The State of SSF and Future Sales

What a nice weekend.  I didn't get a chance to pick up mail this week until Saturday morning, and, much to my delight, the most recent edition of the KWPN-NA Newsletter was waiting for me.   Our breeding program has had a lot of success over the last 20 years (knock on wood), but it never gets old to open a magazine and read such positive comments about SSF horses. We are positioned to be breeding better and better horses.  Our mareband is the strongest it has ever been, and, with the maturation of some of our best-bred fillies, we're looking forward to a really exciting next few years of foals.

On top of this, I'm finding more and more satisfaction and personal fulfillment from riding, especially since I'm riding an SSF-bred horse.  Over the next couple of years, I have two more "saved" horses entering the riding regimen.  It's, indeed, a dream come true.  Today, Princess (ZaVita SSF) and I had one of our most relaxed, through sessions we've ever had.  Thanks to Melinda Johnson for being on the ground and slowing down my brain and intensity level.

I'm also working on developing a slightly different business plan for SSF.  My current five-year plan is to continue building our mare base so that we're producing at least a dozen foals per year.  Since our marebase is the strongest it's ever been, I'm also planning on producing a series of stallion prospects in the next five years.  Additionally, I want to increase our sales over the next few years, but I want to  do it in a specific way.  Some of my most rewarding experiences in producing the quality horses we produce is to get them in the hands of really deserving people.  As part of my refocusing of our program, I want our foal to go to talented people who need a little help in acquiring top horses.  Recently, we just made a partial-ownership deal with a super talented young rider to help her and to promote one of our most talented mares.  Repeatedly, we've sold horses on terms so the right horse got with the right owner.  I'd like to make this the norm for our sales.  I want to sell our babies as low as $250/month to people who have a dream of owning and competing a super talented dressage horse.  Currently, we have a UB-40 x Sir Sinclair weanling/yearling available.  He's a super mover and really sweet.  Next year, we'll potentially have four foals available for this option.  The following year, we'll have, perhaps, six or seven foals available.  If you or someone you know wants to raise your own top dressage prospect, I want you to think of our program and what we're willing to do to help you. Our logo is, and always has been, "the place where dreams come true."  As sappy as that may seem, it's the way I want to do business.

Of course, I haven't updated the website in ages, so none of this is reflected anywhere but here; hopefully, since I've taken some significant steps in downshifting my outside committments, over the next few months, I'll get our website reorganized and more reflective of our SSF present and future.

Happy New Year!

Not only is it the new year, but, also, I'm on my second snow day in a row!!!  School was supposed to start on Thursday; however, thanks to the convergence of two storm systems, New England has been beset with a major snow event.  On top of this, tonight, we're supposed to have record lows...-20F...before the windchill factor.  Holy crap.

So, New Year's resolutions?  Nope.  Not really.  During the last few months of 2013, I began to take some actions to refocus my life a bit.  One, I'm about to write and direct my last production for Keene High School; two, my last column in Warmbloods Today just hit the newsstands; three, in spite of the cold, the rain, my schedule, my moods, etc, I ride four to five days per week.

Speaking of riding, it's going well.  Princess and I are definitely in a transition phase.  We've been basically on our own since leaving Jane's in the middle of August.  I've had a couple really good lessons with Zaz Putnam and some important feedback from Melinda Johnson, but, otherwise, it's been just Princess and me.  As much as I was almost afraid to leave the constant instruction and guidance of Jane, I see now that it was an important step for me as a rider to really have to figure out some things on my own.  I think both Princess and I are better for it, and I'm really looking forward to more and more progress.  It's slow, but that's how it probably should be.  Denny Emerson's posts on Facebook really motivate me to just take it slow and put in the day-to-day small efforts necessary to get all the pieces in place for success.

Speaking of Princess, yes, I am going to try an ET from her.  I know that after all of our unsuccessful attempts I've sworn never to try again, but I love this mare.  There's no way she's coming out of work to have a baby at this point in time, so there's no other option.  Of course, making the right choice for her is now my primary focus in life!  Those of you who obsess over breeding picks as much as I do certainly understand this.  Michaela and I are both on the task.  At the top of our list right now are Floriscount and Bordeaux--but, since this baby is a keeper, much as Princess was destined to be a keeper (Carol gave me the breeding to Contango for Father's Day, with the stipulation I keep the resulting foal for my own riding horse...guess it worked out!), I'm really tempted to go with one of the two stallions that make my heart go pit-a-pat, pit-a-pat.  One of these is Totilas.  Since we're already risking the ET procedure, I can't justify spending the money on a dose of him, however.  The other is Lyjanero.  Few horses have had the immediate effect on me that he did when I walked into his stall at Gestut Sprehe.  As corny as it sounds, his energy just clicked with my energy, and it was love at first sight.  We have two Lyjanero fillies, both really special.  I'd really like a colt.  As a little reminder of who he is, here's my favorite clip:  http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PPLu6WryJa8

Big news I discovered yesterday:  Special D is going to be at stud in South Carolina for the 2014 season!  $1200 stud fee, fresh cooled semen.  He might be just the ticket for Eliscia (UB-40 x Pass the Glass xx).  I've watched Special D for years in Holland.  Some of his offspring are top-notch movers and nice types--really top dressage horse prospects.  Unfortunately, some of his offspring look like Friesians, complete with the fetlock feathers. He has to be crossed with a more modern type mare, unless you want to breed a Gelders horse, which is also a legitimate option.  Nonetheless, I'm psyched that his owner has decided to stand him to North American breeders.  We need him as an option.

Well, time to get out into the snow and feed the ponies!  I wish you all the happiest and healthiest of New Years.

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...

Netto

Recently, a regular reader emailed me and asked if I would comment on this stallion in my journal. Here goes. I've only seen him once; he was presented at the Stallion Show last year. At the time, I knew nothing about him. My initial impression was, wow, he's cool. For some reason, however, his rider chose to only show him in piaffe and passage--we never saw him canter. When a friend of mine in Holland told me he had bred his mare to Netto, I asked, "Does he have a canter?"

I wasn't being snide. Why would you show your Grand Prix stallion in front of thousands of potential breeders and only piaffe and passage?  Evidently, Netto does have a canter--I just haven't seen it.

As a breeding stallion, I'm not sure about him.  He's obviously a really talented and powerful dressage horse who has made it to Grand Prix, so, right there, he's worth breeding to on some level.  However, as a young horse, he was presented to the KWPN and refused.  I don't know the reason, but I can surmise that his sire, Negro, hadn't yet made his splash, so the weakness in the mareline and type of Netto couldn't be overlooked.  Now, everyone is Negro crazy--hence, a powerful, expressive stallion son who is at Grand Prix looks pretty good, regardless of his motherline and how he looked as a young horse.

The motherline has some good stallions, but there's only one good mare that I can see, his granddam. His mother has produced a number of offspring, but most of them are foalbook or studbook.  The mareline is known as a jumper line--that could be another reason Netto wasn't interesting to the KWPN when he was first presented; he's bred to be an all rounder, and the KWPN shifted to specialists right around the time he would have been presented.  This being said, he's got Purioso, Nimmerdor, and Courville xx as sires his mareline--all good to very good stallions.

So, as you can see, my opinion is all over the place on this stallion.  My guess is that he's not going to be a super consistent producer of type or keuring horses, but that doesn't mean he won't produce sport horses, especially since he himself has made it to Grand Prix.  Personally, I'm going to wait a bit and see what he produces.  I know I'm in the minority, but I'm not a huge Negro fan.  I'm happier breeding to Everdale or Fairytale--they're a little more removed from Negro himself and more interesting in the mareline than Netto.

The Lack of KWPN Stallions in North America, cont.

If you're new to my blog or haven't read all of the entries, scroll down a bit and find the earlier post about the lack of KWPN stallions for US and Canadian breeders.

Rather than rehash my impassioned speech, I want to pick up where I left off in the post: It's time for another collaborative effort to bring new stallions to North America. I know that Carol and I aren't willing to afford the time or expense we incurred with DBNA or WBNA, but I also can't stand by and do nothing. North American breeders need stallion options. Our breeding programs are suffering because of the lack of genetic diversity, our studbook is suffering because we're not producing more horses or attracting new members, and our pocketbooks are suffering because we have to shell out way too much mula for not only frozen semen with no guarantee, but also the breeding and shipping costs that are an unavoidable side effect of using frozen semen.

In the past, for our personal program and for DBNA and WBNA, we leased already approved stallions. This is still an option, but it's not as easy it seems. One, you have to find a stallion that is a quality producer but not breeding that much in Holland or Germany; two, you have to be able to afford this stallion (one stallion I inquired about in the past six months came with a price tag 60,000 Euro/year, even though he had bred fewer than a dozen mares last year); three, you need to find a retired stallion or a deal with a good rider to compete the stallion. So, finding an already approved stallion is possible, but not as easy as I've made it look in the past.

A more longterm and affordable approach, from my perspective, is to buy promising colts and take them through the approval process. Is this a gamble? By all means. That's why a group purchase of 10 or more people makes it more palatable--the risk gets split 10 or more ways. Have I got all the details worked out? No. Do I have a first colt in mind? Yes.

I saw this colt on my recent trip to Holland. He has a number of things in his favor as a potential stallion: he's from a first crop of a newly approved stallion who did not breed that many mares; he's out of one of the top marelines in Holland; he's a gorgeous type with excellent conformation; he has no Jazz, Ferro, or Flemmingh. I can get him for 10,000 Euro, but the breeder wants a 25,000 Euro bonus if the colt eventually becomes approved. This is a common practice among the top breeders who regularly have foals from their programs approved. The cost of boarding this colt for two years averages 150 Euro/month or less. The prep for the stallion approvals is approximately 500 Euro/month. The colt will have to go through the xrays, semen analysis, etc. I don't know how much all of that costs. So, you can do the math. totaled, it's not an insignificant investment, but month-to-month, it's minimal, especially in a group of 10 or more. Four or five people I've told about this colt are already interested in participating. If you want to know more about him, drop me an email.

What I'd love to see happen eventually is that we buy a colt every year, maybe two. With the right kind of selection, the odds of getting a horse approved can be shifted in our favor. It's still a long shot, but it's an action plan for alleviating our reliance on frozen semen.

Keuring Post Mortem

Alas, another keuring season has come and gone. We faired well:

Eliscia SSF (UB-40 x Pass the Glass xx) was represented for ster. She redeemed herself from last year's fiasco, and not only went ster and keur eligible, she also garnered the high point dressage horse award for the keuring. Her scores were high enough to place her third in the country of all ster mares, but, since she was presented last year, she doesn't go into the rankings. Nonetheless, she did finish in the Top Five for the DG Bar Cup. This also makes her dam, LaLiscia, a preferent mare. I have raised the price on this mare and am not anxious to sell her.

D'Orites SSF (Donatelli x Jazz) completed a super IBOP; therefore, fulfilling her requirements to become a keur mare. She also placed in the KWPN Top Five for IBOPs. Hard to complain about having a new D-line x Jazz cross keur mare in our breeding program. She is no longer for sale.

Cervantes SSF (Donatelli x Jazz) was presented by his owner, Kim Scudder, in the geldings' class. He, like his full sister, was a hit with the jury. Receiving super comments, "Georgie" is now a ster gelding. Better yet...

Orchis (Jazz x Roemer) is a new preferent mare!!! Hopefully, her prestatie predicate is right around the corner, as well!

Ignazio SSF (Don Tango B x Vincent) was first premium and first in his class, and top young dressage horse. Pretty interesting pedigree...Don Tango B x Vincent x El Corona x Lector x Doruto...there are a number of top horses produced by the boys in this pedigree. What to do, what to do? He's currently for sale.

Felicites SSF (Rousseau x Jazz) didn't have her best day. As a three-year-old undersaddle, she got was too stressed out. The jury was impressed with her, nonetheless, and excited to see her presented for ster. By the time we got to free movement, however, she was too tired to care much about he whole experience. She had moments of absolute brilliance, but also moments of tiredness. I think the jury was as surprised as I that she didn't make ster. Oh, well. She is branded and in the studbook. Next year, she'll be a keur-eligible mare. I'm so impressed by this mare's talent under saddle that I really want her with a professional, and am willing to negotiate a deal for the right person.

Princess and I did, indeed, ride an IBOP. I think our final score was a 72. Not bad for my first time. She only received a 6 for her walk, which was totally my fault. The mare has an incredible walk, but I just didn't get it together enough to make it happen. We'll just have to earn her keur status through sport! We're still shooting for PSG by the end of next year.

So, we had a good day: Two new preferent mares, a new keur mare, a new keur-eligible mare, high point adult dressage horse, first premium and high point young dressage horse, a new ster gelding, and three horses in the Top Five for the USA and Canada. Not bad.