An opinionated farmer from Tennessee called and during the ensuing discourse noted: “Horse breeders are going to have to figure out they’re farmers, or they are going out of business. They are a whole lot closer to the man raising hogs than to the art dealer, and they have to get into that mode or else.”
bloodstock in the bluegrass 
A profound observation. Especially in Kentucky, we need to be treated as agriculture.
Do you know (or enquire) if horse breeding has any representative in the Kentucky Farm Bureau? KFB would do a much better job for our business. Would certainly do better than current T’bred group.
Do we produce an agricultural product? Certainly. We grow grass and other feedstuffs. We then try to enhance the value of such crops by attractive packaging in the form of horses which we try to sell. No different from other agricultural enterprises that repackage the same ingredients as cattle, goats, chickens and so on.
I agree that it is a penetrating insight, but for a different reason. Most breeders must again focus on breeding sound, durable, useful horses, rather than short-sightedly opting for fashion, and hoping for big scores at the sales.
Gone are the days – thankfully – that discerning horsemen and owners would prefer the offspring of an unaccomplished son of the flavor-of-the-month (e.g. Storm Cat), to that of a proven, solidly useful sire.
I disagree.
A hog will sell for a few hundred dollars at most.
Crafted Thoroughbreds and fine art can individually sell for a million dollars or more – and do.
Thorougbred breeders became art dealers a long time ago and have to live with the consequences. Like art dealers, they need to keep the demand going or they are out of business.
God crafted Thoroughbreds, the man making their acquaintance is entirely incidental, even if he has a high success rate. Perhaps Van Gogh cut off his ear to get away from “art dealers”. My apologies, but pig farmers have an earthly, as well as earthy, air about themselves.
Pig farmers do not come to work in a quilted english coat and delegate all duties to the latinos. The ones I know smell like pig farmers. Most of the failing businesses are delegators; they rarely ever see their horses. There are no more hardboots. They run their horse farms from inside of a window. You know it takes one hell of a lot of hard, back-breaking work in this game to do it the right way. Stop the delegating.
Sounds like good horse sense to me!
That is the most appropriate comment posted on any blog, website, or news article in years. There are hardboots left, and there are those who not only muck out stalls, drive tractors, and breed mares, but also craft sentences. For the life of me, the name of that creek in Tennesee escapes my memory. Saddle up, ride ’em right, and you cannot go wrong in the horse business. It helps a little to learn some pedigree information. A good horse can carry a thief as well as a banker; most bankers can’t ride.
Whether we think of it in terms of Rembrandts or pork bellies, the way to solve the killing problems of the horse business are as plain as the shaft of a manure fork.
In one word – Tunisia.
To steal a phrase: Think about it.
It was easy for the people of Tunisia to revolt, they had nothing.
What keeps western civilistaions together is fear of losing what they have and a belief in, (wait for it, heres the punchline, try not to fall over laughing) a demorcatic system. (I know how funny was that)
When people realise they actually have no say in politics or that the democracy we have doesn’t really exist then we will all be Tunisians.
Viva la Revolucion
Easy for Tunisians to revolt! Surely you jest? They had and have life itself at risk. That is a game with the highest stakes. The conclusion was forced on them that the pot (freedom) is worth the stake.
Fear of losing what they have should not deter horsemen in Kentucky or anywhere else. Many have nothing left except stock of now questionable worth and a mortgage they cannot afford due to lack of income.
As for democracy in this business – it does not exist. We are a microcosm of the world in general. For Papa Doc and Baby Doc, we have Papa Banker and Baby Banker. We have our version of the British monarchy and the hereditary rule of North Korea.
Why are wealthy Arabs so happy in our Thoroughbred business? Surely because it is so much like the way things are run back home.
Viva la Revolucion. Or as many Irish say it, “Up the rebels !”
You sound like a Corkman… 🙂
Answer is in comment below.
Frank-
Are we in Tunisia ?
Before passing the buck and holding the bankers and politicians to Blame- should we not try to buy a mirror and see the culprit?
Well, let me use one word ” GREED”.
Does that describe the disease?
Or shall we say greed across the board!
Or shall we say that those that promote greed and benefit from it are in command and control of the sport.
Will grieving and griping here will perform magic?
I do not think so.
A pig farmer can inseminate a sow at a fixed cost. He then can anticipate how many piglets at birth. Then he can anticipate how much money the feed and vet cost he will incur before he brings all the little piggies to market. The horse game is different in oh so many ways. The hog buyers do not care if they toe in or out, they do not xray them, the criteria is almost nonexistent. Hog buyers do not care about pedigree. The future for horse breeders to be profitable are stay away from any stallion that is not trendy and commercial. The hopefull buyers are gone. Better to breed one mare to a hot stallion and hope, than to breed five mares to less than trendy and then dream. Yesterday at obs, trendy congrats, hot sire, big money. The closest model to to reduce risk is only go to the hottest sires, and if you can not afford the trendy stallions, try to partner up with folks that are in the same boat. Stay away from the unproven sires. They are like carrying a brick while boating. The proven sires are the life preservers. Even if they are less than perfect they still stimulate hope with the buyers. I would be worried in a big way if I had to feed a studbarn of less than trendy stallions in 2011. I do not think they will pay their way.
Send the stallions to Florida, its the Coventry of the 21st Century…..
Are you saying my birthplace, Dublin, does not clearly shine through? From what other place can such wit and wisdom emanate? Have you not read Shaw and Wilde – though must admit Oscar had the unfortunate habit of beginning at the bottom of a page.
you could have left it there.
“Oscar had the unfortunate habit of beginning at the bottom”
Yesterday, talking to an Angus breeder, he mentioned that he wanted to see an athletic walk, long and flat, good structure over the loin and down the hip, and a good overall picture of balance when viewed from the side at a distance. Sound familiar? Oh, and he mentioned disposition as being critical, and stressed that he had to consider the whole picture, that concentrating on one aspect (say, future sale price) and you could be “left with nothing”.
My cousin raised hogs for decades, and left the university boar test stations behind many years ago. Pedigree and conformation are essential to his success, and the market has dropped below cost of production many times. Sound familiar?
Horse breeders are farmers.
The solution is to breed for the races, stick to fundamentals of nutrition, conformation, disposition, and pedigree. Hitting the market with unproven stallions is speculation; speculators can hit it big, and fail in a large way when the market swings the wrong way. No news in that. The marketplace clears itself and returns the price discovery mechanism to the value which racing horses produce. That is not a lot of money.
After being putting in my place by Michael Martin , I have decided that blogging is not fun. I admit I am not the most educated.
Don’t be discouraged about blogging, Steve. There are always people that know more than you do. That’s why they can be very informative. You had valid points about stallions but not as much personal knowledge about livestock farming. Most people don’t know what it takes to be a successful farmer today. I was glad Michael Martin pointed some of these things out. I thought about doing so myself but he did a much better job. As far as blogs go, this is a good one. No one makes personal attacks just because you have a different opinion. That is no fun.
well said. opinions are always welcome.
My stupidity if my enthusiasm offended anyone.
We’re OK here, I believe. Especially enjoyed the description of what the cattlemen are looking for … and how it sounds just like what the horsemen are looking for.
The great circle of life brings us round.
The analogies to Tunisia and various animals drove us off course.
Fact is, T’bred business is much closer to any type of farming than it is to art dealing. I speak from experience in all three fields. I made money in art. Stock/dirt farming were losers. Thoroughbreds have been bigger losers and it is more difficult to get out of T’breds with any skin left. Being treated as agriculture, rather than luxury goods, might help a bit. It could not hurt.