b4breeding

A year ago I blogged about this, so I won’t repeat myself, but instead ask that you read that blog here.

It refers also to a survey on bonuses that was done by NZSBA, but in my view the options provided were not well described and only one really focused on the ongoing needs of breeders of all horses to have an opportunity of sharing in the success of what they have bred. I know it was just a “toe in the water”, but sometimes that means you are only experiencing the warm shallows rather than the temperature when you really dive into the water.

Delighted breeder receives a bonus!

So tomorrow at the North Island Breeders Forum I hope we can discuss what is happening to make significant progress on this score.

Personally I would advocate for developing a discussion paper which investigates the pros and cons of several different options, all of which put a return to breeders (rather than future owners) at the top of the priorities.

I’d like to see the principles I listed in my recent blog incorporated.

People with access to more data are in a better position to assess aspects like predicted numbers and percentages of winners, financial sustainability, etc. And one important criteria I haven’t mentioned so far is that a scheme needs to be national (if not Australasian) rather than deals done with specific clubs, racecourses, types of breeders, or studs.

Then circulate that paper widely, get discussion going, hold specific forums on it, test it out in modelling using the current statistics. Talk to other players who would need to buy-in to each option, e.g. commercial “sponsors” for my previous blog about the “hot points” system.

Set up a representative group that helps with the consultation process and assesses the feedback, and then does further work on a couple of preferred options.

There are people who are passionate and informed about this issue who should be included in the development of options – rather than seen as “sniping from the sidelines”. Be inclusive, be adventurous. Ask for volunteers as well as appointing people who have strong skills needed for this sort of analysis.

If the process takes 12 months but is a good one, then that’s fine by me.

Back to the option of win bonus payments to the original breeder

There are many ways the detail of this can be tweaked, and these need to be thought through carefully:

• if you registered a mare, you gain discounts for registering her foals. The registration of a mare would be transferable to a new owner.
• if it was an ongoing bonus for each win, would you make it an annual smaller payment for a registered foal, so breeders have the option to continue or opt out if the horse was not developing well?
• or would you make it a significant one-off payment for a foal or yearling, and get a one-off bigger bonus payment for the first win only?
• how would you administer the system in terms of keeping the payment details of breeders up to date? (that is where some kind of annual registration, whether it involves payment or not, becomes useful.)
• should the bonus be based on percentage of winning stakes or percentage of total stakes, and what sort of percentage? Or should it be a fixed bonus amount for a win, regardless of the level of the stakes or the status of the win? Which option would reward the most breeders and be the fairest?
• how can the costs of the scheme be shared around, so it is self-sustaining but not an additional burden falling on the party it is meant to assist?
• what message/s would we want send to breeders?  What are we trying to encourage?

These are the sorts of issues that a half hour workshop at tomorrow’s forum will hardly be able to touch upon.

Which is why I would like to see instead a discussion about the process of moving this forward strongly – a plan for investigation, discussion paper, consultation/feedback, assessment, recommendations, and decision-making – and a process that is inclusive and engaging rather than behind the scenes.