Are limits working for mixers?

Forum rules
Do not to post anything abusive, obscene, vulgar, slanderous, hateful, threatening, or sexually-orientated.
Do not post anything negative about any player.
No advertising other games.
The management reserves the right to delete or lock threads and messages at any time.
Read the complete SIM rules and legal information.
Post Reply
User avatar
Tammy Stawicki
Hall of Fame
Posts: 3114
Joined: 15 years ago

Are limits working for mixers?

Post by Tammy Stawicki »

So admittedly I had liked throwing this conversation into the thoroughbred limit discussion as the Steward was actively involved in that thread and I think sometimes the plight of mixers gets ignored over here in the mixer forum. But it seems that thread has been locked. But I spent a couple hours getting this data so I wanted to share it somewhere and here we are.

As you may remember I have long since argued that there should be a separate limit for within breed and crossbreed. My reasons for this are 2 fold
1) Crossbreed eligible quarter horses consistently book full at high numbers. This admittedly approved some this year with the unlimited limits but prior to that it was not uncommon to see 5-10% booked full. You can see some actual numbers to back this up from 8 months ago, a year ago, and 2 years ago

2) Since limits have been imposed it is less common for quarter horses to have reduced crossbreed stud fees (why would you if you could get a full book on the full stud fee). This results in quarter horses being more expensive to breed to than comparable paints. Some numbers on that from the recent thread:

The average/median for a paint stallion that has produced a freak galloper is $19,168/$17,500
The average/median crossbreed stud fee for a quarter horse stallion that has produced a freak galloper is $28,259/25,000

Of the 17 quarter horses available for crossbreeding with a freak crossbreed stud only 7 have a lower stud fee for crossbreeding and of those 7 in 5 cases that decrease is only $5,000.


Now it was claimed that my idea of separate limits was not a good one as we already have an inbreeding problem in mixers and giving quarter horses 2 and thus a 240 foal default instead of 120 would make that problem worse. Now I've always suspected this was not the case and that limits might actually be doing more harm than good. What I mean there is by making it harder to crossbreed you are now actually limiting the number of stallions available and decreasing the diversity. However, I was to lazy to ever actually try and get the data to back that up.... until now....

I looked at all current paint 8 year olds which would be the crop before limtis took place and all paint 7 year olds which would be the first crop since the new rules came to be. Now I realize 2 years is a small sample, and rules have been tweaked some since then and also this is only one breed. That being said this data alone took me hours to get so it's all I've got for now.

Looking at the 8 year olds the last prelimit crop 2,209 foals were born from 178 stallions. The average foals/stallion was 12.4 and the median was 4.5
Looking at the 7 year olds the first postlimit crop 2,625 foals were born. However, despite there being more foals and these new limits there were actually fewer stallions used only 170 resulting in an average of 15.4 foals/stallion and a median of 7.

I have graphed the individual data points for each stallion both years and you can see that you actually see more high end stallion usage after the new rules were put into place. The graph is here

Now there are far to many cavaets to this to say that limits definitely are making things worse but I think it is enough to start a conversation on whether the rules to increase diversity are working the ways that they were intended in mixers and whether additional changes are needed. I personally support the idea of limits and have not minded them one but in thoroughbreds but have definitely found paint breeding more challenging since their implementation and I know from past threads I am not alone in this angst. I just worry that with our smaller numbers us mixer breeders get forgotten sometimes.
Turf Miler studs
Hempstead
Nonego
Omnsicience

Paint Sprinter studs
Jersey
Lecythus*

Paint Mid studs
Corona Wagon Train*
Jacinth
Komati*
Livewires Turnpike*

Discounts for stakes winners/producers
* = multidistance potential
User avatar
Lisa Bennert
Turf Router
Posts: 493
Joined: 10 years ago

Re: Are limits working for mixers?

Post by Lisa Bennert »

As someone breeding Appys and Paints I have quietly hoped that seperate Limits would eventually be established ever since the foal Limits were implemented. I unfortunately don't have the data to back it up like you (thank you for making the Research on paints!) but I think every appy and/ or paint breeder has noticed that an incentive to Price your crossbreedable QH stud competitively for the other breeds has Pretty much gone away with foal Limits.

I personally don't see how it would increase inbreeding or have any other disadvantages if we got seperate Limits, but I'm also Kind of bad when forseeing future Problems with These Kind of changes, so I'd actually appreciate if someone explained to me what the Problems would or could be with that.

Anyway, thank you Tammy for advocating for this in Pretty much every Forum Topic where you saw it fit :) It didn't go unnoticed (at least by me, lol)
User avatar
Jo Ferris
Hall of Fame
Posts: 3699
Joined: 13 years ago

Re: Are limits working for mixers?

Post by Jo Ferris »

I’ve always been for the separate limits for crossbred stallions. The whole idea of cross breeding is to increase diversity, so having separate limits won’t cause more inbreeding. Why? Because it would open up new stallions in a different breed providing new bloodlines. Right now for the most part I very, very rarely ever use QH stallions for my Paint mares because the fee is so much higher than the Paint stallions. Separate limits would encourage competitive crossbreed fees making the QH stud a more reasonable option which opens the doors to all these new lines, increasing diversity.
Arabian:
Money Run Low - 7.5k
Cass Ole - 5k
Mugello - 5k
All I'll Praise - 5k
Zandvoort - 10k

Paint:
Toby Flenderson - 15k
One In The Woods - 5k
We Can Be Heros - 5k
FLD Eclipse - 3.5k
Scooter - 3.5k
User avatar
Dave Trainer
Grade 1 Winner
Posts: 942
Joined: 7 years ago

Re: Are limits working for mixers?

Post by Dave Trainer »

I support the idea of separate limits. Thanks for doing the research Tammy.
User avatar
Anthony L Carder
Miler
Posts: 195
Joined: 5 years ago

Re: Are limits working for mixers?

Post by Anthony L Carder »

Thanks for the research Tammy. I love the idea of separate limits. Right now, my appys and paints that I believe need a QH outcross, I'm having to breed during the preseason or the first few weeks of the season, just to insure that I can breed to them.
000 ALC Ranch~conveniently located next to Cimarron Park~

Haven's Cab-Appy Sprinter-$5,000
Alc Shark On Fire-TB DS-$12,500
User avatar
Alleyne Torres
Grade 3 Winner
Posts: 681
Joined: 13 years ago

Re: Are limits working for mixers?

Post by Alleyne Torres »

My breeding was more affected by the cost increase for sending to greener pastures than by stallion foal limits. I was more likely to send mares around just to experiment. Just my 0.02 about confounding factors.
Paint Stallions Standing. Horses for Sale. Feel free to PM me about gallop/bs/foal comments of my sale horses.
Post Reply