Buying a mare

Pboru22

Hi All,

Thinking of buying a mare in foal in the nh sales upcoming, The mares I’d be interested in have covering cert. So the question I have is do I pay the for the stallion that the mare has been covered with or does the vendor have paid this already??

I have bought many horses before but usually foals and have horses in training but would like to start breeding on a small scale too.

Thanks In Advance.

The Tetrarch

You buy the mare and foal (to be).
The previous owner pays the stallion covering fee.
I am not 100.00% sure on this but I bought two mares, in 2018 and 2018, at the flat breeding stock sales, and paid the auction price.
In each case the pregnant mare price was about the same as the covering fee of the stallion.

The Tetrarch

I am a bit of a pedigree nerd.
In each case when I bought a mare I had already decided the stallion she was to go to.
I had little or no interest in the foal she was carrying.
Before deciding on which mare to buy I downloaded the pedigrees of all flat mares on offer (about 3,5000 mares in IRE/GB/FR) and compared them to about 600 stallions in IRE/GB/FR.
That gave about 2,300,000 possible "foals", and I picked one.
Then I bought the mare in Newmarket, boarded her in Tipperary, and sent her to a sire in France.

I know zero about NH horses.
Many buy foals or mares based on what is selling at the sales, and use stallions that are popular or who have received a lot of patronage (big books of mares) in the last couple of years.
That gives a saleable product.
My idea is to breed a horse to race, not breed a horse to sell.

tryfix

The Tetrarch wrote: »

I am a bit of a pedigree nerd.
In each case when I bought a mare I had already decided the stallion she was to go to.
I had little or no interest in the foal she was carrying.
Before deciding on which mare to buy I downloaded the pedigrees of all flat mares on offer (about 3,5000 mares in IRE/GB/FR) and compared them to about 600 stallions in IRE/GB/FR.
That gave about 2,300,000 possible "foals", and I picked one.
Then I bought the mare in Newmarket, boarded her in Tipperary, and sent her to a sire in France.

I know zero about NH horses.
Many buy foals or mares based on what is selling at the sales, and use stallions that are popular or who have received a lot of patronage (big books of mares) in the last couple of years.
That gives a saleable product.
My idea is to breed a horse to race, not breed a horse to sell.

Fair play to you if you can afford to race the resultant foal. You could also breed the foal you want from the mare and stallion of your choice, sell it and let someone else experience the financial pain of paying for its racing career while you follow its career to see if your method worked.

You won't share in any winnings but probable winnings will pay for SFA and if your mating plans produce a good one you will still have the mare producing siblings to a winner which will help to increase the worth of future foals.

The Tetrarch

The problem with my approach is you will breed a foal/yearling that will not be fashionable i.e. not in demand at the sales.
I named my foal as she will not be going to the sales.
To sell a foal/yearling at the sales you need a mare with a lot of black type in her page, and those mares are expensive. [expensive mare]
Then you must send that mare to a stallion that has had a large book of mares in the last one, two, three breeding seasons, and has a good average/median price for his offspring at sales. From large books that stallion will have one or two good runners that will advertise your sales lot. [expensive stallion]

I prefer to spend small money on the mare, small money on the stallion fee, and spend to have the foal trained.
Using my approach it is best to use a young mare.
If she produces a foal that wins races then her other produce might have value.
If you go the other route, the usual route, you are selling your foal/yearling based on the produce of the stallion used, and on the relatives of your mare.

The Tetrarch

A bit off topic, but if my 2014 mare or my 2018 filly get pregnant next year I will investigate having them French bred.
They are going to stallions in France anyway.

FLAT RACES – IN FRANCE - BREEDERS' PREMIUMS
15% in open races, where owners’ premiums apply, for horses by a stallion based in France (otherwise 10%).
19% in races restricted to French bred horses by a stallion based in France (otherwise 14%).

Prize Money Distribution
1st 50%; 2nd 20%; 3rd 15%; 4th 10%; 5th 5%
A maiden race at Fontainebleau today (3rd race) has six runners: 1st 11,000; 2nd 4,400; 3rd 3,300; 4th 2,200; 5th 1,100 = 22,000
Contrast that with the first race at Leopardstown today, a maiden, sixteen runners, 9,735; 3,135; 1,485; 660; 330; 165 = 15,510

Fontainebleau: 1st race; 11,000; 4,180; 3,080; 1,760; 880; 660; 440 = 22,000 (7 prizes, only 6 runners)
Fontainebleau: 2nd race; 22,000 prizemoney (5 prizes; 7 runners).
In 9 races at Fontainebleau today only 33 horses will not win prizemoney.
In a few races at Leopardstown today horses finishing 6th get Euro 90 !!!

I mentioned to Brian Kavanagh, HRI boss, that prizemoney in Ireland was poor.
His reply "They have a different system". My response "Copy it". No reply.

France Galop website
Owners’ premiums
In flat races, France Galop also pays a premium to owners of horses born and bred in France (or which have been assimilated) that have won prize-money in a race. The premium varies from 64% for 2, 3 and 4-year-olds to 43% for horses aged 5 or older.
Breeders'premiums
As a breeder, even when you no longer own the horse, you will collect 10 to 21 % of its total prize-money earnings in France by way of premiums schemes and other incentives to breed horses.

Entry Fees: In principle there are NO entry fees for races other than Listed class and above.