Selecting A TB Broodmare

All thoroughbreds are not created equal. The selection of breeding stock is the first decision that people must make in this venture, and the first place where mistakes are made.  Expensive mistakes.

Selecting a broodmare takes into account many different aspects of judging the mare.  Start by taking a look at her pedigree.  Since the race records are so meticulously kept and since practically all TBs are at least tried at the track, the performance of the family of your mare will give you an idea of her abilities and value as a race producing broodmare.  There is a major difference between breeding for your own racing purposes, and being a "market breeder".  If you are breeding for sale, pedigree is the first thing potential buyers are going to see of the foal you are producing, as sale catalogs come out early. Even if you are not breeding for sale but for your own racing purposes, pedigree is still important but you do have more leeway and freedom in your choices as to what is important to you.  A brilliant pedigree does not guarantee that the mare is a good bet as a broodmare prospect, but it doesn't hurt to get the best pedigree that you can find for a start, and understand what makes a good pedigree as opposed to a poor or mediocre one. One would think that the goal of the market breeder and the private breeder are the same...to produce a racehorse, but in some ways they are not.  Other than the breeder's bonuses and futures on the broodmare's production, the market breeder is breeding for a sale price, the private breeder is breeding for performance and soundness over time.

Judging a broodmare prospect for suitability.  Mark each of these catagories out of ten for each broodmare prospect.

Sire Power
The first thing to look for in the pedigree is "sire power".  This is a measure of the general overall quality of the sires in the pedigree.  Not just the sire line (the male line), but all the sires.  Most TBs have some decent ancestors several generations back.  This is always a good thing, but the further back they are, the more diluted they are and the less important they are to your selection.  These stallions may be "chefs de race", or they may be stallions who have yet to be designated as such officially.  A proven successful TB sire will have crops of foals who have earned a minimum average of a million dollars per year, per crop.  Many top stallions do better than this, but many local stallions do not do nearly this well, due to the lower purses offered for races in this area.  Top stallions would include those who have won international class races, near or over a million dollars in purse money themselves, and/or have produced a variety of offspring who have done the same.  Prime examples would be Storm Cat, Northern Dancer, Danzig and any of the leading stallions in the world. Young stallions are less proven in their production, but may be "hotter" to the buyer.  Those who have won several million dollars in races on the world class scene recently and are by brilliant stallions themselves always are interesting, even if they haven't had time to prove themselves for sure one way or the other in their production.  Breeding to them early is perhaps a chance to get in on the ground floor, and a mare by such a young stallion may be a good bet.  Local stallions are often sired by better known international stallions, thus removing the proven quality breeding by one generation, but may have local bias.  A stallion may be sired by a top international stallion, but may be a case of failure to carry on the line.  Not all sons of Seattle Slew or Northern Dancer are successful sires themselves, and some should be avoided like the plague if they are dead end cases, and are not carrying on the line successfully.  One also wants to look at the quality of the mare's sire himself as a broodmare sire, as some stallions are well known for producing daughters who become brilliant broodmares.  Examples of this would be Sir Ivor, Secretariat, Blushing Groom, Drone.  Statistics of the quality of broodmare sires are available.  Local stallions who have had success as broodmare sires include Wander Kind, Bold Laddie, Winning Hit, but these are not in the same class as the international horses, though they are often more available for the local breeder and cheaper to buy.  Local stallions may well produce mares that are acceptable and successful as broodmares, but when looking at daughters of local stallions, make sure that the local stallion used was a leading sire locally and has had some success as a broodmare sire already.  What one does not want to see are mediocre stallions anywhere in the pedigree at all.  Stallions that are unproven themselves, either on the track or in the breeding shed should usually be avoided.  Sometimes stallions that have not raced but have proven themselves as producing stallions can be forgiven their lack of performance on the track, but stallions who have proven that they are not producing racehorses at all, whether they had a successful career themselves or not, should be avoided.  You want to see some stallion power in the pedigree, something that will give you hope that you are breeding a mare with some decent blood behind her.

Female Family
Equally important is the mare's female family, which is usually detailed on her pedigree page.  This is the female line, the dam, the dam's dam (2nd dam), and the 3rd dam, etc, and the offspring of each of these and their families. This line is the only line in a mare's pedigree which has NOT produced a stallion of a quality to stand at stud, so it has to be examined closely to check that there is quality there, not just junk mares being bred by those who don't care about quality.  In the female line, you want to see performance, both of the dams themselves, and/or of their other offspring and relatives, who are listed there.  Top performance on the track is noted on the pedigree page as "black type" or bold face type.  Capital bold face type means that the horse is a winner of a stake race, lower case type means that the horse is stakes placed.  If the race is a graded race (better quality stake race), this is also noted here, as is the name of the race and the purse won. There is a difference in the quality of the black type races, all will appear the same on the page but the location of the race and purse involved must be taken into account. As much black type as possible makes the pedigree look better, more valuable and more sought after.  Horses who are multiple winners but not of stake races are good too, especially if they have raced for a long time, indicating that they were sound horses and businesslike and paid their way on the track, if not brilliant performers at the highest levels.  Numerous horses in the pedigree who are unraced or unplaced or with little earnings and few wins indicates that the line is not producing successful racehorses and should be avoided.  Pedigrees devoid of black type are refered to as "pale".  A mare with a pale pedigree page is still capable of producing a sucessful racehorse, but the value of her foal when offered for sale will be decreased, so she must have some other features that the breeder really likes for her to be still regarded as a potential broodmare.  A pale pedigree page that is successful in producing a successful racehorse can be simply a fluke and does not carry on when such a horse is bred, or it can be an example of an improving family and does breed true.  A breeder attempting to decide if they should participate in such a family must have solid reasoning behind their decisions and other points in the mare's history that they particularly like.

Race Record
The mare's own personal race record is of less importance than her pedigree and other aspects.  There are many reasons why a horse may not excell herself at the track... injury, poor training, bad luck being the first of these.  If a mare was not a good racehorse herself, finding out what her problems were may be helpful.  A mare with a good race record has a flashier pedigree page, but she may or may not be a producer of future racehorses.  Personally, I like to breed a mare who had ability herself, whether she had the chance to show it or not on the track to her full potential is of less importance.  Some people follow a theory that mares who have raced long and hard do not make good broodmares, but their full sisters who are unraced are better.  The theory states that a mare who has put out that amount of effort as a racehorse already is burned out before she starts to build her foals, her life force is spent.  Another theory is that old mares have little left to give their foals, and should be avoided even if they have produced well in the past.  The classic exception to this theory include the dam of Secretariat, who was old when he was born and he seemed to do OK.  Whether you subscribe to theories like these yourself or not, if you are offering the foal for sale, the buyers of your foal may be influenced more than you are, so it is something to consider. 

Production Production refers to the activity in the female family.  How many foals has the mare had, how many has her mother had and her sisters and aunts?  How well have these relations raced?  If a mare has several sisters who are also producing foals, there is at least a chance that some of those will produce successful racehorses, and will improve the catalog page of the mare you are considering.  A family with little production in it has less chance of improving over time, if your mare's siblings are all geldings, and she has no aunts either.  By the time you get back to the third generation, most of those mares are finished production due to age, so they are unlikely to improve your pedigree.

Conformation
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.  Classically perfect conformation is what we are always looking for, but seldom see.  Straight legs, good hooves, correct angulation in the shoulders and hips, width in the chest, between the hips and length to the hip.  A balanced neck and topline.  Powerful long gaskins and forarms with quality muscling. Short cannon bones.  Depth in the girth for lung and heart room.  Width between the ears and the eyes for intelligence, width in the throat between the jaw bones for air.  Movement should be relatively straight and flat, no wasted action with high stepping. A lot of these judgements are individually slanted to what the individual selecting the mare likes and sees in her.  Extremely large mares are often too big for our local track, extremely small mares aren't great either as small horses tend to be easier to push around in a pack. Small mares also may not have room inside for the developing foal, and may tend to produce more "crunched" foals, or have difficulty delivering.  Around 16 hands is the usual for a sound, successful local horse.  If a mare has raced for a long time and has raced successfully, it is given that her conformation and bone density are acceptable.  If it was not acceptable, she would have been unable to race well.  Injuries may be the fault of the conformation of the mare, or they may be the fault of the training and racing she participated in, or they may be simply bad luck.  This can sometimes be investigated.

Fertility
That the mare is fertile, is able to be bred, carry a foal, birth it, and raise it successfully is a "given", but is sometimes something that is overlooked in broodmare selection.  Maiden mares are always a risk, as are mares with a spotty production record.  On years where the mare is open, she should catch to whatever stallion she is bred to right away in the spring.  The cover date on the year after an open year should be recorded as early. If the mare wintered open and her breeding date is June, this indicates a problem in her fertility.  Multiple barren years may indicate a problem.  Foals born and left unnamed may mean that she is a poor mother, as this usually means that the foal died before naming.  This may or may not be the fault of the mare.  Milk production and mothering skills are paramount.  You can have the most brilliant pedigree, race record, conformation etc mare, but if she can not produce a foal successfully and raise it to weaning without stepping on it and killing it, or has poor mothering skills or no milk, she is still a poor candidate as a broodmare.  Since so many TB mares are not foaled out naturally, there has been little natural selection for mothering skills in the breed.  Human intervention has been practiced for multiple generations of foalings with TBs.  Since the human has so much invested in the way of time and money in the successful production of the foal, human intervention is neccessary and good in the individual situation, but it has led to genetically poor mothers perpetuated by the foals surviving who would have otherwise died.  The genetics and environmental input into fillies from such mares continues the poor mothering skills to future generations.

Disposition
Disposition is another often overlooked aspect of the broodmare.  Since the mare is going to be raising your foal, she is going to be a major influence on that foal, teaching that foal about the world and attitudes towards humans, work ethic and life in general.  She should be maternal and smart.  She should be easily worked with by humans, accepting and friendly.  Some aspects  of her disposition will reflect her past training and experiences with humans, some aspects will be genetically influenced from her family.

The Intangibles
Sometimes, you just have a feeling about a mare.  Aside from her conformation and pedigree, her race record and production, there is something that you like or dislike about her.  Sometimes that feeling works out well, sometimes not. While the perfect mare will score 10/10 on all these selection aspects, not all owners can afford such a mare.  There are always compromises made, unless money is not a consideration in the purchase price of the mare.  Unlimited funds may make more mares possible to buy, but do not make any guarantees to the mare's future success as a producing broodmare.  A breeder must make their choice within their expense account limitations, but should be aware of the problems that each mare may have and act to counteract these problems with stallion selection for their mare.

Cordova Farm- Performance Thoroughbreds and Half Thoroughbreds, Racehorses, Hunters and Jumpers.  website www.cordovafarm.visit.ws

Nancy McMinn 2004 (c)

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