Young unproved stallions vs proven show stallions

[jenbrin]

I totally agree that you need to match a stallion to your mare. What I’m trying to figure out is if you have two or more stallions that are completely equal as in matching your mare do you go for the proven performer or the young prospect with great bloodlines?

So do you take a risk with a young prospect or proven performer? It doesn’t matter if you are breeding for dressage, eventing, arabians, quarter horses,
hunters or jumpers. What makes you decide on a stallion if several match your mare?

[Kaluna]

[QUOTE=jenbrin;5828465]
I totally agree that you need to match a stallion to your mare. What I’m trying to figure out is if you have two or more stallions that are completely equal as in matching your mare do you go for the proven performer or the young prospect with great bloodlines?

So do you take a risk with a young prospect or proven performer? It doesn’t matter if you are breeding for dressage, eventing, arabians, quarter horses,
hunters or jumpers. What makes you decide on a stallion if several match your mare?[/QUOTE]

Risk. Breeding plan. Offspring goals (selling? keeping?) See my previous post. Several stallions always match a mare. No matter what, you won’t know what you’re going to get until it hits the ground. You just weight the odds.

[Sonesta]

Ok this is going to ramble, because I have been in a mediation all day and am a bit tired, but, the problem is that not every stallion with a pedigree that seems to match a mare will actually PRODUCE well. So, until the stallion is proven to produce well with a mare of your mare’s type it is a huge gamble.

So, you don’t know if the latest young stallion is going to “match your mare” until AFTER you have the foal on the ground and often have started it under saddle.

You cannot just look at pedigree (or performance). You must look at the offspring over several years and with many types of mares and many different bloodline crosses.

Bottom line: There is always a risk. You just have to decide how “risky” you want to go.

When a 3-4 year old stallion shines at a stallion testing and shows extravagent gaits, many mare owners rush to breed to him thinking they can more easily market a foal from him than from an older, more well-established stallion.

And sometimes that is true, as there are many buyers who buy what is “new” and “hot.” But not all stallions reproduce as well as themselves. So, in a few years people start talking about the problems with the offspring of these stallions.

Now, that is fine if you sold your foal already. But not so good if you have held onto it and now find yourself with a 4-5 year old that has not lived up to the hype of the sire and no one wants.

On the other hand, if you breed to a stallion PROVEN to produce well with your mare’s type/bloodline - while you may not sell it as quickly as a foal, by the time it is under saddle you will have something highly desirable as a proven product.

Does that make sense?

[DownYonder]

Very good post, Rebecca (Sonesta). And yes, it makes perfect sense.

I agree with AHF that SOMEONE has to be willing to take a chance on a young stallion, but I also feel that, in most cases, an unproven mare should be bred to an older stallion who has proven to produce well with that mare’s type. Once the breeder gets a feel for what the mare produces from PROVEN stallions, then maybe she can take a chance on using a younger stallion. However, it takes many years to know how offspring are going to turn out, and by then, very few mares in this country are still in production with the same breeder who had her at the start of her breeding career. Fortunate are those breeders who are able to keep mares throughout their entire adult lives and see many of their foals grow to maturity and become useful mounts or go on to their own breeding careers.