b4breeding

Complete change of tack from my recent blogs – here’s a blog about my mare Have No Secrets.

Many of you willhave discovered one of my early pageswhere I wrote about My Learning Curve when I first started breeding standardbreds.

The mare I wrote about was Have No Secrets, by Camtastic out of the Vance Hanover mare Mafia Miss, who herself was a daughter of Joyable.  This is the family of Robert Reid’s good mare Plead, and the best branch of the family has been the Pat Hanover/Miss Clevedon line.  Joyable was a very nice racehorse, earning over $220,000 racing in Australia; her progeny included the speedy youngster Gran Montana, but not much else. Mafia Miss produced a durable pacer in Seven Hills who raced in Australia for many wins, and in fact most of her progeny other than Have No Secrets ended up in Australia (the Kellys in NSW) but their breeding efforts have been very disappointing. Nothing much has really fired at all, apart from Miss Adriana and Miss Livia from Have No Secrets’ half sister Midnight Madam (by What’s Next).

I fell in love with Secrets at the yearling sales and when she put her head on my chest in her box at Karaka I told her “I’m taking you home.” After realising early on the “Secrets” was not interested in being a racehorse, I bred three foals from her – and went up that steep learning curve which My Learning Curve relates.

Iain and Secrets hacking on Iain’s property.

She is now 14 years old. We’ve looked after her well and she’s been an asset, never a burden.  Kym broke her in to saddle early on, and she has been ridden occasionally, including a memorable afternoon when she was 3yo and I was perched in the saddle. Me riding is not a pretty sight, but Secrets was patient with me, even ensuring I stayed on board when we slipped into a ditch rather than giving that cunning little tilt-and-off that horses will try when they know you are a nervous rider.

She’s always showed a character that was gentle, kind and yet had a distinctive personality and an interest in whatever was going on.

For the usual reasons – lack of paddocks, tight finances  – it was time to move her on to a place where she could also be more active, have more company.

It was with great pleasure that I found Iain, who is an experienced rider and has a property near Hamilton he wanted to explore on horseback. After a few weekends of getting to know each other, he and Secrets have paired up wonderfully well. Iain’s kept me posted about progress, hence this lovely photo. “She is so inquisitive as she explores new territory – what is around the next bend. Definitely not a plodder, a lady with character and attitude,” he writes.

Secrets has found an excellent home and is loving her new life as a hack.

It’s never easy finding homes for ex-racehorses, and I know there are calls that have to be made from time to time. There are people and groups who can help if you want to try harder to give your horse a life after racing – and certainly breaking a horse to saddle (if they have a good temperament) early in their life can be a life-saver later on – as well as an option for training regimes at certain times.

In this case, credit to Kym for ensuring Secrets was ride-able.

And credit to Secrets for being so sweet and such a character that finding a good home was the only option.

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Wrapping up my short series on some positive steps for our breeding industry.

These are, in general, solutions that are in our hands. While significantly higher stakes would help all parties in the industry and create a more buoyant market for breeders, breeders and their representatives are not in a position to directly make that happen.

What we can do is make decisions on the four aspects I’ve covered – or at least lead the charge in pushing for change.

The four things I’ve suggested all increase the ability of breeders to be masters of their own destiny.

1. Allow breeders to breed 2 foals from an individual mare (no more than 2) per breeding season.
2. Place a limit of 100 on all NZ available stallions for the next 3 years.
3. Create meaningful breeders bonuses related to first win (larger amount) or all wins (smaller amount per win) or % of stake of all NZ-bred horses – this is a progeny bonus, not just applicable to fillies.
4. Breeding credits, and paid to the original breeder (not the future owner of progeny).

Allowing a mare to breed up to two progeny in the same season, using embryo transfer, appears to be something governed by the rules of harness racing, and therefore able to be changed. It is well within the jurisdiction of our representatives (whether at conference level or at governance level) to lead a change in this direction. For a good overview of the logistics here is an article that outlines it in layperson’s language.  The logistics and costs of embryo transfers will limit use. It is not opening the floodgates to factory farming, nor is it likely to dramatically increase the number of registered foals. But it will provide breeders with another option in terms of managing their investment in a mare, and it may well encourage breeders to experiment a little more in their choice of sires. Check out my original blog on this for the full list of benefits.

Placing a limit on books is a tricky one because of legal rulings. It may need some hard negotiations and some clear parameters, but a short-term agreement maybe covering 3 seasons could be enough to ensure greater diversity and commercial viability of both sires and stud farms to keep our industry healthy. Yes, successful sires (and their owners) should be rewarded by getting increased numbers of mares. But there is a point where, over a number of years, dominance can skew a market (and even the genetic make-up of our commercial mares).  Eventually the market will self-correct – or more likely set the pendulum swinging in another direction. Settling the market into a healthier, less extreme pattern over the next few years will build a stronger and more stable foundation for our industry.

Finally the idea of mares credits and breeders bonuses – these depend on having a pool of money that can be distributed. And that’s the rub. I believe the only way the breeding industry will strengthen is for breeders to develop some funded schemes that are independent of the funding of the wider racing industry.

It’s true, that sometimes you have to put more in to get more out.

As a breeder, I already pay numerous “series” eligibility payments that are designed to make my mare’s progeny attractive to buy. In the yearling sales marketplace they are essential – but you will see many, many yearlings who are paid up for multiple series still receiving only $5-10,000 sale price.

Basically, breeders are paying several hundreds of dollars per yearling for series which are extremely hard to win and offer small, if any, immediate return to the breeder even if the horse makes it into the final of these series.

So why not have an additional option – payment into a scheme that relates directly to the breeder and the mare’s progeny and rewards breeding success – either a mares credit scheme or a breeders bonus for wins. I would be a willing payer of $250 per foal or per mare bred, for example, if I knew it was making me eligible for reward and recognition as breeder if that horse goes on to succeed.

I would willingly pay a small annual fee if it kept me in a breeder’s bonus scheme. I would see that as an incentive and an investment, rather than a cost.

Money attracts money. Positivity attracts positive responses.

I think potential sponsors would be keen to step up and contribute more to breeders schemes if breeders started developing some really exciting options that would give breeding a more modern and commercial shape.

So yes, I will put up my hand (and I am by no means a wealthy person) and say: Let’s put more in. Let’s create something that is ours. Don’t wait for handouts. Have more control because it is our funds, from breeders and for breeders.

Where do you stand on that?

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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.

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In this blog I look at the second of my 4 suggestions for the standardbred breeding industry in NZ – Creating meaningful breeders bonuses related to first win or all wins of all NZ-bred horse.

There’s a bit of confusion about the aim of breeders bonuses. Too often the idea gets mixed up with mare credit schemes and incentives for owning fillies and mares. These are very important to the future of the industry and growing the pool of mares.

But in many of the proposals coming forward,  the reward goes to owners of the offspring or future breeders, rather than the original breeder of the horse.

Current breeders have four opportunities to get a return on their high risk investment:

1. By selling the offspring.
2. By selling the broodmare.
3. By retaining a foal to race (and therefore changing role to “owner”, and future rewards count as owner’s rewards)
4. By winning the extremely limited and hard to get breeders bonuses currently available (e.g. winning the Breeders Crown)

What stands out is the “one-off” nature of all these rewards. Getting a financial return often ends the financial connection with that horse as a breeder.

So in reality breeders have few and fragile opportunities to recoup the years of costs and risks they have carried for each foal they produce and each broodmare they look after.  Let’s look at a comparable situation for owners, trainers and drivers.

Let’s dramatically reduce race meetings held, and allow owners to line their horse up for three races only per season where the stake money is huge but the chances of winning the race are just the same as now.  Would they go for that? I doubt it.

Let’s say we ask trainers to carry all the costs of training a horse and get paid in full only at the end of the horse’s career. Ha! Can’t see that one flying with trainers, unless they have a stable full of top racehorses.

Or say we ask drivers to drive for no cost, but at the end of each year have owners obliged to pay a one-lump sum to their drivers, based on how well horses driven by that driver have performed – but that judgement is up to the owner to decide, perhaps with input from the trainer.  Can’t see much support for that one either!

But the industry expects the breeder to carry this sort of risk and cost for several years, and to have their “one lump sum” payment left in the hands of “market forces” i.e. a sale.

What’s the alternative? Not an alternative, because selling is still the best way for breeders to cover their costs in a timely way. However a sales price can be a fickle way of predicting future performance.

Instead I propose a secondary, small income stream for breeders through breeding bonuses that are either

• paid (in a smaller amount) per win of the horse bred, regardless of ownership and regardless of where the race is run, or
• paid (in much larger amount) for the first win on the horse bred regardless of where the race is run.

Breeders bonuses are a much surer way of rewarding actual success.

They reward breeders of horses who may not have sold for true value at the time but go on to perform well, and recognise the role the breeder has in laying a part of the foundation for this success.

When I say “income stream” I am thinking of the principle, rather than the amount. It is an ongoing return dependant on performance, not a payment that would provide an independent income as such.

How can it be funded? Options include:

• an annual fee (per mare bred and perhaps matched by stallion owners for any available sire)
• a tiny percentage of all total stake money paid into one  breeders bonus pool
• an annual subscription so only breeders who want to be part of the scheme pay in, but only their horses trigger a bonus
• an additional fee paid at foal registration time (by the current owner who will usually but not always be the breeder)
• a fee paid as part of the entrance fee to yearling sales, and bonuses only paid to the breeders of yearling sales racehorses
• an optional fee paid at branding time

Or a mix of these, or other suggestions people have. But we mustn’t let the mantra “There is no money” hold us back from looking at options and doing the sums.

Administrative concerns would mean the onus has to be on breeders in the scheme to update their account details, which is why an annual subscription, however low, can help ensure details are current.

The key thing is that the breeder’s bonus comes back to the breeder, not to the current owner. Even mare credits should surely go to the broodmare’s owner or the breeder of the foal, rather than to the current owner of the racing filly/mare who earns it.

I was disappointed to see in the NZ Standardbred Breeders Assn survey on “options for encouraging breeders to stay in the industry” that options for breeder’s bonuses had the bonus returning to the owner. And most of the other options were about mares/fillies racing opportunities and mares credits, which often do not reward current breeders except in a “by association” way. It’s great breeders are being asked, but I wish the options list had been less prescriptive (See survey options at end of this blog).

Yes, the future winning performance of a horse will enhance it’s family’s reputation. But that doesn’t always flow back to the breeder – look at what the sibling of very good 2yo colt Isaiah sold for at this year’s Australasian Yearling Sale as just one example. The building of a family can take years and generations, and sometimes too late for the breeder who most contributed – they may well have sold the mare or quit the industry.

There are a number of breeding schemes in practice around the world. I am hopeful the NZ Standardbred Breeders’ Assn will see the survey as just a wee toe in the water, and come up next with a discussion paper on how various international schemes work, pros and cons, and possible applications for NZ breeders.

Rewarding current breeders has to be a priority.

A coordinated, across-the-board breeding bonus scheme is needed.

What we don’t need is more one-off prizes for the elite races that most good racehorses and their breeders will never to able to achieve.

Options listed in the NZSBA survey mentioned in this blog, which asked breeders to order in preference:
1. Reduced HRNZ fees for DNA testing, branding and foal registration;
2. Financial bonus for winning NZ bred and owned horse i.e same owner/breeder.
3. Financial bonus to the breeder only regardless of ownership
4. Financial bonus paid to owners for winning fillies and mares only
5. More 3YO 4YO and 5YO fillies and mares races at for the lower and medium rated horses
6. One off financial bonus for horses’ first New Zealand start in a race – fillies and mares only, paid to owners.
7. One off financial bonus for horses’ first New Zealand start in a race – all horses, paid to owners.
8. A scheme that puts a winning bonus into a trust for a mare’s future breeding career and redeemable for the first mating.

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