My husband and I went to an estate horse auction a few weeks ago looking for a well broke ranch gelding. It was not what I was expecting, although I have never been to a sale like this. There were a lot of brood mares, most with babies at their side and bred back, a few studs and 3 riding horses. The catch with the mares is they were all turned out together with the stallions, so you didn't know what stud bred the mare. That's a real genius way of being in the horse business. One of the studs was a real pretty Hancock bred blue roan with a gorgeous, wavy black mane. I guess he hadn't been handled that much because he was pretty wild in the auction pen. Some of the broodmares sold for $200 with weanlings going for $75. We could've bought the entire herd for $2000. We came home with an empty trailer, but I can't get those images of the horses out of my mind and wondering what happened to them. It's a real pity in these kinds of situations; I wish I could've brought them all home. It seems like "horse breeders" would stop breeding these kinds of herds seeing they have no real goals in mind. I understand if you have a champion and you are in the real biz of competing or raising calm, well rounded riding horses. There's a real need for that, but this guy totally seemed to miss the mark. How do you stop people from breeding horses just for the sake of breeding a horse? Foals are cute for awhile until they nail you in the stomach with one of their sweet little hoofies and leave a bruise the size of a grapefruit. Now there's talk of reopening slaughter plants or creating new ones in the U.S. to help ease the horse population. The thought of horse slaughter makes me absolutely nauseous, and I don't feel there's one easy answer. I do think we must stop horses from going to Mexico regardless of what's done in the U.S. No matter what solution you think is the best, I think one thing we can do is write our Congress representatives and senators with a particular viewpoint. The squeaky wheel gets the grease...
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You hit the nail on the head - breeding with no reason. Even my 11 year old who would love nothing better than to have a foal understands that breeding must be done very, very carefully or you are just going to have another mouth to feed. Seriously, people who breed like that obviously have no financial sense - it cost that guy way more to feed the pregnant mares extra, vet costs, and then feeding the foals than he got for $75.
When I can buy a gorgeous registered , Breeders Trust APHA 12 year old gelding with over 500 points and superiors in almost everything for $3000 you know you have to be breeding for one heck of a foal to make any money back after stud fees.
Horse slaughter is a horrible thing. But I feel we should open them back up in the USA. What they're doing to them in Mexico would make you sick. Slow horrible deaths at their slaughter houses, I believe if we open it back up in the US at least it would have regulations. It's a no win situation... but something has to happen soon!
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