Are the British rubbish at breeding horses? (not ponies!)

The British have always tended to go for the import. Irish horses for hunting and showing, and later the warmbloods from the Continent for dressage and jumping. There is also quite a good market for American breeds too for the family all rounder horse.

Why? The demise of the Ministry Stallion inspection scheme, where any stallion had to be passed by a vet as suitable for breeding was a big shame. The theory was that breed societies would only pass any stallion that met its standards, but not every stallion was "passed" it might only be "registered." A whole different story.

As for mares, there is a very regrettable tendency to say about a mare "put it in foal" no matter what its temperament, conformation, soundness, or competition record.

Then, surprise, lots of British don't want to pay much for a youngster, so the breeders of good horses can't make a living as it costs a lot to produce a nice foal.

Where the Government supports breeding programmes they are a lot more ruthless about weeding out the unsuitable mare and a breeding stallion has to pass all sorts of performance tests and be the right conformation. In Germany, france, holland, etc. there are many horses bred, but I bet there is a big dropout rate too. At least they have the abbatoirs in France and Italy on the doorstep ......................
 
I think it feeds itself to a certain extent. We hear the sporting commentators admire the breeding programs of European countries. We decide we are going to purchase a prospect and want one of those horses rather than say a British Warmblood as we have been conditioned to believe it must be better. Not an inspiring market for prospective studs. I think things are slowly changing with attitudes though so that is good for Britain, as has been mentioned the Billy stud is a good example of "home" breeding with a good media profile if nothing else.

However the cynic in me thinks if we breed better we'll just send more overseas and still not keep them for our teams/studs, as others have said we don't really have the owners queuing up to buy.
 
I think so many breeders (not talking about the 1 or 2 mare owner) aim to breed attain excellence in a particular discipline ie we breed horses to win at the top level in showing, eventing, dressage or whatever.

Only trouble is *most* riders actually want a quality, easy RC type. How often on here do we hear about buyers trawling the country trying to find that elusive 'family' horse with a laid back temp, but capable of doing a passable novice test and jump 1m that doesn't look like the back of a bus!?

Why some breeders don't aim to supply that market completely defeats me :confused:
 
Warmbloods like 10% of TB blood in their horses but the modern TB is not really what they like. As has been said the grading of mares (60%of the foal) and stallion approval was in the past overseen by local government ie the State Premium of 300 euros for top mares as well as the individual Society selection. We are producing the youngstock now as the futurity shows and 3rd generation British bred horses like Farouche are the best youngstock going where we lack totally is the bridge between the top young stock and the top competitors. This is the new project for British Breeding. Most top countries have organisations that buy up young stock for their Olympic potential and these are supported by supporters of the disciplines. It is a shame that the top British young stock Dressage sire Dimaggio a BHHS licensed stallion which was licensed at Addington and ridden by Suzzane is not in demand here as he is in Germany and he will stand in Germany this year. He has produced 17 licensed sons and this year Del Magico Dimaggio/Weltmeyer was awarded the Weltmeyer Award for the one of the 4 top young stallions. A daughter sold at Auction for 325000 Euros and his 3 year old sons 100000 Euros. We lack marketing and raisers of ridden young horses to the standards required by the top riders.
 
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