Some thoughts on horse breeding

Let's talk about horse breeding in this post. 

On so many of the Facebook pages I used to follow, whenever this subject came up the general consensus was that a person should only breed their mare to the top stallions whose get were bringing in the most money, or stallions who had the most money earned. This, because of the cost of breeding and the small time breeder wanting to be sure to have a marketable foal to get a return on their investment. Of course, with AI it's possible to breed a mare to any stallion if you have enough money. 

While financial concerns are important especially these days, for me the betterment of the breed is more paramount. 

Creating the best individual horse should be the focus of breeding, to my mind. I'm only a small time breeder myself, and keeping within the confines of my income meant having my own stallion. I was fortunate to have a mare in Coyote Belle who is unrelated to Beamer in 5 generations, hence a good example of hybrid vigor in their foals. That being said, I am not against line breeding, as it has served to produce excellent horses. Drifter was a line bred Driftwood horse, and Driftwood breeders have done an excellent job of line breeding and keeping the best individual horses in the breeding pool.

 Check out this link to an email from AQHA explaining hybrid vigor.

For me, the success of my breeding program, small as it is, is in the quality of the foals Beamer has sired. They may not be many, but they are all good individuals, and Moondance is as good a representative of them as any foal I have raised.

Who, me?

I don't know what his future holds, but if possible and the world doesn't go bonkers, the plan is to show him, find out where his niche is, and stand him at stud. I may be whittling down the number of horses I own but sometimes you have to keep the good one(s)!