Is it important to state breeding when advertising a horse?

ERB

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9 October 2009
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As title really. Sorry if this seems a stupid question. If I state 'well bred' is it important to state how the horse is bred or is this something that can be discussed when people call to find out more? If a horse is well bred but reasonably priced does that put people off?
 
I suppose it depends on what the buyer wants to do with it, but for me - yes, it is important.

I have rung up about several Sec D's over the past six months or so who have been advertised as "bred in the purple", or "Nebo/Derwen bloodlines" or "from champion lines" - you get the idea - without actually stating the horse's parentage.

If you are trying to avoid a particular line, this is very annoying, because the horse may sound like everything you want, but you have no choice but to ring to find out for sure.

What is even more annoying though, is when they advertise this fantastic breeding, but when you ring up and ask for the sire and dams name - they don't know!
 
Well it depends on the type and sex of horse for a start. For a broodmare, full pedigree would be most important to state in an advert. For a competition mare, the full pedigree would also be of interest to a lot of purchasers who might intend to breed from the mare at a later date. For a competition gelding, the breeding is of slightly less importance, but if the gelding is by an well-known sire with a lot of high-achieving progeny it would definitely make him more attractive to a lot of buyers if that was stated in the ad.

Personally, though I don't pay much attention to the ads that state vaguely, "from Stallion X lines", because it often turns out that Stallion X is actually a very long way back in the pedigree and the actual sire and dam are very non-descript.

With some advertising hosts you actually have lots of room to describe your horse, so you can put the full breeding in, whatever the horse. However, on some sites, like H&H, the wording is more restricted, so I would then prioritise listing competition achievements above full breeding details for a competition animal in such circumstances.
 
You don't need war and peace but I think it is important. I count myself as a competant amateur but there are very definite breeding lines that I would want to avoid and others that I would look for.
 
For mares and youngstock, yes it is important to state their breeding, your selling them based on how well their sire/dam did. For ridden geldings they need to sell based on ability so its not really as important, although if a gelding was by a particular stallion it might get my attention more if thats what I was looking for, or knew other horses by him..
 
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