b4breeding

OK back to part 4 of my 4 solutions to the NZ standardbred breeding industry. This time – mare credit schemes.

Any struggling industry has to make calls about how much effort they put into keeping  loyal (existing) customers and how much they incentivize new customers.

But are we getting the balance right.

The push with current mare credit schemes in some Australian jurisdictions is to provide mares credits ( usually for service fees) attached to their fillies who hopefully then become a more attractive as breeding propositions for the current or future owners. The focus is on the future – trying to get more value embedded in fillies as racing then breeding prospects.

Mare credits go with the filly produced (and for that filly’s owner to use) rather than to the original broodmare or the breeder who produced the filly.

So we are downplaying the role of the breeder and broodmare, and up-playing the role of the progeny’s owner as a “potential breeder”.

Hanging out a carrot for someone who may prefer onions.

While the carrot eaters are very, very hungry.

Say I bred a filly from my mare.  Sold the filly at the yearling sales, got $15,000 and cover my costs, just.  She is paid up in a mares credit pool, which may (or may not) have made her more attractive to buy. That filly becomes a 5 win mare with some potential to make a good broodmare. But who gets the reward for those wins? Not me, the breeder who made the decisions and took the risks. Not necessarily the person I sold my broodmare to, when I couldn’t afford to keep her any longer. No.  The rewards appear to go to the person who currently owns the female offspring, even if they are not interested in breeding …  Que?

There is a breeder and a broodmare out there, trying to gain traction, who is missing out on the rewards of success. But in our desire to stimulate a future market for buying fillies and breeding from them, we  could be cutting back the scarce benefits for current “loyal customers”, the breeder and the broodmare.

That is why I strongly advocate looking at mares credit schemes – but that they are attached to the successful broodmare and her owner rather than the offspring filly and her owner.

Quality broodmares is what we need to encourage and reward.

Breeding is a long and often hard road to achieve success, with many risks along the way.

Isn’t that experience and effort worth investing in?

My suggestion is that mares credits are attached to the current owner of the broodmare and are accumulated and transferable to any of her female progeny. So the original breeder of a successful filly has the opportunity to use credits for the broodmare herself, or trade credits to owners/leasees of the mare’s fillies or include them as incentives for sale of her fillies at any age.

There is little cost to the industry unless credits are “cashed in”. But this system would provide some recognition for the breeder’s role in providing winning fillies/mares and future breeding stock.

If we look at mare credit schemes in New Zealand, here’s hoping we take a harder look at who really needs to benefit and how.