Breeding with Purpose - Outlining The Journey

In anticipation of the start of breeding season I decided to delve into some thoughts and observations I have made recently about the breeding of sport horses. I am not any kind of authority on the subject but I am definitely a student of bloodlines and what they produce. I am also very interested in the marketplace for horses because the majority of my business is training for sales. In the U.S. a breeder of sporthorses can rarely recuperate the expenses they put into their offspring unless they sell them within the first year. This results in most breeding programs being short lived and short sighted. I believe that if the United States wants to be competitive on the international scene, then there must be an American breeding program producing quality horses for American riders.

I have observed that the breeding of horses for equestrian sports in the U.S. is no where near as organized as it is in Europe nor as organized as Thoroughbred breeding in the U.S. The only explanation I have for this is that the marketplace for sporthorses lacks any cohesion. In order for breeders to have a reliable market for their horses, various breed organizations and sport organizations need to work together to create an infrastructure that includes reliable statistics, quality auctions and incentive programs that financially encourage breeders to participate. All of the elements exist in the U.S., there is just not a network to unify them. The result is that American breeders often choose bloodlines based on convenience and information no more reliable than rumor; and then they pray that they will get lucky and sell whatever they produce.

The Breeding Plan

I am a person who likes to hear why breeder's do what they do. I recently communicated with a breeder that had a sibling of my stallions about their program and in spite of being virtual strangers our phone conversation lasted over an hour. This particular breeder had acquired several thoroughbred mares off the track and was breeding to young American warmblood stallions that had demonstrated excellent scope over fences in their stallion testings and were second generation lines of prominent European stallions. He had produced some nice horses but was frustrated with the limitations he faced in getting his horses sold. The basic gist was that he was having to sell his horses before they began their show careers because he did not have an in-house trainer. However the trainers that purchased his horses were tripling their investments within the year. He was eager to participate in these profits but thus far had been unable to figure out a way to. Although we all know the scenario of tripling profits with horses is rare and very circumstantial, the essence of this breeder's quandary was that he was frustrated with the limitations inherent in the marketplace.

I came away from this conversation with two thoughts. First, there seems to be an opportunity for partnerships between breeders and trainers of young horses. And secondly, many breeders do not have a budget or a plan to train and show the horses that they breed. Their goal is to sell them young. This is understandable given that putting a young horse with a reputable trainer can cost $1200-$2500 per month depending on what part of the country you live in. To bring a young horse from first rides through a program like the USDF Young Dressage Horse or USEF Young Jumper Championships requires a minimum of 18 months which equals $21,000 to $45,000 in training costs. In addition, annual show expenses could run an owner anywhere from $10,000 to $25,000. Based on these round numbers the investment in a horse competing as a five year old is estimated to be anywhere from $57,000 to $100,000. This sounds ridiculous but unfortunately these numbers are a reality for a breeder that does not ride or start their horses.

The Europeans Do It Better

I have always been the first person to complain about riders shopping for horses in Europe. I have seen plenty of imported horses that did not compare in ridability or talent to their American counterpart. However, recently I have been looking for specific bloodlines and talent in the U.S. and I simply can not find it. In contrast I can spend hours watching auctions in Europe via the internet and see multiple versions of the type of horse I am looking for. There are two possible explanations for this. First, the marketing is just better in Europe. There are hundreds of farms in Europe that work together with stud farms to hold testings and auctions to exhibit their horses. This exists in the American Thoroughbred industry for racing but not for sporthorses. The other, more depressing option is that we simply have sub-standard sporthorse breeding in the United States. This is not an option I really want to accept but the lack of a consolidated source for information makes it difficult to refute.

So how do Europeans do a better job in the breeding of sporthorses? I would argue that it starts with a marketplace that is well organized and well publicized. Stud farms and breed organizations across Europe hold annual auctions to showcase young stock, stallions and horses in training. These auctions help to educate the horse-interested public on successful bloodlines and have created buyers ready to spend money for quality as seen by the recent prices at the P.S.I. auction in Ankum. The breed organizations are very discriminating in their stallion and mare approvals and most of the breeding programs have been multiple generations in the making.

By contrast, in the U.S. there are very few multi-generation breeders of sporthorses and the majority of warmblood horses bred are through small breeding programs that have been in existence for less than 5 years. There are multi-generation breeders of American thoroughbreds for racing, but few thoroughbred breeders think beyond the racetrack and few develop their bloodlines for long term use in the equestrian sports of jumping, dressage, eventing or even polo.  The Jockey Club has begun several programs to begin to promote the Thoroughbred beyond the racetrack but there are few breeders of thoroughbreds that consider the other equestrian sports more than a dumping ground for their inadequate.

Looking Forward

I was excited to learn that the USEA announced a new prize for Young Event Horses that is a grant for a qualifying 5 year old YEH Champion to travel to the 7 year old two star championships in Europe. The grant is larger for a U.S. bred qualifier. This kind of promotion and incentive program encourages breeders to create a long range plan for their young horses. American breeding programs must begin to think in terms of decades not years. Trainers and breeders need to cooperate to bring young horses from the nursery paddock to the competition arena in an equitable manner. This, in turn, will give buyers a reliable source for horses that is also invested in the horse's success.

As the equestrian show organizations incentivize quality development of breeding and young horses, the breeders will need better sources for information on bloodlines. In the world of thoroughbred racing, breeders have tools such as Werk Thoroughbred Consultants, Inc., Equibase, Equineline to help inform their choices. When I considered breeding or purchasing a racehorse, I managed to satiate my dreams through the wonderful tools of Keeneland's database for their annual auction's and Equibase's Virtual Stable where I monitored horses that actually raced as if they were my own.  This type of network of information between bloodline research, auction results and actual competition records benefits breeders and encourages participation in the sport. There is a basic source of information available in the competition records kept by the U.S.E.F. and affiliate organizations but there needs to be a magazine, ezine, blog or website that synthesizes this information and makes it accessible to the public.

As I understand it, equestrian sports have a much larger audience and participation among the general public in the British Isles and Europe than there is in the United States. This is not an accidental cultural phenomenon. I believe it is the result of a deliberate infrastructure and cohesive marketing. If we want to consistently see American bred horses compete at the top of the equestrian sports we are going to need to invest in a multilateral approach to breeding of sporthorses. We must develop a comprehensive source for information on bloodlines and competition results of certain bloodline crosses. *** We must encourage long range planning of breeders and the cooperation between breeders and trainers to get horses into competition. And finally, we must develop reputable sporthorse auctions where breeders can exhibit their offspring and buyers can reliably purchase quality horses. If we create this kind of infrastructure with the information already available, then U.S. breeders will  undoubtedly experience marketplace and competition success comparable to Europe. Then there will be no reason why anyone would travel outside of the U.S to purchase quality bloodstock except to diversify or just to have a nice trip in a foreign country.


*** In an effort to create my own database of breeding information, I intend to follow up this blog post with specific research that I am doing into the success of particular bloodlines among both warmbloods and thoroughbreds.