b4breeding

We talk about breeder’s bonuses or options to give more back to breeders, but there is no structure to the discussion.

We’ve had an online survey (toe in the water) and brief moments at forums, but I don’t see a real effort to engage with breeders in an open discussion on some of the options that are being used world-wide or might be local programmes that work here.

Reflecting on breeders’ rewards and recognition options

When I go up to Auckland this Sunday for the Breeders Forum, I hope we get some specific feedback into what our representatives are aiming for and what the alternatives might be for our consideration. One-off achievements with specific clubs or sponsors are brilliant, but they don’t give a cohesive response to the NZ breeder’s problem.

We need an industry-wide solution.

I want some options that build on what we know (globally), that asks questions, and provides robust opportunities to discuss answers.

So to put some ideas into the circle….

Here’s my thoughts, following on from the last few blogs I posted on this topic:

The principles need to be:

• There needs to be some effort to look into the actual costs (variable between locations) of breeding and raising a horse, so we all have a sense of range of costs that a “raw material” producer could expect to outlay in this industry. Hidden costs are just submerging this issue in a sort of invisible breeder’s donation/hobby account. For example, gaining younger newcomers to the industry may be increasingly dependent on them having access to land, which is a huge ask in today’s real estate market. Their scenario is quite different from the older farmer with 500 acres and a hobby interest.
• Any reward must be based on outcome (performance) to avoid skewing the breeding market to a poor quality product just to increase foals on the ground.
• Programmes that have addressed a similar need for other players in the industry can often be a good, affordable, sustainable and fair “role model” if they work well.
• Those who benefit need to make a contribution e.g buy in to a programme; but also need to see how that benefits them.
• The return to breeders needs to be meaningful but viewed as a bonus rather than compensation of costs.
• We need to associate this with an accurate database of breeders, and thanks to HRNZ’s incredible system that should not be a major issue, but it does need to be workable and also within a system such as the Sires Stakes administration unit which can provide the formalising of a scheme.
• There are commercial incentive and reward options outside our industry which might also be worth looking at as a template, including the successful “Westpac Hot Points” scheme based on gaining expenditure credits, but this could be modified to performance credits.
• Any rewards/recognition programme needs to have the ability to “tweak” to give signals to breeders about favoured long term directions. I don’t mean short-term things like “Breed to this sire this year and get more bonuses” but rather helping to offset trends away from breeding fillies, or encouraging a wider spread of sires. Yes, that is controversial because people like to say that the market takes care of those things. But the “market” doesn’t exist in any pure sense and certainly not with any long term development bias (compared to short term financial gain). So let’s get real.
• If possible, given the Australasian market we have, it needs to work around the fact that many New Zealand horses bred perform in Australia not here, and these are some of the breeders who are currently losing out on the success of the horse.
• Finally the scheme needs to be inclusive (but voluntary to avoid any of the issues we have had previously with imposed schemes). So no-one is excluded, and it is not just an additional bonus for those who already succeed at the top end. For this reason I favour a system based on number of wins (for example) rather than stake-money earned by a horse.

OK, those are my principles.

You can probably see the direction I am going in, but I will explain a bit more next time.