. But I lit enough money on fire that I think the breeding bug got burned to a crisp.

[LaurieB]

@Texarkana

As someone who was breeding TBs in a state with no racing program trying to do what you were describing, I found it shockingly hard to find board in Kentucky, Florida, even Indiana and Ohio. I had worked in race breeding for a number of years and didn’t see that one coming.

Just in case you ever change your mind about breeding…

As I’m sure you’re aware, the size of the TB foal crop is dropping precipitously. Farms that were previously full are now begging for mares. Many that never used to take seasonal mares, now do. It’s a very different picture now.

[ziggywiggy]

That’s kind of surprising, I would have thought the big players would have all their own facilities for their own mares, and that mares boarding would be more coming to get bred and leaving. Maybe I need to look outside of tb focused boarding.

[ziggywiggy]

Yeah those are the big numbers I need to see, at least to see just how crazy I am. I might revise myself down to the local Louisiana breds, I am intrigued by Imperial Hint and some of the other studs that have come down recently but the local sales are a bit underwhelming.

Edit: underwhelming in the prices they go for, not that the horses themselves are underwhelming

[Texarkana]

@LaurieB

@Texarkana

As someone who was breeding TBs in a state with no racing program trying to do what you were describing, I found it shockingly hard to find board in Kentucky, Florida, even Indiana and Ohio. I had worked in race breeding for a number of years and didn’t see that one coming.

Just in case you ever change your mind about breeding…

As I’m sure you’re aware, the size of the TB foal crop is dropping precipitously. Farms that were previously full are now begging for mares. Many that never used to take seasonal mares, now do. It’s a very different picture now.

Do you see people begging for boarders?

The free fall was already happening even when I was breeding pre-covid, but it always just seemed to me like water seeks water. Instead of farms having openings, several farms just shutter and we always seem to end up right back in the same boat of the best farms being packed.

But I am nearly a decade removed now, so I guess that changed?

[Laurierace]

I don’t think it really matters where you drop the foal as far as how much the yearling is going to have to sell for in order to break even. You have your stud fee, vet, farrier and two years of board. Add in sales prep and commission and you can easily have 50k minimum in expenses and that isn’t even taking buying the mare into the account. You really can’t take a cheap mare and breed her to a cheap stallion and hope to hit a home run like you possibly could if you waited and saw if it could work a sub 10 at a two year old in training sale or outrun it’s pedigree for you at the track. People that breed cheap mares to cheap stallions and sell them at a loss are hoping to get as many out there potentially earning breeder’s awards as possible.

[LaurieB]

@Texarkana

Do you see people begging for boarders?

Maybe begging was too strong a word. But yes, there are many farms that were previously full and now have openings.

[ziggywiggy]

So that’s what they’re doing, I knew there had to be another angle. I had a rough idea of what it costs to just own a horse and letting a yearling go for $5000 boggled my mind.

[LaurieB]

@ziggywiggy

That’s kind of surprising, I would have thought the big players would have all their own facilities for their own mares, and that mares boarding would be more coming to get bred and leaving. Maybe I need to look outside of tb focused boarding.

I’m not sure if this was in reference to my post? If so, the big players do have their own facilities for their own mares but many, if not most, also board mares for outside clients and always have. Plus there are dozens of “smaller” farms (~200 horses) in central Kentucky whose business is boarding broodmares (and foals). 50% of the TB foal crop is made up of mares that live full time in KY.

[ziggywiggy]

I might as well move to Kentucky at that point.

[ziggywiggy]

I think it was meant for Texarkana but I hit the wrong button, same conversation though.

[Laurierace]

The $5000 ones are the ones that are getting sold. Some get given away or sold for $1000 after the sale is over. I assume that isn’t being done as much as it used to be in the past but it happened a lot up here in the MidAtlantic. PA for example had a great state bred program. Even better if you got the foal Delaware certified. There was a lot of money to be made on breeding horses that didn’t necessarily involve getting a big price at the sale.