This Retiring From Horse Breeding Thing

When you produced the horse in the first place and have kept it for the past 8-9 years and taught it all it knows it is hard to sell it. 
 

The first hours of Gambol's Middernacht's life

As the two mares we have still to disperse due to our retirement stand quietly munching hay in their stalls out of the hot midday sun, it is so tempting to give in to the notion of breeding them and forgetting about the need to retire from so much horsey activity.

This Spring I did miss the anticipation and thrill of new foals hitting the ground. Imprint training is rote to us at this point, and being there for mares that you aided giving birth to years before, is fabulous because you know each other so well. 

I confess to having a lackadaisical attitude to the whole marketing process. I have only advertised them on Facebook pages, Catskill Horse, Equine Now and just gave myself a much needed kick in the pants and added a guaranteed ad to Equine.com. I though the guaranteed ad was a good one, as I am hopeless and remembering to renew ads and so the horses are probably off the market more than they are on. Pretty ironic when my other job is in PRMarketing and I have a long history in the horse world with much experience in selling international calibre horses.

If I'm being honest, I suppose my poor management of the mares' marketing comes down to not really wanting to sell them at all. But I must shake off that nonsensical idea. As I approach a 'big' birthday in the Fall I realize that hubbie and I are not as young and energetic as we used to be. Our lifestyle has evolved over the years and presently involves more coaching and clinic giving than competing. Having pregnant mares at home, scheduling the vet visits for AI and checks, waiting anxiously for foals to arrive is not practical for us anymore.

When I factor in my parents living far away across the pond, and the necessity and wish to travel as frequently as possible to England to visit them, the time to just do as you please with horses at home is even more limited. Asking folks to farm sit babies is a much harder thing to handle than asking them to watch over adult horses.
 

Extravaganza WVH ( Lusitano Briosso x DWB Gambol's Georgy Girl)

So as I resist the temptation to take up the offer of another breeding to the beautiful Briossi Lusitano from my good friend in Jerez via frozen semen, and watch our young colt struggle to control himself in the barn around the seasoning mares, I'll give myself a pat on the back and a good talking to about getting on this marketing machine.

Of course next up is finding a med/wide saddle to fit one of the mares that is ready for saddling..always something!
 

A goofy photo of Gambol's Middernacht aka Midi after her 4th longe lesson of 2019

A New Horse For Christmas?

The snow begins to fly and the shortest day of the year is around the corner. Yay! The New Year will soon be here and no doubt you will be setting new goals for yourself for 2018. Do those goals include doing more horse riding? Perhaps you used to ride and think about getting back into horses or perhaps you've been training at a lesson barn and think about buying a horse of your own? Perhaps your present horse is in need of retirement and you need to think about starting a new prospect?

A new horse for Christmas? Is that something you dream about? Of course the biggest concern is probably the budget. What can you afford? Should you go and look for a rescue horse, and do a noble deed or should you find an off the track Thoroughbred and give one a home? Or should you enter the horse market and search for a prospect.

In my experiences as a clinician I've seen a myriad of horses of all shapes, sizes and soundness. While I truly applaud the efforts of those that choose to rehabilitate a horse and realize sometimes this does work out well for both horse and rider, I would also suggest that if you are in search of a performance horse and competition partner, you may wish to consider buying just that. A horse that is bred to do the job you want. A horse that is a clean slate and not recovering from a soundness issue and does not have to overcome trust issues.

The reality is that your time is worth money. Time you spend working through physical and mental issues with a rehab horse will delay your progress and may even inhibit you from attaining your goals altogether. The recovery process for a rehabilitation case is also often an expensive option and one that may pay off or may be a dead end. The costs for chiropractic work, special shoes, working through past bad or poor training mishaps or issues, vet bills etc. all add up. Suddenly your inexpensive horse has become a giant drain on your bank account.

So if you are looking for that diamond in the rough and think you can beat the statistics and find a solid, sound partner for your high performance needs at a kill pen, auction, rescue or in someone's backyard go ahead. But be smart enough to realize that what you don't pay for in the beginning you may have to pay out down the road. 

U.S. breeders do a great job training and custom designing horses for specific disciplines. For my buck I'd start there. Believe me, your foray into your chosen discipline will go much smoother with a horse that is bred to do the job. But of course, as a horse breeder for more than thirty years in the Hanoverian, Dutch and Iberian marketplace, I would say that!

Fenix ( Furioso/Aktuell) my first warmblood purchased as a weanling...