Back in the Game

Well done PP. The NH market is going strong and there are plenty of interesting stallions to choose from. Good luck with her.

Thanks TH, the market is strong in parts, you still need to box clever but at least I can just about afford to play the game at a decent level.

Posh I am never sure good sense and sobriety suit anyone.

Welcome back!

I have been massively disaster prone for the last few years and I look forward to hearing tales of someone getting it right.

Will you have the nerve but to go anywhere other than Blue Bresil? I hope so.

There will be a ‘sire is everything’ meltdown surely as it is just plain ridiculous where the game now and we are due a change.
I hope you can set out to breed a winner first and foremost and the market starts to recognise that.

So pleased to see you back shining buttons!

Hi PM

I have occasionally cast an eye over the sales results and had noticed a lack of activity more than anything else on your behalf.  I'm sorry to hear that misfortune has struck, clearly on more than one occasion. You are no doubt due a change in fortune and I wish you an abundance of early colt foals by commercial stallions in the new year.

I will not be going to Blue Bresil as his fee is a little out of my price range.  Luckily there are plenty of proven sires which while they may not be quite so red hot, should get the job done for a quarter of the price. 
Trying to skate to where I think the puck is going to be is for another day.

I have had a few weeks to think about what I'm actually looking to achieve and ultimately it's to breed for the racetrack rather than the ring.  One should follow the other but NH is such a long road and if my project could even just wash it's face I'd be delighted.  Luckily the NH game is a little more affordable to play and as it's not my primary source of income so I can play a longer game with less pressure.  I also plan to sell anything as foals too as I've no desire to be towed around my fields.

How you do it PM I don't know, the stress would do for me.

The "sire is everything" bubble shows little sign of popping although it was nice to see a relative of mine point out in the RP the other day that racing doesn't buy that efficiently and people tend to overpay for very little additional chance of success.  Maybe there is a new breed on the way that realise the value for their clients lies in the middle market, but then again when did that approach pay the school fees....

By way of update my mare is safely in foal to **** (no mean achievement).  All being well, I should be looking at a late Feb early March arrival

On another note, does anyone have any supplement recommendations that ensure strapping young foals?

Well that's odd...why has the sire been blanked out..?  Anyway he's named after a famous Irish Poet...honestly Betfair.

I recommend you ask Messrs Martin and Comer

By way of an update my mare produced a bay colt bang on her due date at the end of February, unfortunately he never made it up on his own and after 3 days and numerous visits from the vets he coliced and had to be put to sleep.

The mare herself was pretty shook for a few weeks but is in flying form again and was scanned 28 days in foal last week after one visit to Maxios who in the last month is...whisper it quietly..starting to make gentle strides forward.

Anyway who knows what the landscape will look like in 12 months time but we try again, as John Cleese said in Clockwise - I can take the despair, it's the hope I can't stand.  Why am I doing this again?

Very sorry to read that Posh Paddy .

Its a head wrecker of a game tbh.

Well Posh, ofcourse we small breeders were put on this earth to show everyone else how lucky they are.
You are fulfilling the brief.

I am assuming you bought a Maiden and that this rigmarole isn’t something she has tried out before for a previous breeder?

I have been waiting this year for an older mare to foal whose previous attempt was born with an incomplete head (sorry to the squeamish)
She went mega late so it was a nail biter but I can report a normal foal on the ground this time. (Little filly mind!)

I wish you an equivalent turn around for next year!

Yes, she was a maiden that I bought at the sales although I already owned a leg in her when she was racing.

Glad you have had a turn around in fortune of sorts this year PM.

The flat game terrifies me, stallion fees are astronomical for anything vaguely commercial.  I salute you PM and others, balls of steel required.

Bought another NH Mare last week...oops

The only mare (Once Bitten) that my brother and I bought was already in foal to Bustino and that one (Must Bite) went on to win one race. A brother we bred and sold won three PtPs for William Easterby but didn't run under rules.

Congrats on breeding winners sageform, that's the real barometer of success that sometimes gets lost in the sales ring.

It's a bit of sh#t show here, the new mare had a colt a week early that was small, weak, wouldn't stand, couldn't suck and clearly wasn't right cognitively.  The Vet advised he was a no hoper and time was called within 24hrs.  The original mare who lost her first foal under similar circumstances last year did a least foal a nice animal, albeit a filly which given how things have been going still feels like a win.

The whole point of getting 2 mares was to raise their foals together and also wean the foals together when the time came, well that plan's in the bin and I'm now rotating fields which havn't recovered from 3 months of torrential rain. 

Oh and the mares foaled 2hrs apart either side of midnight so now I'm juggling scanning trips and covering trips at the same time too, still, we plough on.

I hope everyone else is having a better time of it, I'm a little frazzled if I'm honest .

Bad luck on he foal Posh. Exactly the same happened to me a number of years ago. I too had 2 mares when I started for the same reason as you. Only once in 4 years did I get 2 foals together. I ended up getting another mare to try and ensure I had at least 2 foals a year which was still only partially successful. Best of luck with the other foal.