Waxing Lyrical

I love my broodies and I love this time of year (August 1 – December 31)!

So today marks the Thoroughbred’s official birthday in the Southern Hemisphere and so one can expect that mares will start popping out foals!  We’ve got three or so mares at the moment that are all showing signs of impending parturition.

My boss received a call yesterday with regards to a ‘foal share’ something I haven’t given a lot of thought to, not being a mare owner myself.  I asked her if this was something that studs tended to advertise as one of their offers/deals or if they sought out people in particular.  She seemed to feel it was the latter.

The idea of a foal share is that a stud or stallion owner contacts the owner of a mare that they are particularly interested in.  They then offer the mare owner a free service to one of their stallions (in this instance they’re giving her the choice between two quite expensive stallions).

Instead of the mare owner paying the fee, they send their mare to the stallion in question, (hopefully) end up with a live foal and sell it as a weanling or yearling.

The profit/sale price is then split between the stallion and mare owner.

This deal is extremely appealing to owners who have a well bred/performing mare but don’t necessarily have the funds to send her to a decent or proven stallion.  Apparently some studs will also cover half the costs of a sales preparation which really sweetens the deal.

The likes of Darley, Eliza Park and Coolmore are known to partake in foal shares and I’m sure you’d find other large studs in the industry would do so to keep up with the competition.

For anyone interested in investing in a broodmare, perhaps it’s worth looking into these possibilities so that more money can be spent on the mare, giving you something that is higher in value than what you would have been able to afford if the stallion’s service fee also had to be taken into account.

A risky business, but possibly a way to break into breeding and selling weanlings or yearlings and make a small profit while lowering the risk.

“A well-bred foal brings joy to the stable.”

tag: breeding horses, horse stud, australia, thoroughbred stud season