Email from Welmoed Jansen

Welmoed and her family are the breeders of Chagall, Bretton Woods, Wynton, and colt (Wynton x Ferro) selected this year for den Bosch.  I'm sharing her latest email to me (with her permission) because she raises some excellent points for discussion and thought:

Hi Scot,

Finally time to respond to your email.

As already mentioned, I think the idea is very interesting and I have thought of it myself after the selling of Chagall and having made some money to invest.

The year after the selling I went to a couple of foal auctions in NL and in Germany to try to purchase one or two top foals. Maybe even three .

My experience was that the real top foals (out of excellent pedigrees) I was interested in, were bought by the “big money”, people you can never win from because they simply do an investment of 40,000 – 50,000 € or more for 1 foal. I wanted to have three foals for that money (plus auction costs).

The alternative was to go for the second best foals but once I had seen the excellent ones, it made me hesitate to buy the second best. And hesitation at an auction never results in anything (in my case).

I have been following a couple of the foals I was interested in over the past two years and sometimes the investment was worth it, sometimes not.

Loucky also stated this in her reaction where she mentions the fact that sometimes the foals are not big enough as a 3 year old, or sometimes their movement is not spectacular enough.

Besides, you also have to face the risk of the veterinary examination.

We only breed with elite mares and only cross them with KWPN stallions or stallions from abroad whose X-rays are good. All our horses go outside every day of the year.

But it is not a guarantee. We also have to deal sometimes with unexpected OCD (for example Bretton Woods).

Now the first selection round in NL has been completed I am more and more convinced that breeding and more specifically, getting a colt selected and approved, is a gamble. Yesterday at the late selection day a few cracks failed to be selected (horses who were already approved in Germany and other horses whom everyone believed of that it would be a walk in the park).

Having said this, I still like the idea very much.

Another point is when do you decide to sell the horse (and who is going to decide). I made a decision tree for our own horses when it is the best time to sell them or to keep them  so you can still make some money or just keep a good horse. In our case, the foals from our own breeding program, are good, but not really impressive at the age of 3 months. None of the elite auctions wanted to have Wynton for example. Even at the age of 2 ½ he wasn’t selected at the Stallion Show. At the age of 3 ½,once under the saddle, he started to impress people. I see that with other horses of our farm: once under the saddle they show their real qualities. But they are not real show horses.

Until now we just had one horse in the championships of the Mare show and none in the championships of the Stallion Selection Show.

I hope you don’t mind my remarks. I am trying to come to a conclusion:

1.      Top foals are hard to get at an auction; the big money is always after them

2.      An alternative would be to have a scout to find the foals at the breeder’s home (and try to  convince the breeder not to sell at an auction)

3.      The outcome of X-rays is unpredictable even when all the circumstances are optimal; you have to deal with the risk.

4.      Not all top horses or good horses are recognized as a foal or even as a 3 year old; that is important to realize when to sell or not.

Regards,

Welmoed