Just curious, is is common practice to test a young stallions fertility at some point, or is that something that won’t come up until he starts breeding? Is this part of the approval process in any stud books?
I know for TBs that stallions must be insured for breeding use before any fertility/motility/pregnancy testing is done.
Once you test you can’t insure for loss of breeding use.
For stud book approval, don’t know if a stallion is collected and checked prior to being accepted into a stud book.
I’ve never heard of it being included in stallion testing for registry, but that doesn’t mean there are no registries that do it, there’s an awful lot of registries. Certainly a good idea to get it done as part of a PPE if you are looking to purchase a young stallion with intent to breed at some point, but a more discretionary thing if your primary interest is competing with him and you think you might want to breed him if he turns out to be all that and a bag of chips, or if he’s already yours (say, a homebred) and you may or may not keep him intact and breed.
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Like the OP’s location, it’s complicated.
Stallions don’t reach their full fertility until 4-5 years. Yes, they can certainly breed before then, but the maximum output/forward-progressive motility won’t be seen until later. Additionally, young sport stallions are typically preparing for their registry’s licensing at 3 & 4, or seeking full approval by training progression. Sidetracking a young stallion by sending him out to be taught how to collect for a breeding soundness exam, at the same time perhaps awakening his libido, isn’t something that most trainers want to happen at that time.
o, it’s sort of a rock/hard place situation. While on the face of it, it seems silly to pursue stallion approvals without being sure the stallion is fertile. On the other hand, the horse will have to be trained anyway - whether stallion or gelding. So opting to NOT interrupt the training process can make sense.
Years ago I was in this position, and took the path of waiting until the stallion had completed his stallion testing before sending him to Hagyard to learn how to collect. Before I did that though, I pretty thoroughly investigated how fertile the stallions were on both sides of his pedigree - because fertility is very heritable. If I had gotten a hint of a sub-fertile stallion in the first two generations I would likely have made a different decision.
Okay… after saying all of that… here is one situation where training considerations do not enter into the equation: purchasing an intact colt/young stallion from outside the US. I would not spend a dime on any potential stallion prospect from overseas unless I had proof of his being EVA negative or a non-shedder. Standing an EVA stallion is just too hard to manage, and the education requirements for mareowners extreme. Not something I would have the slightest interest in.
In short, I would say most sport stallion owners are not evaluating fertility until the stallion has registry approval and has mare owners interested. (Yes… there are exceptions. There always are.)
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That makes sense that you wouldn’t want to introduce breeding behavior to a 3yo that isn’t at peak fertility anyway.
It entirely depends on the individual stallion. Some stallions can deal with breeding and being collected at a young age. Others can’t. We had a lovely colt about 10 years ago that we knew was going to be a to stallion prospect and he had an amazing temperament. We started collecting him as a late 2 year old and shipped semen to a few mares the next year for test breeding. Even at 2, his semen was off the charts stellar and didn’t change at all as compared to when he was 8 years old. But I have collected other young ones that had subpar semen at a young age. Going back to our young stallion, despite being collected regularly, he stayed the same sweetheart he always was and we had no problems showing him under saddle as a 4 year old. We have had a few warmblood stallions in the barn who were identical to this…and others that were not. 
What studbook did the stallion end up getting approved for? Were foals produced before his inspection eligible for inspection themselves? I’m sure this can differ between breed organizations. I’m just curious.
The particular stallion I was talking about was a Section B Welsh Pony approved with the RPSI, ISR/Oldenburg and accepted German Westphalian Verband, so probably a moot point. Regardless of what breed a stallion is, a registry cannot stop a stallion owner from breeding or deciding to do test breeding with a young stallion.
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