b4breeding

Nimble is a bit of a buzz word at the moment. Keeping up with trends and putting yourself in the position to respond promptly and effectively to the signals of the market.

As breeders we need to be nimble. But if we are nimble, do we know to jump in the right direction?  And what is the cost of jumping into thin air or jumping on a bandwagon without a good product?

“Jack be nimble” – this is Jack Tar (Tintin In America x Sophie’s Choice) showing a bit of nimbleness.

Breeding horses is always going to be a high risk venture. Not for the faint hearted. But it is a passion for those of us who love to beat the odds, who love the families of mares we have, who believe in thinking before breeding and not just ticking a box.

Nimble is good, but sometimes a longer term strategy is more important, with nimble tucked in as an option should the opportunity arise. That might mean aiming for the yearling sales but being open to selling as a weanling or ready to run, or trialing up and selling as a going proposition. Nimble might also mean considering a sire you pooh-poohed two years ago as a new kid on the block but you can’t help noticing he’s not doing bad and he matches well with your mare.

So nimble really just means keeping an open mind. Being willing to change.

With breeding we need at least two years to produce a saleable foal – from the time of deciding in our minds and making a service contract, to the positive test, to a resulting foal being born, raised to a weanling, and grown to a yearling. Still pretty much untried and unsure. So we don’t have the luxury of making quick changes. They need to be thoughtful.

Often “being nimble” needs to be within our parameters: Costs. Time. Available sires. The mares you have.

But constraints give birth to invention and thought. In my case, I have hardly ever gone outside a $5000 service fee mark because of my own financial constraints, but that has never held me back from breeding to sires that really suited my mares plus my aims.

But being nimble can also mean being aware of what the market wants and responding to that. (My proviso here is that merely following fashion can also bite you in the bum if you do not have a commercial product, e.g. a poor producing or uncommerical mare will not make a fortune just by going to Bettor’s Delight, and even though the foal may turn out to be her best, it may not make a sale that gives the breeder a “bettor” profit margin, if any.)

Being nimble for breeders is also about not over-stocking or over-committing, holding some of your scarce resources back to fight another day. That can be difficult. It’s a blink of an eye (or a mare’s back end!) before another foal seems to be eating up your grass, eh.

Nimble can be about collaborating and syndicating. It can be about doing deals and sharing and asking for help or advice. Or even taking a year or two out, to give you or your mares a break.

It can be about reassessing why you are breeding and what direction you need to go in, rather than just ticking things over year after year.

Being nimble for breeders is most of all having an open mind and working out where your passion and the future market may intersect in a way that gives you both satisfaction and wanting to keep doing it.

Many breeders are a bit older than we used to be. Ha! We should also be a bit wiser. Believe it or not, older bones and minds do not make us less nimble. Rather they make as able to be more canny and more inventive. It is our choice.

Experience is the base of being nimble. It is like jumping from a rock, rather than jumping from wet sand.

Breeding season 2015 ….and here we go again, jumping off that rock.

Yeeehaa!!!!!