Early Breeding Decisions

Merry Christmas!  I'm spending Christmas Eve keeping Carol company in the kitchen, filling out breeding contracts, as she works on Christmas dinner, her one cooking foray of the year.  It's kind of nice to give over the kitchen and know that I don't have to think about cooking anything more than breakfast tomorrow.  Of course, the Jim Beam in front of me helps the control freak in me relax a little...

So, yes!  Breeding contracts.  I just filled out four contracts to Fairytale. With a little luck, our 2015 crop will include:

Fairytale x Jazz x Roemer
Fairytale x Vincent x El Corona
Fairytale x Donatelli x Jazz
Fairytale x Freestyle x Jazz

I'm also committing to our 16th and 17th UB-40 foals:

UB-40 x Sir Sinclair x Jazz
UB-40 x Totilas x Jazz!!!!

Fortunately, I still have a few breedings to vacillate over for the next few months. It would be WAY too boring to have everything settled now, but Iron Spring Farm has been too good to us not to breed at least a mare or two with them (plus, ever since I saw UB in den Bosch, I've just pretended he was my personal stallion), and Hilltop has played Santa by giving us an amazingly generous discount for our mares if we book by the end of the year--so, fortunately, we have enough mares to breed that I can both make some early bookings and still have some to entertain myself with until the last minute.

Quandry number one:  Gazania (Bon Bravour x Santano x Biotop).  She's in Holland, so the breeding choices are nearly limitless.  This year, her job is to do well at her keuring and get pregnant to the perfect stallion.  I'm hoping to import her in the Fall.  As far as talking about her man-date, that's pointless right now; the options are too exciting for me to even begin to narrow it down.  Maybe after the Stallion Show I'll be willing to make a short list.

Quandry number two:  ZaVita SSF (Contango x Elcaro x Belisar).  Carol has agreed to let me try an ET with Princess.  She continues to do really well under saddle, so I'm not taking her, or me, out of work, but I'd love another couple foals from her.  She produced one really nice UB-40 filly, who's now a coming five-year-old.  There are a couple solidly proven Contango niches out there that would be worth trying. There are a couple young KWPN stallions for whom I might be willing to break my "No Frozen without a LFG" policy, if I know the semen is good.  And, additionally, I want a grey dressage horse in the worst way, so I'm scouting all grey stallion possibilities.

Quandry number three:  Eliscia SSF (UB-40 x Pass the Glass xx)  First, there's a possibility she's sold, so I'm not going to sign a breeding contract for her unless I know for sure.  Second, I bought the 10 doses of Chagall specifically to cross with her--I've used seven doses unsuccessfully (not all on her--only two on her), so I have three left.  It might be worth thawing all three and dumping them in her for one last ditch effort at getting that cross.  Three, she needs to do her IBOP to complete her keur status this year, and it might be best to give her the year off, especially since she's going to have a foal by her side.

Did you just count how many possible 2015 foals that is?  Four Fairytale, two UB, and three undecided...nine, and not a one that I wouldn't consider keeping as either a future broodmare or stallion prospect.  We need a bigger farm.

DBNA Lives On

Breeding is not for someone who can't have a little patience.  For those of you who don't know or remember DBNA (Dutch Breeders of North America), which morphed into WBNA (Warmblood Breeders of North America), about 13 years ago, I had an idea to bring better bloodlines to the continent by creating a stallion co-op that leased interesting stallions, imported them, and stood them to the general public/greater breeding community.  I forget now just how many people were involved, but we sold close to 100 memberships, some people buying multiple memberships because they had multiple mares on which to use the free breeding that came with each membership.  The idea was that members could continue to breed for free as long as they each sold a breeding in a given year, so we would continue to generate income to pay for the lease fees and the upkeep on the three stallions we imported, Freestyle, Iroko, and Hierarch.  And, it worked for a while.  In the end, a few of us ended up with the bulk of the expenses because members got their one or two free breedings and stopped participating.  Although it was a costly venture for us, it also introduced me to some incredible people, with whom I'm still really close.

Related to where I'm going with this entry, in 1996, we bought a filly at the Borculo auction to replace our foundation mare, who died of a prolapsed uterus two days after foaling.  That filly, Oladaula, went on to be the high point dressage mare at the New England keuring and one of our top producers.

Still related to where I'm going, when DBNA closed shop, Jennifer Arnoldt asked me to act as broker/negotiator between her and the Nijhofs to buy Freestyle.  A couple years later, when she was starting to improve the quality of her mare band, she asked me to send her a couple of mares that were good crosses for Freestyle.  I sent her Oladaula and her sister, Pioendaula.

Now to my point, the recent overall winner of the 70 Days Test is Fabian DSF (Freestyle x Oladaula x Hierarch).  Now do you see the connection?  It's been 18 years since we imported that filly; 13 years since we imported Freestyle; and 8 years since we sent her to Dreamscape Farm--it can take a hell of a long time for your selection decisions to make much of an impact in the breeding world, but the overall effects of DBNA are going to be long-lasting.

Of course, along the way, there have been multiple keuring winners and site champions, top tens and top fives, a Gert Van der Veen winner, young jumper champions, a silver medal in the Young Riders, and even some HOY awards as recently as this year, not to mention the positive influence on literally hundreds of breeding programs--all because of DBNA.

It could happen again.  Given the right people and, most importantly, the right selection.  It could happen again...