VANESSA CROSLAND SHARES SOME TIMELY THOUGHTS ON 'MARE-POWER''
With Mothers Day just around the corner, it seems like an appropriate time to talk about the importance of mares.
From observation, great stallions who produce consistently come from great mares who are in turn from a great mareline. There are individuals who are spectacular who do not meet this criteria, but they are rarely reliable breeding horses.
It makes sense - many stallion owners are looking to earn service fees, so will accept most mares. Owners of exceptional mares hopefully put a great deal of thought into their breeding decisions.
From observation, this is often not considered. A couple of vignettes:
Discussion with a breeder who has bred many foals on some frozen semen they were using from an overseas show champion. “ Oh, how interesting. I know his sire is x with this pedigree, what is his mare line?” ********crickets*********
Or, how many times do you see a horse advertised as “ By X” which is not very interesting as X has a large number of foals and the horse in question has an exceptional mare line which is not even mentioned.
My view? If you’re looking for a stallion, look to his mother - and her mother, and her mother...
