How to breed a racehorse, advice for a beginner

G

GMT

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Hello All

I am hoping some forumites might help with advice and information with my very early plans to breed a racehorse.

My Situation
My daughter owns two horses, (unsuitable for breeding). she is at present taking her degree in equine science at Bishop Burton. We live in the North-East of England. We both have an interest in breeding a racehorse. Because we do not have our own land we have livery for the two horses, its always been a major barrier to breeding. Lately we have made an enquiry to a large stud near Otterburn which is close to our home where we are going to visit and discuss our hopes of breeding a racehorse. The stud has several very good stallions available.

What I want out of this venture
The experience of breeding a beautiful athletic animal. To go through the process of breeding so as to benefit my daughters career. And a little bit is so I can recieve the Gold Cup at cheltenham !

How do I breed this horse
This is the area I struggle with, should I go down to Doncaster sales and buy a cheap mare who is well bred and use this as my broodmare ? If this is the way forward how do I make sure the pedigree matches the stallions I have on offer ? Do I lease a mare ? If so where do I find well bred Tbds available for lease, and how much would I be looking at paying ? When I manage to find a suitable mare and take it to the stud my thoughts are I would have to leave it there long term so as to be covered and staying there until she foals, is this a typical way to do this ? Noting the livery we have at home is no way suitable for foals.

Costs
My very initial thoughts on costs are that for the first year the costs would be around:
One year livery for the mare £4000
Stud Fee £2000
Foaling £200
Cost of purchasing a mare £3000
Vets fees £1000
Total £10.2K
Any views on these numbers would be greatly appreciated.

Overall
Any and I mean any advise or suggestions would be fantastic, apart from ordering several breeding books and my iminent meeting with the owners of the local stud I have knowhere alse to look for advise and to be able to ask questions, so feel free, the sort of thing I would love to hear is "well this is the way I would do it ".

Thanks for reading

rgds GMT
 
Hello
The local stud has 3 nice stallions

they are priced as below

Ferrule
Stud Fee: £1,500 + VAT
Bahri
Stud Fee: £ 2,000 + VAT
Millkom
Stud Fee: £1,000 / £800

Rgds GMT
 
What you are looking at breeding is an average racehorse, there are thousands of average TB's already looking for homes, I don't think it's a good idea to breed any more.
 
GMT,

many have spent millions, doing what you're planning, and ended up with little to show for it. There is no guaranteed route to success, but that you realise.

Right, others may tell you that I'm talking poppycock, but these are my thoughts!!

My very first priority would be the mare. The proven ability of her dam line, to produce winners, would set her value, at auction, and at £3k, you may well be scraping the barrel, though in this current climate, perhaps not.

Two examples for you;

We were gifted a lovely mare last year, to use as an ET recipient mare, she wasn't used, so we put her to a SH stallion. She won £23k, in her own right, and is well bred. She's a lovely big upstanding mare of 16.3. Would I expect her to breed a race winning TB? No. Her previous owners didn't have much confidence in her, and as they are highly experienced, and successful, and following on from 4 foals, none of which have had much success, then I would doubt that my efforts would be an improvement on theirs!!

We had a lovely little flat bred mare who was by Miswaki, and he's also the sire of the dam of Sea The Stars. She won, not in the best of company, I'll admit, but as she came from Newmarket, it would seem unlikely that she'd slipped through the net of the breeders. She produced a stunning foal by Medoc.

The one thing which I've found useful, is to get onto Weatherby's site, source the correct section which helps with breeding, type in the breeding of any prospective purchases, pay your 50 bob, and see what others have put similarly bred mares to.

Welcome to the forum, and whether you succeed or not, I'd be interested to hear how you progress!! ;)

Alec.
 
Im puzzled
For example Bahri was at one of the top studs in the UK until recently and if she went to the right mare how is that an "average" racehorse ?
Surely if every horse was only bred from the top pedigrees you would still have "average" horses, they cant all be champions, all you would be doing would be making everything more expensive ?

Rgds Glenn
 
I was following the December Yearling sale at Tattersalls last week and there were some very nice yearlings going for 800/900gns and quite a few weren't sold at all. Now, just tot up exactly how much money the owners of those yearlings lost . . . . . . There are plenty that sell for a fraction of their stud fee alone let alone the associated keep and work costs. There are heaps of TBs out there already with blinding breeding but that don't make it on the track.
 
Ever heard the expression - 'if you want to make a million out of horses start with 3'!!!!:D

I agree with Faithkat - there are 10's of thousands bred each year - all with the same aim - to be a winner - how many actually win? - very very few, most end up with the meat man! - that is why the vast majority do it purely as a hobby - if it pays for itself great but if it doesn't then it's not a problem! I've bought TBs which have cost a small fortune for someone to breed, one mare cost £48 grand to breed/import/stud fee etc, and I bought for £800 - too big/too slow maturing to race at 2 etc are all reasons they get sold so cheap, the only time I spent 4 times my budget was at Tatts - very nice mare, I got carried away - hence I don't go to auctions anymore!!, but she has produced some stunning foals which are all doing so well - not one is a full TB though as I know I could never afford to get them into the right places to reach their full potential so I never even bothered!
Getting a top trainer to train your horse and keeping it sound is going to set you back £2000 a week, and that doesn't even guarentee it runs, or includes the cost to enter a race which can be thousands!
I think starting off with very little knowledge of the TB industry and just throwing money at a horse is all well and good if you have that kind of cash to burn but I doubt you'll gain much knowledge that way or get your money back at all - studying the industry in great depth first then making a calculated gamble would be a better idea!
Also using a stallion purely because it's local is not the best idea - you need to breed your mare to the most suitable pedigree and conformation wise, so looking at stallions all over the UK would be a must.
If you want to have a go at TB's then to test your eye and knowledge of TB's try pinhooking a yearling/weanling then sell on at 2 - but you need to send them to a good producer though as I know they get the best sales spots and are more likley to make more moeny, they are not cheap - daft as it sounds but the smaller or independent sellers go at the end of the day when everyone has dissapeared for supper and regardless of how nice your youngster it won't get much if no-one has seen it or bid!! As others have said - go to Tatts and watch several sales and learn from it - see what the buyers want and what the top people are looking at and the eye watering amounts of money spent and then lost on these animals.

To be honest you'd be better off trying the eventing/dressage type horses first and breeding a quality warmblood mare with a very nice pedigree and record to a suitable sire, that sort of mare will set you back 9 grand or more and a good stud fee will be around the 1-2 grand mark, and the training will cost a fraction of what it costs for a race horse.

If you are wanting the foaling experience for your daughter she would be far better going and working on a stud to get experience with foaling alot of mares - yes seeing one mare foal is great but to gain a real understanding she'd be better watching lots and learning from very experienced people is the best way! And if your going to send your mare away to foal she won't gain a huge amount from it anyway - I agree with you a livery yard is no place to try and breed a foal so sending to stud to foal/wean/grow up with a bunch of other babies until old enough to send to training etc would be the way to go.
 
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