Breeding Goals

It is important breeders carefully consider each mating and have a specific goal in mind, because this can directly affect the stallion selection process.

Uli Hahn from the Hanoverian society in Germany said “Overall we have to ask ourselves what is preventing us from breeding better horses? And how can we remove these obstacles?“

This is an excellent question. If we are to breed better horses then we need to ask alot more questions and a lot more of ourselves as breeders, and develop a strategy to make smarter decisions based on better research. Starting with the end result in mind stops time wasting, and focuses the options in terms of stallion choice. In this way breeders are less likely to be swept away by spectacular young stallions with impressive video clips on social media.

For the purposes of this site, the goal is to breed horses that are capable of performing at the top levels of dressage, show jumping, or eventing.

All breeders should also have at the forefront the goal of responsible breeding for the benefit, protection and welfare of the horse. All we can do is raise the probability of breeding champion horses, and those foals and horses that don’t make the grade still deserve useful lives and good homes.

Different Goals

The goal of the commercial breeder is to breed foals to sell, and the sale is the important factor. Success is measured by sale price and quick turnover, and a subsequent performance career is secondary. This often drives decisions towards popular and fashionable stallions rather than genetically optimal ones.

Some want to breed a horse to excel in the young horse classes. Some may want to breed a horse for the show hunter ring. Some want to breed mare and foal show winners. Others want to breed horses that have the ability to compete at Grand Prix level in dressage or show jumping.

Top riders often nowadays have a small breeding program of their own to breed horses for themselves to compete, and they have a great opportunity to breed a top horse as they are not confined to fashionable stallion choices.

Very importantly many breeders want to breed a filly for their breeding program and begin building generations and mare families, and often the best result will not be provided by the fashion stallion.

Each of these breeding goals may require a different ideal pedigree structure in the mating. It is also very difficult to plan a mating that suits both sexes equally, certain pedigree factors favor colts while others favor fillies. Similarly with stallions, some produce better fillies than colts and vice versa.

Breeding goals that strive for improvement and high level sport horses also mean that breeders need to look very critically at what their mares are actually producing each year. This can help determine which mares to keep and which to move on from.

Breed improvement does require keeping fillies to breed from rather than simply breeding from the same original mares each year. The improvement comes in the next generation.

Making improvements also means that breeders need to get tougher in both their choices and in evaluating their own foals, by standing back from the emotional attachments and rose colored glasses. Not every foal is going to be ‘ stunning.’ Many foals are simply average. There will always be mistakes made in breeding and many crosses simply do not work or turn out as hoped for, this is the nature of genetics.

In modern day dressage breeding, the stallion drives the decisions for most breeders whose goal is usually to breed a foal to sell. Paul Shockemohle said that this is at the expense of keeping strong mare families going for building the future generations, and that the sport is suffering.

Breeders mainly want to sell foals, and as a result there is an enormous overemphasis on stallion popularity and commercialism, with less attention paid to the mare’s genetics and needs, and the quality of the actual foals being born. A very worrying trend is developing in breeding where young stallions are being chosen from short video clips on social media because they have spectacular movement.

This method of selecting stallions ends up creating popular stallion syndrome, which does far more to limit diversity and creates genetic bottlenecks which breeders may not be aware of. Having a solid long term goal for each mare helps to prevent getting caught up in making poor breeding decisions or making impulsive choices.

As discussed throughout this website, the mare’s pedigree is incredibly important in making informed breeding decisions, and researching this combined with breeding goals will help breeders produce better horses.