If this is you, I hope you've bought a mare that already has a foal or two, that way there is potential for your mare to improve in value with you not having to do a thing.
It's called "having a few irons in the fire" and means you can reap the rewards
from someone else's investment.If she does indeed have a few previous foals, find out more about them, whether they have made money in the sale ring or if old enough have shown ability on the track.
That information can affect your choice of stallion as you might want to repeat the mating albeit to a lesser more affordable degree.
If she has a promising Redoute's Choice or Fastnet Rock in the pipeline you might look at sons of those sires so that in due course you would be selling a three-quarter relation to the horse you hope will add value to your mare.
Such planning does not always work out, but if all the ducks do end up in a line, you might get very lucky indeed.
If you are attempting to breed for the sale ring and the budget is tight, that being less than $20,000 you need to think about getting value for money and giving your mare the best chance possible to produce a winner.
There are loads of stallions priced between $11,000 and $20,000 and some that are very good stallions albeit getting a little older and not seen as trendy as they once were.
In that bracket are Testa Rossa ($19,800), Bel Esprit ($18,700), Al Maher
($16,500), Charge Forward ($16,500), Reset ($16,500), Show a Heart ($13,200) and
Magic Albert ($11,000) – no sales company is going to knock back their progeny
for any sale if they have the type to warrant a place in the catalogue.Not far behind those are Vinery Stud's value trio of Casino Prince ($13,200), Husson (Arg) ($13,200) and Myboycharlie (IRE) ($11,000) – they've all left Group I winners and while not as 'saleable' as the sires above, they are viable options if you lower your sights in terms of what sale you are aiming towards.
While some sires in this price bracket grouping ($11,000 up to $20,000) are on their way down commercially, others are on the way up and one of those is Victorian based Written Tycoon, who is priced at $19,800.
He started his career in Victoria, switched to Queensland for a couple of seasons and is now back at Woodside Park in Victoria where he has had impressive results this season siring seven individual stakes-winners and has some 52% winners to runners.
His yearlings this year have also been in demand, 29 selling at an average
$69,672 with a benchmark of $175,000, so his star is on the rise.Written Tycoon is never going to be Redoute's Choice, but he is shaping as a very solid reliable sire, whose progeny are becoming increasingly popular with yearling buyers.
There are a myriad of options in the unproven or semi-proven horses in this price bracket and I'm not going to name names when there are so many to choose from and the majority have their merits.
When evaluating them you need to look past the spin and examine the facts, like what sires historically are more likely to succeed than others.
Australian bred stallions that showed speed over shorter distances seem to be the most reliable bet and while experimenting can be fun and exciting, it's best left to people that can afford to fail.
Another important consideration - is this a good looking stallion and will he compliment my mare?
The sale ring is in many ways a beauty contest and while plain and homely types populate the winner's circle, they do not feature as a must have item with yearling buyers.
If you are considering a semi-proven sire that may have two year-olds running this season then look carefully at their statistics.
Are they getting runners to the track and if not, why not? Hard to train, slow, immature, lack of foal numbers, there can be any number of reasons, but it all starts with runners and if trainers can't get them to the track on race day it doesn't matter how fast they are.
So long as they have runners, those runners can eventually turn into winners with time – is like the old saying where there is smoke there will be fire.
If you are leaning towards sires who have three year-olds this season then judgement day is at hand.
The statistics will tell the tale, as will the service fee, as it's usually considerably less than it was when they started off if things have not turned out quite as planned.
Stallions going well and proving popular do not have their fee reduced.
Stallions have been known to rebound from a poor start, but it's not common and if there is the potential for them to turn it around there will be clues, so go back and look at their produce records on studbook and see what they have coming through… are there better quality or bigger crops to come? Did smart breeders support them last year with good mares?
Be a detective, do the homework and hopefully you'll breed a horse that might be worth something in the sale ring and one day win a race!
