youngsters to date (some she has kept on the farm), all but one selling before their first birthdays. TM-Bredin Farms in Alberta, Canada, owned by Jennifer
Stephenson, has a base of five broodmares, mainly with jumper bloodlines but also with some very nice dressage blood as well. She uses only frozen semen and breeds KWPN, Hanoverian and Oldenburg horses. To date she’s sold over thirty prospects, and about 70 percent of them were young and unbroken. Augustin and Christine Walch are the founders of well-
known W. Charlot Farms in Ontario, Canada, and have been breeding sport horses for 35 years. They stand many top stallions and were the USEF leading hunter breeder for ten consecutive years from 2004 to 2013. Horses they have bred have represented Canada at World Cup finals in show jumping and one won the silver medal at Pan Am Games in dressage four years ago. The farm has bred and sold approximately 600 horses, and Christine estimates that less than 5 percent were sold as unbroken pros- pects. “Our goal is to breed athletic horses for all Olympic disci- plines and for the hunter ring. But most of our horses are sold as hunter prospects,” explains Christine.
TOP: Lisbon ROF, 2013 filly by Lexington (Elite Friesian Sporthorse) x Nata- sha (KWPN). Gigha Stein- man sold her as a weanling. That same year she went on to win numerous in hand events, including the 2013 USDF All-Breeds National Champion “Fillies” and the 2013 USDF 8th place Horse of the Year DSHB “Fillies.” She is owned by Vicki Miller.
MIDDLE: Fox Creek’s Butter- scotch, who was a Top Five colt for North America (RPSI), scoring 8.2. He sold as a yearling.
LEFT: TM-Bredin bred this KWPN colt last year, Jump Off TM (Indoc- tro x Icon) who sold as a weanling.
Target Customer Most of the breeders surveyed find themselves selling primar- ily to middle-age women who are amateur riders, though buyers can sometimes be other breeders or professionals. Dianna, who sells the GRPs also targets children hunters, but has found them a tougher group to sell to. “And I really wish there were more juniors interested in pony dressage,” she remarks. Edgar always has a fairly large inventory of horses available, and finds that people rarely call in asking for the right horse from the start. “Buyers will first describe what they are looking for or request to see a particular sales horse, and after we ask a lot of probing questions, 80 percent of the time we end up selling them a different horse, something more suitable. It’s very important to us that the match is right,” he says. For Christine and Augustin, their main target is people on the
hunter circuit, therefore the horses are usually older, three- and four-year-olds, and already going under saddle.
Magic Marketable Age The adage is that years one, two and often three are a tough time to sell because of the awkward growth stages that the young horses undergo. Certainly capturing those ‘less than awkward’ moments on video and in photos can help. “I think dressage potential is easier to identify because much of it is based on the natural gaits and self-carriage of the horse, which you can see glimpses of in a youngster,” Gigha says.” I don’t think assessing gaits is weanling-age-specific, but I think overall eye appeal favors weanlings over growing gangly yearlings or two-year-olds.” Besides weanlings, Jennifer has had good luck with moving
two-year-olds by taking a full set of x-rays at that time, making them more appealing to potential buyers, which also allows her to boost the sales price. Edgar has sold horses at all ages including in utero. He shares
his technique in selling the three-year-olds. “If someone is seri- ously interested in a three-year-old that is not yet under saddle, I tell them to come back in a few weeks. During those next two
62 September/October 2015
Jennifer Stephenson
Dianna Orona
Gigha Steinman
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