First Foal: Filly or Colt?

[Lori Hamill]

You just retired your lovely, talented stakes winning blue hen mare. Do you feel the first foal should always be a filly? Or does it depend on the sire you decide on? Or do you only go with a sire of fillies?

I feel like I'm always tossing a coin. I might think the stallion I pick is better siring colts but it's her first foal so I feel like I should always lean towards a filly. I don't know why I feel this way but I thought I would see if anyone else feels this way or if others feel differently?

[Diane Townsend]

Depends if she is insured or not. If a mare is not insured I go for a filly just in case I lose the mare to a random injury early on

[Lucas Davenport]

If she is a stakes winning BH, she ought to be insured, IMO. So that takes that argument for a filly out of the equation. Also, IMO, colt for sure; esp if an A+ hypo. That is how I play the game, and have selected colt so many times over the years I can't remember. Best to all, Lucas.

[Rochelle Bos]

I almost always go random unless I’m doing full sibling to a stakes/freak then I go opposite gender, or lease mares I always breed fillies

[Nicole Marie]

I feel like I'd go with colt if I was choosing the gender (Halley's first foal is a filly but I let that be random).

[Lori Hamill]

Thank you all for your replies.

[Cheri Stewart]

I'm sort of new to breeding buuuuuut.... if you go to the search page and type the name of your broodmare's sire into the damsire spot (unless it's too young of a stud obviously) then sort the results by earnings, I see what the trend is there. Do they, as a dam sire, produce better fillies, colts, or is it pretty even? Then I do the same with the stud I'm using. Using the top 10-ish, its pretty easy to see who's going to have a better potential stats.... I also do this to decide who to breed my mares to in the first place. It's fun. If I could, I'd just sit and breed horses all day!