BREEDERS’ POINT OF VIEW By Ann D. Kustar
What's on your Breeding Bucket List?
Breeding sport horses is all about vision… about knitting reality from dreams. We’ve asked some established breeders and inter- esting young up-and-comers from around the U.S. and Europe to reveal their breeding hopes, experiences and dreams, as well as the practical legwork it takes to make those dreams come true. Ask yourself the same question: what’s on your breeding bucket list?
Meet our Interviewees: Judy Yancey of Yancey Farms, breeder of Warmblood horses and frozen semen broker.
Scot Tolman of Shooting Star Farm, breeder of Dutch Warmbloods for dressage. Ronda Stavisky of Rising Star Farm, breeder of Belgian Warmbloods for the jumper ring.
Ann Daum Kustar of Solomon Farm, RPSI breeder of Warmbloods and German Riding Ponies.
Rachel Jones of Crossroads Farm, breeder for the hunter ring.
Michael Murphy of Murphy Hill Horse Farm, breeding for jumpers and dressage.
Annalou De Man (age 22) and her father Henk De Man of HM Stables in Holland, breeder of Ravel, now ridden by Steffen Peters.
Abigail Ronco (age 23) of Spearhead Equines, aspiring young breeder of dressage horses.
What would be your biggest 'dream-come-true' as a breeder? Judy: I have been living the dream for 38 years, and helping make other breeders’ dreams come true with my frozen semen program. I have made my living 100 percent with my horses… that was my dream and what I have done, using a variety of bloodlines, but always staying close to the same type that I started with. I now live vicariously through all my mares out there, and in talking to mare owners about stallion selection! Rachel: I don’t have one big dream in general. I breed
for the top end of the hunters and, ideally, I love to see them end up in the right hands, doing hunter derbies, making their owners happy. And don’t forget the flip side of that coin— which is the breeder’s nightmare, when you sell the good ones
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and they end up in a backyard, going nowhere… Annalou: My father, Henk de
Man, bred Ravel and many other upper-level horses, but he would still like to breed an approved stallion someday. I am a young breeder and I want to find the most interesting and successful crosses for our mares. The right horses seem to come along at the right time though, like Ravel’s dam. My father was a rider, not a breeder, and he had this special mare whose sale fell through, so he said at that moment, “I will never sell this one!” The cross with Contango turned out to be magic. She had two Grand Prix horses and many on the national level. Abigail: America is unique in that we have access to some
of the greatest sport horse lines of all time from around the globe. I personally would like to strive to become the “Bull Hancock” of the North American Warmblood—creating a top upper-level dressage product, with the amateur horse being the by-product: unique in type, soundness and ability. I would like to offer the world a plethora of outcross bloodlines that would be desirable for exportation back into the European/world market. Let’s beat Europe at its own game! Wouldn’t it be inspiring to watch American-bred horses in the hands of great riders across the globe, and our dollar leading the industry? Michael: My ‘dream-come-true’ happened for me this
past May. I have a small breeding program and wanted to buy one more broodmare. RPSI Stud Book director Otto Schalter was selling two of his broodmares in Germany: Riga (Colman x Arturo - Caletto ll ), bred to Damarco, and Evita (El Bundy x Genever–Gottard), bred to Wolkenstürmer. I decided I didn’t really need two kidneys after all, so I sold one and bought both mares. (Okay, so I’m joking but it would have been worth it!)
If you could have any stallion in the world standing in your barn, for your own mares, who would it be? If you had unlimited funds to fill your semen tank, what would we find inside? Scot: In my semen tank? Easy. Totilas. DeNiro. I’d have to
have a few doses of Jazz, too, for any mares without Jazz already in their immediate pedigrees. I have also always wanted to be in the financial position to own a stallion and not stand him to outside mares—similar to what breeders of other species do to develop specificity in their programs. If we’re dreaming
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