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The Pro's and Con's of Breeding Early
Original article written by Autumn Blackmill posted 8 months 3 weeks agoDo you have a mare and a bank full of money? Odds are you’re planning on breeding her at some point in time. But when should you breed your horse? Well, it’s not always a simple matter. Like everything in life, there are a series of pro’s and con’s to take into consideration before you make your final decisions.
Pro’s
If you breed early in the season, there can be breaks in the stud fee. This can happen if the stallion is having his first set of yearlings gallop. Once the stats come in, there is a lot of room for the owner to decide, “Is this stallion showing that he can produce a pretty gallop?” and if the answer is yes, then expect the fee to rise to match his ability. But if you can get a breeding in before the owner makes this decision, you might save a couple thousand.
Sometimes stud owners will have a specific break in the stud fee for the first set amount of mares in the season. After this the fee rises to what it was before. While not common, if the break in fee is big enough, it might be worth sending your mare in early. Especially if the match was something you had planned already.
For older stallions, it might be wise to get a breeding or two in early. Once the stallion is 14, it’s almost guaranteed they will pension at some point during the season. As this can happen at any point, and you’re not guaranteed that the stud owner will postpone the pensioning, sending a few mares his way might work out better for you in the end. There is also the issue of studs dropping in fee once they are on the pensioning list, and filling up with everyone breeding at once. And while most stud owners will try their best to open up more slots, if the stallion is popular you may not get a mare in before he fully pensions.
Con’s
The biggest con is that the foal might get injured at some point in the season. So unless you have the money to buy insurance for each foal (at a cost of 30k a foal), or have already hit your 2 random injuries for the year, it may not be worth the early breeding. Colt foals who get hit with the random injury are automatically pensioned, and can never be used as a breeding animal. Filly foals get a little more lucky. Despite never being able to race, they can at least become breeding animals once they reach the age of 2.
There may be a stallion that surprises you and retires a year before you thought they would. In this case, there might be a mare that you’ve already bred who would have been a better fit with the new stallion. In this case you would have to wait for the new year to breed, and just hope that the fee doesn’t skyrocket based on yearling gallops. This can be an annoyance, doubly so if the mare you bred didn't survive her last foal or was pensioned.