Breeding Show Jumpers
By Victor Sobrevals
Victor Sobrevals is taking over the Blog today with his thoughts about breeding show jumping horses. I think Victor raises some excellent points, bringing a rather masculine perspective to a topic that can laden with emotion. If you want more Victor, check out his feature here as well as his thoughts on amateur vs. professional designations in show jumping.
How many of you have had the dream of breeding a foal from your horse? Maybe just breed for fun to see what comes out? Whether you have a mare or stallion, I get it - the love and affection you have for that animal and the satisfaction it brought you is priceless. It is quite a romantic dream, to be able to develop a top horse out of what you breed.
Something we must keep in mind, and this may be known as the ugly truth:
Not all horses, like sons, can be born perfect or as close to perfection as you will want them to be.
In reality, what you are doing is taking baby steps into a massive industry. The sport horse breeding industry, which has been going for generations, has spent millions of euros on research and development in genetics and so on.
Maybe you can find gold out of one or two horses you breed - the fact is until the age you will be able to ride that baby horse, you will be spending a lot on bills which (if you are smart) will add value to your horse, but doesn’t warranty that you’ll have a top horse or even a sound horse. Maybe even if they have it all, like strength, muscle, and conformation, they still might not have heart.
Perhaps up to the age of 5 years it is doing great at 1.10 m, and there you will have to start adding more shows and more tickets to the bill of your future bright star, do the young horse series, to get the market to know your horse and start building a record. Typically, as per international standard, a 5 year old horse should be finishing a course at a height of 1.10 meters, and a 6 year old horses should be finishing a 1.20 m high course.
But really up into that time and following the simple logic that time equals money, you’ll have spent at least $50,000 dollars and that’s in a very positive situation that everything is going all right.
How about I propose you go straight to the “factory” of sport horse breeders, where for about $50, 000 Canadian Dollars you can select all of the following:
temperament
rideability
height
scope
carefulness
heart
color
genetics
European horse passport
Some nice breeders to look for are Paul Schockemöhle (PS horses), Zangersheide (Z horses), and Van de Lageweg (VDL horses), among others.
There are no sure things. As Schockemöhle says in this article for the Chronicle Of the Horse, “we try to always get the specialists, but not every foal we breed will be a star. I would say we sell 50 percent of the horses we breed [about 700 foals a year] before we start riding them.”
How can we compete with an industry that statistically is breeding 2 horses per day every year, and also knows that only a third of what is bred will be anywhere near the top level?
Maybe having a son out of your horse would be fun, to see what happens, but trust me - if you want to have a competitive, sound horse, stop wasting your time and money breeding and get one straight from the factory. I recommend avoiding unknown horse dealers, do not buy from video, and be clear about what you want. But mostly be realistic in the subject of breeding and developing baby horses.