Listening, reading, looking and thinking is the best route to finding a good match for your mare. Mulling is essential.
My own decision making this year has been slower than ever before. I’ve not felt really sure of my decisions until relatively late in the piece for me. But I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the process.
In parallel I’ve been investigating some options (mares and sires) for those of you who ask for some help or advice. It’s free by the way. That process is also helpful for me, as it teaches me about families I might not know otherwise, and it opens my eyes to some alternatives that surprise even me.
I found myself the other week suggesting two pacing sires for a mare from an immediate trotting background! But anecdotal evidence and family investigation opened up some questions that I had to really think hard to answer. All I hope is that some of my research and ideas keep your minds open and active when looking at breeding options, whatever your final decision is.
We need to be curious, agile and sometimes adventurous to find the gold nuggets we are looking for.
I push myself to go outside my instinctive likes or dislikes, or what is top commercial crossed with what is top commercial. I look for things that hang together well, from different directions on the pedigree but particularly what strengths and clicks there might be on the maternal lines of the mare and the sire.
The process for me is to work through to a short-list of potential matches, print them out (from the basic stud TesioMatching report) and leave them floating around – at the breakfast bar, on my bedside table, at my desk, folded up in my work lunch bag…whatever it takes to have them around where I can just relax, mull them over, and get a feel for them. Part of that is knowing (or reminding myself as I don’t have a photographic memory) what happens in the next few generations beyond.
This is a process that stands me in good stead. It gives me a sense of the overall balance of a pedigree match as well as the time to investigate detail if something looks interesting. Its a mix of Sherlock Holmes with Vincent van Gogh and a few vinos in between lol.
This year I am breeding only two mares – The Blue Lotus and Dreamy Romance. That is mainly a financial call, as I have opted in the last couple of years to breed or buy a share in several foals that are not aimed at the yearling sales. So I need to be prepared for the costs of raising, training and hopefully racing those foals. It is just a different emphasis for me for a few years.
The Blue Lotus and her Shadow Play colt “Leo” playing in February this year.
The decisions this year:
To send The Blue Lotus back to Shadow Play. This was a close call with Sunshine Beach being the other preferred option. Lots of mulling.
- I like what the sire is doing, and a significant number of his performers so far are fitting what I thought might be great echos in the dam’s pedigree.
- The weanling (about to turn yearling) colt I have on this cross, her second foal, is a lovely looking guy, and a great mover – The Snow Leopard (aka “Leo”)
- The pedigree match for those two as individuals is well balanced.
To send Dreamy Romance to Mr Feelgood. Loved this match the more I mulled, and got my blog friend Richard Prior to add his mulling as well. Result? Mulled wine, we hope.
- I am a huge admirer of the sire as a race horse and his pedigree, and most especially his ability to adapt and be excellent in two totally different styles and hemispheres of harness racing.
- His performance so far as a sire.
- His pedigree match with this particular mare, and also the potential of a more medium sized athletic sire to give a bigger mare a more balanced foal.
It is something quite special, to make these choices. The result will have my signature on it, just as much as the mare’s and the sire’s. So that is quite a responsibility.
Worth mulling over.
Note: Mr Feelgood’s frozen semen is available from Nevele R Stud or from Equibreed NZ Ltd. Contact them direct. See previous blog.
b4breeding 
Have you thought of sending The Blue Lotus to Live or Die
To be honest no. Lovely pedigree he has, quality lines and connections. Tell me about the match from your perspective?
Good click ups of Spinster and The Old Maid in sire and maternal lines as well as that good nick of Breath of Spring in the dam line of the sire and the sire line of the dam. Meadow Skipper, Race Time, Tar Heel. Adios and Dancer Hanover are also well placed to provide good nick ups in the mid line pedigree.
Sometimes you need to take a step back top pick up the good blood.
I have a young mare TK Dreamweaver that has had a foal and is going to be broken in and if he is still around in a couple of years time she is going to LIve or Die as well. They are tough speedy horses that can come again in a race.
Yes a lovely pedigree. To some extent I already took that step back with Grinfromeartoear, who is The Blue Lotus’ sire. So now I am more interested in coming forward again, but a sire like Shadow Play offers some connections like that still, but with a more modern influence (in terms of speed) in the siring line, and also the reintroduction of Direct Scooter via Matts Scooter. So it is a bit of an each-way bet. The classic bloodlines and the newer sires. Totally agree, though, that those names in a pedigree that you mention are just outstanding, and that is a lot of what I go for in a baseline for my family.