06/11/2025
Agree wholeheartedly with the post below.
New blog post:
Opinion: The vast majority of riders do not need a Grand Prix bred horse!
The pressure on breeders to always be producing Grand Prix potential young stock has become silly in my opinion. Not only is it resulting in a pool of horses that the majority of riders can't ride, but it is leading to a huge nosedive in diversity in the equine gene pool as the few top competing stallions get used over and over again.
The majority of people who jump horses will rarely jump over 3ft. Your adult amateur doesn't need an olympic bred horse so she can show in the .75 jumpers. Neither does your teenager, actually. Same goes for dressage. How many people show above third level? So no, the AA who has decided that she would like to dabble in dressage, and maybe work towards her bronze medal doesn't need a Glamourdale clone.
Yet, that is where the market is heading. There are a couple of reasons for this and the first is the accessibility. Now that we all breed via AI and can ship semen all over the world, breeders can access the top competing sires in a way that was not possible even 10 years ago. Twenty years ago, breeders were much more limited and mostly only used stallions that were local to them.
The second, is money. And, I get it. When you can breed to Kannan or Chacco-Blue, why would you breed to Billy the stud down the lane? If you can produce a foal by Cornet Obolensky and sell it for more than you can if you use good old anyone-can-ride Billy then why wouldn't you? After all, breeding is expensive and risky regardless of the sire you choose. The big-name sires will get you more chance of a nice price on your weanling.
Here are some reasons:
1. The world needs more ridable horses, not more top-level competition horses. The dam line matters far more than anybody appreciates so breeding your didn't-really-do-so-well-at-jumping-herself-so-lets-breed-her-instead mare to some hot-sh*t jumper stallion is probably going to neither result in a top level competition horse nor a lower-level AA-friendly horse.
How many AAs do you know that bought a horse that it turns out only their trainer could ride? How many AAs do you know looking for something that can jump them around the .75 safely and are willing to pay a huge amount of money for a horse that will do that for them? I know a few. I also know a few who have been looking for that horse for a long time. There IS a market for lower-level happy safe horses, and we need more of them!
2. Diversity of bloodlines means healthier horses in the future. You just need to look at what happened to the thoroughbred to see why that is important.
3. Performance + Performance doesn't usually equal a sane and ridable horse!
By that I mean if you take a top level mare and put her to a top level stallion, you run the risk of creating something very athletic but also very hot! Typically for horses to do well in the upper levels they are going to have a bit of something about them. They are going to have a quirk or two.
You can still create a very talented sport horse by breeding that upper level mare to a sire that is going to turn her down a notch. Breed that 1.45 mare to a sire that has a nice enough pop over .95 but is sound minded enough for a ammy to ride. Those are the combos that are going to have a shot at producing an ammy-friendly upper level horse as opposed to the quirky nutjob with a jump that only 2% of pros can sit.
The accessibility and sheer choice that AI provides us is a wonderful thing. But we cannot allow that to cause us to use the valuable lower-level producers and the tone-her-down-a-notch stallions.
https://irishdraughtbreeder.com/2025/06/11/opinion-the-vast-majority-of-riders-do-not-need-a-grand-prix-bred-horse/
