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Hello! I have just joined in the last few weeks and I was hoping someone could look over my horses/barn to see if there are any clear mistakes I'm making or places you see improvement. (I have pretty much spent all my money, so keep that in mind when you make suggestions! Ha!) Most of my horses are just to bring in money with shows, but the mares with PPE, PEE, ect... in their names I plan on breeding in the future. I have a few questions about that: I know they can breed at 3, but what age do most people wait to breed their mares at? Or do you wait for a certain level of training? I was planning on breeding ISH trained in CC but with a minimum of P in the other disciplines to start, with a slight leaning towards pretty colors and patterns. Would it be better if I'm training for CC to forget the other disciplines or is there value in keeping the dressage and jumping at a decent Premium level? Should I just not even mess with breeding until I have enough $$ to buy a EWE mare? Does having a public stud father with lots of offspring decrease the value of a horse? Those are the questions I have right now, thanks for any info! |
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First you should decide if you want to breed for JUST cross-country, or if you want to breed for all disciplines. . If your only interest in in cross-country you can ignore the dressage and jumping rating. SD is a great place for new players to start as the level of entry is much less expensive, however this means there is less potential for profit. . If you decide to stay breeding for all disciplines then you're right to save up money to be able to afford an EWE or at least a very strong EEE mare. You can also buy broods to leader board mares rather than investing hundreds of thousands on a purchase. . I would still breed all the mares you have every year starting at 3, leaving them open is just wasted profit even if you decide to FR the foal when it is 2yrs. If you don't want to breed them yourself put them up for public brood. . Always use the best stallions you can afford but be reasonable since many of your mares are EPP/EEP combos so you don't need to be spending 100k on a stallion for them. You can find decent studs for less than 5k so if they end up with poor ratings you aren't completely bankrupt. |
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Welcome to HEE! Here are some answers to your questions: The mares you have in your barn can also function as show horses. Use them for breeding as well as showing. I would start breeding your mares as soon as they are 3, regardless of level. You can track how many bars of training your mare has each week to identify their weakness and strenghts to find a stallion that balances out their weaknesses. My advice to every beginning stable is to focus on showing before breeding. I didn't start breeding until I had 200 show horses and it allowed me to afford higher rated stallions and mares which got me foals with better ratings. It was well worth the wait. What you want to breed for (color, CC, etc) is up to you! Most people focus on getting high ratings in one breed so that is where most of the money is, but there are some SD (single disclipline) breeders out there. I think a public stud can decrease in value if their offspring has bad ratings. It makes the stallion look like a bod producer. This is why many people set a minimum breed rating for their stallion. |
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Thank you for the feedback!! I'll breed my few mares for fun but really work on getting & showing more 1-2k geldings to build up some profits while I keep learning about the game |
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