In this blog I look at the second of my 4 suggestions for the standardbred breeding industry in NZ – Creating meaningful breeders bonuses related to first win or all wins of all NZ-bred horse.
There’s a bit of confusion about the aim of breeders bonuses. Too often the idea gets mixed up with mare credit schemes and incentives for owning fillies and mares. These are very important to the future of the industry and growing the pool of mares.
But in many of the proposals coming forward, the reward goes to owners of the offspring or future breeders, rather than the original breeder of the horse.
Current breeders have four opportunities to get a return on their high risk investment:
- By selling the offspring.
- By selling the broodmare.
- By retaining a foal to race (and therefore changing role to “owner”, and future rewards count as owner’s rewards)
- By winning the extremely limited and hard to get breeders bonuses currently available (e.g. winning the Breeders Crown)
What stands out is the “one-off” nature of all these rewards. Getting a financial return often ends the financial connection with that horse as a breeder.
So in reality breeders have few and fragile opportunities to recoup the years of costs and risks they have carried for each foal they produce and each broodmare they look after. Let’s look at a comparable situation for owners, trainers and drivers.
Let’s dramatically reduce race meetings held, and allow owners to line their horse up for three races only per season where the stake money is huge but the chances of winning the race are just the same as now. Would they go for that? I doubt it.
Let’s say we ask trainers to carry all the costs of training a horse and get paid in full only at the end of the horse’s career. Ha! Can’t see that one flying with trainers, unless they have a stable full of top racehorses.
Or say we ask drivers to drive for no cost, but at the end of each year have owners obliged to pay a one-lump sum to their drivers, based on how well horses driven by that driver have performed – but that judgement is up to the owner to decide, perhaps with input from the trainer. Can’t see much support for that one either!
But the industry expects the breeder to carry this sort of risk and cost for several years, and to have their “one lump sum” payment left in the hands of “market forces” i.e. a sale.
What’s the alternative? Not an alternative, because selling is still the best way for breeders to cover their costs in a timely way. However a sales price can be a fickle way of predicting future performance.
Instead I propose a secondary, small income stream for breeders through breeding bonuses that are either
- paid (in a smaller amount) per win of the horse bred, regardless of ownership and regardless of where the race is run, or
- paid (in much larger amount) for the first win on the horse bred regardless of where the race is run.
Breeders bonuses are a much surer way of rewarding actual success.
They reward breeders of horses who may not have sold for true value at the time but go on to perform well, and recognise the role the breeder has in laying a part of the foundation for this success.
When I say “income stream” I am thinking of the principle, rather than the amount. It is an ongoing return dependant on performance, not a payment that would provide an independent income as such.
How can it be funded? Options include:
- an annual fee (per mare bred and perhaps matched by stallion owners for any available sire)
- a tiny percentage of all total stake money paid into one breeders bonus pool
- an annual subscription so only breeders who want to be part of the scheme pay in, but only their horses trigger a bonus
- an additional fee paid at foal registration time (by the current owner who will usually but not always be the breeder)
- a fee paid as part of the entrance fee to yearling sales, and bonuses only paid to the breeders of yearling sales racehorses
- an optional fee paid at branding time
Or a mix of these, or other suggestions people have. But we mustn’t let the mantra “There is no money” hold us back from looking at options and doing the sums.
Administrative concerns would mean the onus has to be on breeders in the scheme to update their account details, which is why an annual subscription, however low, can help ensure details are current.
The key thing is that the breeder’s bonus comes back to the breeder, not to the current owner. Even mare credits should surely go to the broodmare’s owner or the breeder of the foal, rather than to the current owner of the racing filly/mare who earns it.
I was disappointed to see in the NZ Standardbred Breeders Assn survey on “options for encouraging breeders to stay in the industry” that options for breeder’s bonuses had the bonus returning to the owner. And most of the other options were about mares/fillies racing opportunities and mares credits, which often do not reward current breeders except in a “by association” way. It’s great breeders are being asked, but I wish the options list had been less prescriptive (See survey options at end of this blog).
Yes, the future winning performance of a horse will enhance it’s family’s reputation. But that doesn’t always flow back to the breeder – look at what the sibling of very good 2yo colt Isaiah sold for at this year’s Australasian Yearling Sale as just one example. The building of a family can take years and generations, and sometimes too late for the breeder who most contributed – they may well have sold the mare or quit the industry.
There are a number of breeding schemes in practice around the world. I am hopeful the NZ Standardbred Breeders’ Assn will see the survey as just a wee toe in the water, and come up next with a discussion paper on how various international schemes work, pros and cons, and possible applications for NZ breeders.
Rewarding current breeders has to be a priority.
A coordinated, across-the-board breeding bonus scheme is needed.
What we don’t need is more one-off prizes for the elite races that most good racehorses and their breeders will never to able to achieve.
Options listed in the NZSBA survey mentioned in this blog, which asked breeders to order in preference:
1. Reduced HRNZ fees for DNA testing, branding and foal registration;
2. Financial bonus for winning NZ bred and owned horse i.e same owner/breeder.
3. Financial bonus to the breeder only regardless of ownership
4. Financial bonus paid to owners for winning fillies and mares only
5. More 3YO 4YO and 5YO fillies and mares races at for the lower and medium rated horses
6. One off financial bonus for horses’ first New Zealand start in a race – fillies and mares only, paid to owners.
7. One off financial bonus for horses’ first New Zealand start in a race – all horses, paid to owners.
8. A scheme that puts a winning bonus into a trust for a mare’s future breeding career and redeemable for the first mating.
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