Anyone else noticed the high incidence of BOGOF mares and foals lately?

Before my first horse I was at a local RS, & they had vet check a recent purchase who seemed to be putting on weight. Sure enough she was in foal (I felt guilty having ridden her week before & it wasn't long to her due time it transpired).

It is nice that if something happens to a mare she can have another useful life as a broodmare. We have one who was injured young so unable to become the eventer she was bred for. However people don't consider if the mare is of sufficient quality to warrent producing a foal from her. Ours is a beautiful mare, very well bred, excellent temperament who has produced 2 quality fillies to date (one won national finals of trailblazers, youngstock class & ru in national final of trailblazers sporthorse class same year against mature animals). So often you can see dubious quality mares (most you can say positive is they are coloured which is fashionable) chucked out with a stallion or colts capable of covering to produce a cheap cash crop of more foals.

I took my arab endurance mare to a county show when she was 5, & there was a guy struggling to control his colt. My girl wasn't even in season, & he yelled at me offering a free covering there & then to 'quieten him down', & was shocked that I declined. The colt was nothing of quality, & he wanted to produce a foal from him out of a mare he'd never met. I love my mare, she's a tremendous athlete, but she's no show horse. We were there to give her experience away from home. When I bred from her it was to produce another endurance horse (for me, now aged 6), she wouldn't produce a show type offspring & I wouldn't try.
 
24yrs ago when i was a working pupil we used to take on one or 2 three yr old from the local dealer for us to gain experience with, it was a riding school/livery yard so they were just there for a short time for (us) working pupils to back then they would be sold on.

we had 2 three yr old mares come in on the same day and one was purchased by a member of staff very quickly the other one was a very heavy weight cob, they were both backed at the same time, the heavy weight mare was very very lazy and after 3 months i was riding her (under instruction) with 2 schooling whips as we were trying to teach her to go forward off the leg with flicks for no response to leg aids. my boss asked me to halt in the corner and walked over to look at something, she asked me to dismount as the mare was running milk, we untacked and put her in the stable, she had given no previous signs of being in foal as she had arrived with us obese and was gradually losing weight (she was still big). she foaled that night and then the other mare foaled 2 nights later and she had not given any obvious signs either. both of them were maiden mares under 3.5yrs.
 
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