I’ve blogged a few times now on the topic of the current dominance of Bettor’s Delight as a pacing sire (and probably in future as a broodmare sire).
He’s there on his own merits – but the combination of declining mare numbers and lack of siring competition means the situation is not healthy for our overall breeding industry if it carries on too long.
It’s not a “perfect storm” but it is a patch of tricky weather conditions that we need to negotiate our way through. Because I don’t believe that “market forces” will necessarily make the changes soon enough or in the best strategic long term interest of the industry.
I believe there are several solutions, and perhaps best in combination:
- Look at some form of voluntary or compulsory industry limit of sires’ books.
- Use pricing at the top end to manage demand, (done for Christian Cullen even though Ian Dobson got a lot of flack for it), as well as at the lower end to encourage demand.
- Reduce the number of sires on offer, so that good commercial sires can get a decent book of mares.
- Ride out the trend, knowing we have had it before (e.g. with Sundon and perhaps Gee Whiz before him in the smaller trotting breeding pool), but take responsibility as individual breeders to play our part by being more adventurous in our choice of a sire.
- Use some agreed limits on yearling sales entries overall from individual sires to avoid over-supply at our showcase market.
Many of these measures need the cooperation of the main industry players and certainly the studs – and some of them will already be making adjustments given the situation all of them, bar Woodlands, find themselves in this year – competing for a smaller number of mares with a larger range of sires in an environment where one sire is taking a significantly large portion of the pie. I’m talking about the significant New Zealand and Australian studs. This will have been a very difficult season for them.
We are spoilt for choice with sires. It seems almost criminal not to give some of these superbly performed and bred hunks of fertility the chance to have a go as a sire. But the reality is, we just don’t have the number of mares to give them all a real good chance. A new commercial sire will need at least 50 live foals to even start making his mark.
I’m not suggesting some compulsory limit on sire numbers, but a recognition that studs may well have been cutting their own throats by throwing so many new shuttle and frozen semen sires at breeders over the past 2-3 years.
What I do want to see is proven sires remaining well supported, and a smaller number of new sires offering a greater variety of bloodlines and types, rather than duplicating.
Sutter Hanover warms up before the 2007 American Cup where he was placed 2nd.
And then I would love to see more breeders really thinking outside the “most in demand/best to the best” sire – being willing to try some of the new sires we do get. I was delighted, for example, when Alabar bought Sutter Hanover to New Zealand, but Kiwi breeders failed to get interested and he was moved to a niche in Australia. His sire line (Dragon Again) and maternal family (tracng back to The Old Maid) offered us some real choice and would have nicked well, I believe, with many of our mares. And on type, his conformation and reach was also something quite different. Some of the foals he had here are quite clearly stamped by his looks and way of going. There’s a few of them already popping up promisingly, but maybe too late for Sutter Hanover to gain any traction again unless he fires brilliantly over in Australia. He would be a different sire I would have considered for my top mare.
The best short term solution is to have a voluntary limit on book numbers. I think 150 is reasonable. It is done overseas. It doesn’t have to be permanent.
And maybe less choice of sires (in numbers) but more choice (in types and bloodlines).
Regardless, it needs to be looked at and actioned quickly, before we get into another breeding season. It will involve people looking outside their immediate commercial needs and thinking of the industry as a whole. Cooperating, even compromising. I won’t be holding my breath.
b4breeding 
Hi B. Your blogs/info are of great interest. Great to see someone with passion writing on a hobby they love. Is it possible to look at what has happened over the last 10 years with NZ breeding, ie mare numbers bred. And to write this into a blog etc. Here in Western Australia the breeding numbers are declining very very rapidly. In fact only approx 250 weanlings have been branded so far, So next season we may have only a pool of approx 300 yearlings. Be interested to find out the trends in NZ. Maybe then this info can be given to Racing bodies to action hopefully? Kind Regards. Kevin Dinnigan
There have been articles on this in the magazine of the NZ Standardbred Breeders Assn magazine, Breeding Matters, which is online on the website (see the links on my blogsite home page. I’ll check through the copies I have at home and try to identify the best summary. But yes, we are also in decline and I believe many breeders are doing a big clean out of mares at the moment.
I’ve checked Kevin and one of the best sources for stats, particularly to compare NZ and Australia (although they are not in exactly the same format) is the register of standardbred sires of New Zealand which the NZSBA publishes every year. You can find that as an e-book on the website I mentioned before, the link is on my home page, or click here
You will find Number of mares served in NZ on page 26 for the past 4 seasons, and number of registered foals and sires used stats on page 36 going all the way back to 1966. Page 38 and 39 cover similar stats for Australia as a whole. Maybe I will do a quick blog summarising the trend as you suggest. But from 4015 individual mares served here in 09/10 season, we have gone down to 3188 in the 11/12 season. Number of foals registered in NZ from 3409 in 2000/01 to 2360 in 2010/11. Heaps of stats in the front pages of this excellent publication.
G’day Bee,
Agree very much re: Sutter Hanover.
Always thought that Dragon Again would work here in AUS.
We have a couple of Sutters here, a yearling colt and his current season foal younger brother.
The yearling is close on 16h already & will top out around 16.3-17h at maturity. He has already been broken in & took a tick over a week from the paddock to being in the bike with hopples on and pacing, very casual, easy going big fella, has a really big stride for his age, reminds me a lot of a Harley Davidson in that he similarly fires at every 4th fence panel & he does it easily.
I’ll try to find a way of sending you a couple of short video clips of him doing his thing to show you what I mean.
His dam’s by a son of No Nukes in Northern Lights. Not an overly big mare but very long bodied. She was in foal to Parson’s Den when we purchased her and the resultant foal turned out to be pretty handy so the choice of Sutter Hanover was originally based on simply sticking with the same sort of sireline. Dragon’s Lair/Dragon Again however Sutter ended up bringing a fair bit more to the table than we had expected/given him credit for…with him came size & a lovely gait.
These days at the speeds they have to go to win, IMO Gait is absolutely crucial to any sire’s chances of success & Sutter had a huge, easy going stride, went in a 63 inch hopple I believe & it’s great that he seems to be passing it on to his foals, certainly at least to the two that we’ve got over here anyway.
Bee
We have 4 mares in foal to Sutter Hanover in WA this year. 2 of them have No Nukes crosses ups via Northern Lights and Barnett Hanover and one has a Dragons Lair and No Nukes cross via Parsons Den. The other is a proven winner producer but a complete outcross via Magic Fella ( Smooth Fella).
If you want to see a nice going filly by Sutter have a look at the inexperienced Secret Dragon win at Albany 1/02/13 on the Harness .org site.
Given half an opportunity Sutter will really do a job in Australia.
Good to see he’s getting an opportunity. Wish we could access him again in NZ.