Page 70 - 22 March 2013

FIRST YEAR SIRES
Standing a first year sire can be full of rewards,
but you must be ready to make a long-term
commitment to that stallion.
by Susan Bloom
So you have a colt that has done well on the track and you think he would make
a spectacular sire. Now what? Do you really want to do this? What does it cost? How does it work? How do you set the stud fee? Where do you stand him? How do you market him?
Proving a new stallion is a long-term commitment. According to both Jimmy Eller from Granada Farms in Texas,
and Butch Wise from Lazy E Ranch in Oklahoma, the first question a stallion owner should ask is, do I really want to do this and am I ready to take on this long- term commitment?
It is extremely expensive to stand and prove a stallion. There are three years from the time the first year stallion breeds his first mares to when his first crop goes to the track. Then, a sire’s first crop is an experi- ment. Did this or that cross work? One mare might not cross well with a stallion and another may produce a stellar individual.
Standing a stallion is a capital-intensive endeavor that requires you to properly promote the stallion with no assurance that you’ll get anything in return. The farm that is standing the stallion, the stallion owner, and the mare owners all need to make money for a stallion to be successful. The demand for a stallion will remain strong if he is successful at siring winners. Even with a successful sire, you will always need to promote him to help keep a strong demand for his offspring.
Basically, the commitment to stand a stallion is like a marriage. If you are not in it for the long haul then maybe you should sell the stallion upon retirement from the track and retain some breeding rights to him.
WHERE TO STAND YOUR STALLION
The easy answer to this question is, where the mares are. In order to prove a young sire, you need to get his book as full as possible. The more mares you breed, the better chance you have of him siring an outstanding runner.
A huge part of where the mares are can depend on the state’s breeding incentives. The state bred programs offer many incen- tives in breeder awards to mare owners as well as awards to stallion owners. These awards also enhance purses, so there are incentives to run in that state as well. However, there can be brutal competition between stallions for the attention of the mare owners.
If the mare owner wants to take advan- tage of those state bred incentives, they have a wide choice of stallions from which to choose. Having many stallions to choose from may make it harder to attract the number of mares you need to have a suc- cessful first year standing your stallion.
68 SPEEDHORSE, March 22, 2013
Lindsay Simon Photography