Opportunities for breeders

[Ciss]

Have started a new thread here, arising from The Voice's last post as it is a little off from the Futurity thread (the horses are older for one thing ) but is still relevant to this part of the forum I feel.

The Voice wrote:

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http://www.allbreedpedigree.com/hatia is the dam and the sire is Carthago Z also have a full brother and sister (5 and 6) out in the fields doing nothing as no funds available to produce and these show (ed) as much promise. They also have a half brother that is Grade A and was with a leading riders yard for 18 months at their request and I have a very interesting 2 yo where her dam (above) is also her grandmother.

He was the first ever British bred Zangersheide horse using AI (all done in the UK)and has Zangersheide papers.

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Loved Lavallo when I knew him at the start of his career in Denmark (and saw him jump uner saddle and at home in DK which not many did) so very glad people now finally appreciate him on a wider scale too.

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I have been on about this for years as we can breed the horses in the UK but it is the structure of producing of them which lets us down and one of the reasons personally why we have not bred more. Breeders/owners do not always want to sell them but want to see them compete but cannot afford to have this done, and riders cannot afford £100k+ for a talented young horse that has the potential. Everybody wants there cake and to eat it but there is so much common ground for all parties involved that these problems can easily be sorted out. This is one of the reasons we have now gone down the route we have. I have to say that the BSJA were helpful in our enquiries.

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Yes, especially Kate Robins I find

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As an owner, it is appreciated what the BEF are doing with regards to training and funding for the riders which also benefits the horses. Giving a potentially valuable young horse (or even a horse with experience) to a young rider is not always the easy answer as the young rider has got to have the experience back up team on the ground to support them on a day to day basis no matter how talented they are and this has also got to be considered.

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I have to say that at a Lead Body consultation meeting about a month ago -- where representatives of studooks, disciplines, grass roots breeders, riders and trainers were all present, it was suggested that some sort of approval system for young horse producers and trainers (rather like the BQM) be introduced but that it cover all ages from the youngest to the most senior. The idea was that owners/breders could see and compare the comparatibe strengths, competition successes, approaches etc of those who registered for such a scheme and place their horses accordingly. Of course this would depend upon the depth of the owner's pockets and the willingess of the trainers to co-operate, but if it were to concentrate initially on the skills need to produce young horses for sale then it could have some mileage. OTOH, running it could be a real nightmare (but perhaps The Voice might be interested in getting practicaly involved in this from the potential grumpy old man angle ) and the PSHP Lead Body has quite a lot on its plate with its launch etc that it has not really been addressed yet.

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There are older good professionals who produce young horses carefully and I would like to see a few of these recomended as 'assesors' before a horse is recomeneded for further training as their experience will help identify future talent and will help the owners in deciding what they want to do.

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I would imagine that this would be part of the World Class Protential selection programme as that seems the ideal place for it.

 

[The Voice]

I worked for the NHS so I have done my bit fighting against politics and bureaucracy. Perhaps that is why I am so cynical

TBH It is not a question of finding the right people, it is the cost (and time if you produce them yourselves) involved in producing young horses to a decent standard between the ages of 4-7 as it is all out lay with no incomings. It is very expensive.

 

[catza]

It is really hard (time and cost wise) I am a relatively youngish breeder at 24, i have two foals due next year, four (hopefully) the year after. I have a three year old that i will be producing myself next year under saddle, she as well as my yearling and two foals will be entered in the futurity and the young horse evaluations next year, fingers crossed! and between working two jobs (i have to due to my breeding obsession!), doing 9 horses and finishing off my second degree i am shattered and i can't see it getting any easier! But it is my passion and i really believe we will get there in the future if we show the support and get involved.

 

[TFS]

hmmm not quite sure where i lye about the approved assessors as i believe different horses flourish under different regimes and methods and this may make it a little regimented and one size fits all - could be totally wrong though

 

[Wisnette]

I would agree with The Voice that correct production of young horses is very important - it is one thing to breed a good young horse with potential, but if that young horse is to reach its full potential , it is equally important that it receives the correct training.

I think there are two strands to the production of young horses that the BEF could look into. I would agree with Ciss that the first element is identifying competent people to bring on the horse (and in my experience, these aren't necessarily young riders) and the second element HAS to be funding. Paying for the professional training of young horses is enormously expensive for the private individual.

I know its another money issue, but it would be great is there were a fund that could contibute to the training of talented young (british-bred) horses, perhaps similar to the old assisted places scheme in private schools.

 

[alleycat]

In a lot of ways this sounds a great idea, but my feeling is that we have a lot of good horsepower in this country, but our rider training in the very first stages lags well behind the continent and most of us haven't actually been taught to ride very well. I thought this just applied to "grip with your knees" oldies like me (result- I can crack coconuts with my knees but I STILL fall off)- until I looked for early tuition for my daughter, and found it still inadequate. I get the impression that keen young riders progress on guts and verve up to a point when they hit a ceiling- then they have to UNlearn a lot of their riding and relearn to do it properly; for which they need a schoolmaster rather than a youngster. Of course it does rather depend what is meant by "young rider".

Basically, I'd be a bit afraid that some young horses wouldn't reach their potential because their riders would still be learning and maybe doing things wrong; although its obviously better that this happens with tutoring & supervision where things can be put right if necessary.



I think in the long term any scheme like this ought to go back further, or at least be tied in with a move to go back further, to educate kids to continental levels of basic riding before they start to compete; and also to try and involve young people who don't come from the background or whose families don't have the money to get them to the stage where they tend to be considered as potential "young riders"; but thats a whole discussion in itself.

 

[magic104]

You would think with the amount of revenue the government earn through the Equine industry they would fund towards some of these issues. The Equine industry is worth billions, employees 1000's yet has no voice. Bridleways get closed, stud farms get no/little help unlike farmers & there is very little funding for training. I don't know of any other sport that contributes to the economy in such a way. You have feed merchants, farriers, saddlers, tack shops, livery yards, grooms, EDT's the list is endless. The government are now receiving extra revenue from HIPs (which helps no one & just another tax). Perhaps they could use some of this extra money to fund a scheme where breeders, producers of good competition horses could receive incentives.

 

[Anastasia]

Magic agree wholeheartedly with what you are saying here, and I think a lot of people think the same thing, especially within breeding circles.

As a studfarm I put all the money into our breeding stock and buying in better and better mares, and from this year we are also doing AI with stallions from Europe besides our own stallion.

Its costs a lot of money to keep our horses at home going, with the best of feed, insurance costs for a lot of horses, farrier, vet care, with all the vaccinations needed, plus buying in special supplements from abroad. Giving the foals the best of conditions to grow along with the costs of DNA, microchipping and full breed applications. Its huge costs per year to pay for memberships and all the associated costs with the different breed organisations, as we are members of 4.

As a breeder I cannot afford to pay for lots of young horses to be with riders (really wish I could). If you are at a standard to ride and compete your own horses then you are laughing, compared to others who have to find riders, as we do (which is absolutely one of my pet hates......I would rather walk across hot coals and have my eyes poked!!

hate it, hate it, hate it).

I know that riders cannot keep horses for nothing, but surely there is some middle ground, especially as breeders you are trying to produce the best of jumpers or dressage horses etc. We cannot use the money to buy the best mares and stallion semen AND also pay huge costs for people to ride our youngsters (especially in the UK).

We currently have one horse with a rider and that is a mortgage payment per month (no offence to them if they read this

). We are already on a shoe string to afford to pay these fees, and that is without the competition costs put on top. Coupled with the 17 horses we have at home, we would be bankrupt if we had any more horses in training!! My OH already has a hernia each month when we get our invoices in!

Its a well known fact that putting your horse to Europe is much cheaper than the UK. I can put my horse to Holland with an National/International dressage rider for 800 euros a month, but I am trying to keep the horse in the UK to be produced.

I have a friend who breeds mainly showjumpers in Holland and does very well for himself. When we went to visit him this year we were speaking about the costs of horses in training etc. One of his jumping horses was with Jur Vrieling who is one of the International riders for Holland. He was complaining of how much it cost him per month for his rider. I told him how much we paid last year for our stallion in training (and this is not with a significant National or International rider)...........lets just say that you had to scrape him off the floor!! He turned round to me and said that if he had to pay those costs then he would give up breeding!!

I have heard many people say that we must make lots of money breeding........I always say chance would be a fine thing..........as our horses pay for themselves and not much else.....LOL. Me and my hubby would not have fulltime jobs if we could make a living off the horses.

People are always amazed when they see our horses and we turn round and say that we have to pay people to ride them...........they generally laugh and say "you would think people would be desperate for these kind of horses".....to which I reply "well they are....but they also want to be paid for the privalege!"..

PMSL

As horses are not seen as agricultural animals in the UK we will never get any of the benefits that farmers get for other livestock.......if anybody sees anything to do with equestrianism then you see the pound signs appear in their eyes..........

I am not trying to paint a complete picture of "of woes me...." when it comes to breeding, but just explain the costs breeders have to bear when trying to produce a good competition horse. I am also fully aware that people cannot keep horses for nothing either, am under to grand illusions as I know how much it is to keep a horse on feed alone.

If there was some scheme of matching rider to breeder and having some kind of funding to help both then that would be fantastic, especially young talented riders who do not have huge funding behind them but just lack a very good quality horse, but cannot afford to purchase one for huge sums of money.

So Ciss if you know of ways round this conundrum then its all ears........

 

[alleycat]

Magic & Anastasia- you are so right.

IMO the real problem is the way in which riding is widely viewed as elitist, & therefore not deserving of support from public funds or by public bodies. Some councils (and not just Labour councils; it seems to depend on the views of individual paid employees rather than on the elected members) take this one stage further by seemingly deliberately being obstructive towards horse sports / establishments on the grounds of health and safety or visual amenity; stuff that could be dealt with, given the council's goodwill: so its "not safe" for riders to ride past the public in our local park, but its OK for idiot golfers to drive balls towards them on the unfenced council golf course.

Then, of course, riding does become elitist, because the obstructions are such that only the wealthy can afford to get round them. Riding schools and livery yards shut down, the backyard pony offends the neighbours and there's nowhere to ride unless you have a private estate.

I think the only way of beating this is for the sport to seek to fight elitism and broaden the base of the pyramid by making riding available to and affordable by as many people as humanly possible. How? I don't know. I do think its what we should be discussing and aiming for, though. Imagine how good it would be if you didn't have to apologise for your sport, outwith horsey circles, or be seen as an over-privileged fat cat (though driving a rusting heap of a car, dressed in rags
and surviving on baked beans since paying the last hay bill).

Most kids would jump at the chance of riding, but don't get that chance; when they grow up they are not going to be on the side of those who do. They don't see the cost to the participants, or the sacrifices that people only slightly luckier than themselves have to make to stay in the sport. I think its the next generation of these people; the ones who would like to ride but feel excluded- whom we need to INclude somehow.

I think that this would make the sport a lot healthier, and all areas of the sport would reap the rewards. A lot of grass-roots interest would energise the sport all the way up to the top, and breeders would benefit along with everyone else.

Although I can already hear Ciss saying "And how do you propose to finance this?" ( and the answer is I don't know) I think it is necessary & it has to be possible. After all, as I once saw written previously, if you want to become a top class swimmer, where do you start? Do you start by building a swimming pool? No, you use the municipal pool at an affordable cost. The public pays for this because it is seen as a desireable public amenity- which anyone can use. How about golf? Council golf courses; and this sport isn't even as INCLUSVE as riding or swimming; I don't think kids are encouraged. And so on for lots of other sports & activities.

If only riding could attain this degree of public approval, with some cheap, attainable, sound early instruction (maybe even on mechanical horses), by the time it came to competitive riding, we'd be world beaters.

 

[The Voice]

AnasTINSELtasiaLLT1. 5***** for your comments.

 

[Ciss]

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Although I can already hear Ciss saying "And how do you propose to finance this?" ( and the answer is I don't know) I think it is necessary & it has to be possible.

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Sorry I am that predictable but it is a question that needs to be asked -- and sadly just saying it is necessary doesn't automatically make it possible <sigh>

The BEF does try at every opportunity to get funding but CMS funding is entirely linked to the chances of medals at the Olympics (not even World or Regional Championships note) and as such is usually directed towards Elite sport. The World Class Potential scheme is part of this -- where some funding for developing young horses and riders not yet at top level exists -- but again this is linked to identifying *specific* international/elite potential rather than raising the host of younger animals that might have this and then weeding them out later. Also (refardles sof what governement is in power DEFRA is not interested -- except for funding the internationally required compulsory section of NE for reasons mainly of biosecurity-- and as there is no likelyhood that the horse will become an agricultural animal (which has mixed blessings anyway) apart from support for some limited diversification schemes for ex-dairy farmers there is no money in the pot their either. Also, with a cut in their funding of 250 million (mainly due to the farm payments and floods fiascos) the horse section has actually decreased in size and is already overlaoded with work so we cannot really expect much more from them. This is why the fact that the industry (through the BEF) has acutally now taken over the voluntary side of NED is such a plus as at least the info that breeders, riders, trainers and potential purchasers want (pedigree info, grading info and competition records) will be on-line for them to access provided the studbooks upload it of course. The disciplines have already agreed to do so

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After all, as I once saw written previously, if you want to become a top class swimmer, where do you start? Do you start by building a swimming pool? No, you use the municipal pool at an affordable cost. The public pays for this because it is seen as a desireable public amenity- which anyone can use. How about golf? Council golf courses; and this sport isn't even as INCLUSVE as riding or swimming; I don't think kids are encouraged. And so on for lots of other sports & activities.

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Such facilites are usually funded locally (ie the decisions on which facilities to fund out of a total capital sum are funded locally) so it is a case of promoting the benefits of riding as a grass roots activity at local level that is so vital here. The BEF and the BHS spend a considerable amount of time and money doing this, but local authorities won't change their minds unless the voters force them to, so again it needs constant pressure and promotion to do that.

There is another side to this however and it does provide an interesting case study in how national funding at grass roots level does not always affect breeding in a positive way. About 20 years ago the Swedish government decided that one of the ways to redirect the energies of its disenchanted youth -- especially that based in the cities -- was to throw a huge amount of money into developing equestrian sport as a major activity for them. However most Swedish horses at that time were hot, hot, hot (!) and not really suitable for beginers, especially ones with no prior knowlegde of horses. The authorities therefor requested that the breeders produce large numbers of much calmer horses and the State Stud (since privatized) supported this by removing the bloodlines of the hot stallions from the breeding scheme. Whilst this did help to produce the horses suitable for the new riders, the brilliant sensitive dressage horses that had made the Swdish Warmblood internationally reknowned in the 1960s and 1970s disappeared from the market almost overnight and the dressage and eventing bloodlines of the SWB (especially those founded on Drabant and the East Prussians) have never really recovered. Once privatised the state stud and the breeders did decide to go a more showjumoing route (presumably becuase it was more instantly accessible as a spectacle and lower levels of competition are still exciting for comparative novices) and in elite competition jumping SWBs are now successful than dressage ones but it was a traumatic few years whilst it lasted.

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If only riding could attain this degree of public approval, with some cheap, attainable, sound early instruction (maybe even on mechanical horses), by the time it came to competitive riding, we'd be world beaters.

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Totally agree with that and some local authorities do fund such schemes, but again the reason they do is almost entirely die to local pressure. So you all know what to do now

 

[no_no_nanette]

Really interesting thread, this! I so agree about the elitist piece - isn't it crazy that councils will pay for the municipal golf courses but not consider subsidising riding for disadvantaged kids.... Perhaps one starting point is city farms? But it obviously needs a much broader and visionary approach than this; it needs a level of political and media savvy, of real creativity and vision from the leaders of the major equestrian organisations.

I think that more could (possibly) be achieved if the BHS was as strong and stroppy an organisation as the NFU - why on earth should horses not be classified as agricultural animals in the UK, for instance, when I believe that they are in many other European countries? It would make so much difference to costs if this were the case; not least to breeders. Have the BHS, working with other organisations, really attacked this one? (And is there a challenge to be mounted (sorry

) through the EU? Given the amount that equine industries contribute to the UK economy, isn't it about time that the BHS started to punch up to its weight?

As you say, Alleycat, its all really complicated - because one great idea would be to do much more to involve primary school age kids, possibly with outings to local riding schools ... but then you get into the dreaded Health and Safety. Where do you start??? Arrrghhhh! I'm off to fix myself a stiff drink 'cos my head hurts