Yearling Sale's

[Mitch]

Brenno,

I take your point re my comments without hard facts to back them up. A good friend of mine works in the breeding game and has access to alot of information, I will see if he can offer anything that I can share.

Some great examples of older mares providing nice horses have been shared so clearly there is a strong case to disprove my comment, which I accept.

Mitch.

[Mitch]

Just quickly other horses from the Derby on Sat Night:

Restrepo - 1st foal
Ideal Scott - 2nd foal
Major Post - 3rd foal
Charlie Machsheen - 2nd foal

Others:
Christian Cullen - 2nd foal
Courage Under Fire - 1st foal
Shakamaker - 4th foal
Elsu - 7th foal

Interesting....

[Mitch]

Just found this... Brief but better than nothing!

http://animalscience.ag.utk.edu/Horse/pdf/moldprod.pdf

[peteboss4]

Good reading Mitch.

Im not having a go but I love that Miss Jogalong was the 14th foal and Karloo Mick was her 1st foal.

[Triple V]

G'day Mitch,

I've long believed much if not all of the 'older mares don't produce as well as younger mares' is man made rather than any natural phenomenon.
Young mares starting off their careers tend to get the best of everything, the best sires, the best feeding, the best of Vet care and all associated attentions etc.
Unless they produce a winner/winners straight away and they keep on producing them...the quality of the sires they're bred to, the feed and the Vet care and so on they receive drops away and they begin an uphill battle of ever increasing difficulty until they reach the point of it being impossible.
Sometimes they can simply be bred to a string of unsuitable sires.
I've done it myself with one mare, something which I am still kicking myself about.
Otherwise, if you get the sires right and keep older mares well fed and well cared for, give them every opportunity with good class sires throughout their breeding life and give them the same level of Vet care as you would a young, successful racemare straight off the track, there's no reason why they can't continue to produce winners & good ones & well into the double digits.
Sometimes it is as simple as a regularly seeing to their feet and their teeth & rugging them up in the cold weather so they hold their condition through Winter. Keep them happy and healthy and they'll keep on going.
We've got a filly in the Sydney APG who's now deceased dam was a 1991 model...this yearling is her 7th living and 10th overall foal, previously having, through no fault of her own, lost 3 foals in a row would you believe...a Bettor's, a Dream Away and a Four Starzzz Shark...and type wise this easily is the best one she has ever had. Maybe it was the old girl's last hurrah? Don't know.

[Mitch]

G'day Mitch,

I've long believed much if not all of the 'older mares don't produce as well as younger mares' is man made rather than any natural phenomenon.
Young mares starting off their careers tend to get the best of everything, the best sires, the best feeding, the best of Vet care and all associated attentions etc.
Unless they produce a winner/winners straight away and they keep on producing them...the quality of the sires they're bred to, the feed and the Vet care and so on they receive drops away and they begin an uphill battle of ever increasing difficulty until they reach the point of it being impossible.
Sometimes they can simply be bred to a string of unsuitable sires.
I've done it myself with one mare, something which I am still kicking myself about.
Otherwise, if you get the sires right and keep older mares well fed and well cared for, give them every opportunity with good class sires throughout their breeding life and give them the same level of Vet care as you would a young, successful racemare straight off the track, there's no reason why they can't continue to produce winners & good ones & well into the double digits.
Sometimes it is as simple as a regularly seeing to their feet and their teeth & rugging them up in the cold weather so they hold their condition through Winter. Keep them happy and healthy and they'll keep on going.
We've got a filly in the Sydney APG who's now deceased dam was a 1991 model...this yearling is her 7th living and 10th overall foal, previously having, through no fault of her own, lost 3 foals in a row would you believe...a Bettor's, a Dream Away and a Four Starzzz Shark...and type wise this easily is the best one she has ever had. Maybe it was the old girl's last hurrah? Don't know.

Hi Jaimie,

You may well be correct however I don't think this is always the case. There are plenty of breeders out there who support their mares with quality stallions right through their breeding career.

In my experience, which is exclusive to thoroughbreds from a breeding perspective, the one factor that I take into consideration with my older mares is stallion fertility. This often means I move away from 1st season sires and look to stallions with good fertility and that are proven. This may not be as a big a factor in Standardbreds given AI.

My own experience in purchasing both thoroughbred and standardbred yearlings also lends to the theory of younger mare, first 4 progeny. Gamechanger was the first foal out of uwin and my best performed gallopers have all been first 4 foals.

At the end of the day I don't think it really matters, it's probably more just a personal preference thing, everyone in this game has their theories and likes/dislikes and they are entitled to do so. I certainly have mine and others on this have theirs.

Good debate regardless....

[Triple V]

G'day Mitch,

I do think there may sometimes be a placental/nutritional basis to some of it...that I will happily concede...but as one pretty smart fella who has been in the breeding business a long, long time once said to me "Show me a rule and I'll show you an exception".
There are relatively young mares that have had only 4 or 5 foals that, for various reasons, are already clapped out and buggered and there are old mares that have been lovey doved all of their breeding careers & they seem to defy the ravages of time and multiple births.
Kind of related to this thread is simply the age of a mare. I've never quite been able to work out the line of thinking behind it all however I have seen some people shy away from older mares even though it's very clear that, for whatever reason, they have started their breeding careers later in life & to that point only had a small number of foals. That has really got me beaten.
One thing a mate of mine who was reading this thread and rang me earlier this morning to promptly remind me of is that which he termed as being the generational changes we see in the breed. I thought he made a good case for always going forwards with sires...as in always looking to breed the older broodmares to the younger, up and coming brigade of sires & at the same time not breeding the younger, up and coming mares to the older brigade of sires. That makes a fair bit of sense to me.

[strong persuader]

I too had long believed that the early foals from a mare were the best options. This was because it was what was told to my by people whose opinion I respected. Over time with more education, I have softened on my attitude towards this because it has become obvious that other factors come into play.

From Equine Genetics & Selection Procedures, very complex reading, comes only one simple tidbit on age as regards breeding;
"Breeding stock that receive proper care may produce over a span of 20 years or so. Some genetically coded traits will be accentuated with age and/or use, such as greying, swayed backs, and breakdown due to faulty conformation. Age might also affect a horse's keeping qualities, but horses receiving the proper care generally remain functional into their twenties."

This fits with most of the other advice I have received over the years about the subject, it is just that some people have passed it on with their own biases added to it!

I often give the advice that yes do your research on the catalogue regarding breeding etc, but go to the sale with the catalogue in your pocket and when you see a horse you like then check the catalogue and if you have not noted anything that says you shouldn't buy it in the catalogue, go with that choice.

[Mitch]

Jaimie,

Couldn't agree more the comments about an exception to every rule... This will always be the case.

I think your friends comments about generational changes is true, it just depends how quickly the industry as whole want to make the change and this will be determined by how long they choose to support proven older stallions and colonial stallions vs shuttle stallions from OS.

I'm probably getting off topic here but I would be really keen to get your thoughts on the whole shift toward American/Canadian stallions and their proliferation in the Australian standardbred market, call me a traditionalist but I think the vast majority that stand in australia are overrated/overpriced and we have underrated the value of colonial stallions. My knowledge on standardbred breeding is only very limited given I have much greater experience and knowledge with the TBs hence the question?

[Mitch]

I too had long believed that the early foals from a mare were the best options. This was because it was what was told to my by people whose opinion I respected. Over time with more education, I have softened on my attitude towards this because it has become obvious that other factors come into play.

From Equine Genetics & Selection Procedures, very complex reading, comes only one simple tidbit on age as regards breeding;
"Breeding stock that receive proper care may produce over a span of 20 years or so. Some genetically coded traits will be accentuated with age and/or use, such as greying, swayed backs, and breakdown due to faulty conformation. Age might also affect a horse's keeping qualities, but horses receiving the proper care generally remain functional into their twenties."

This fits with most of the other advice I have received over the years about the subject, it is just that some people have passed it on with their own biases added to it!

I often give the advice that yes do your research on the catalogue regarding breeding etc, but go to the sale with the catalogue in your pocket and when you see a horse you like then check the catalogue and if you have not noted anything that says you shouldn't buy it in the catalogue, go with that choice.

Hi Phil,

That's the only way to buy a horse from a sale in my opinion. Look at horse first, catalogue second and don't waste your time on x-rays......