How to make money breeding Horses ?
Many people look at the horse business and wonder whether it is possible to make a profit while following their dreams. The answer is yes, but it takes good planning, good choices, good advertising, common sense and a lot of work.
1. You have your own property and facilities
Facilities that include, as the bare essentials, good fencing, paddocks, shelters, and preferably, a barn. Sufficient grazing pasture and hayfields is a plus that will greatly increase your profit margin and that could make the difference, dependent upon your area and local hay costs, between making money and not.
2. Breed only the best to the best
With the goal of creating a foal better than its parents. Start with what you can afford but invest in the best quality possible - well-conformed mares suited to the discipline you intend to breed for. You can also choose older mares who can be purchased at a deal at the end of their breeding career, but who still have a few years left to produce a few premium foals for you - choose broodmares who consistently produce high quality foals.
Eventually your goal is to obtain fillies with breeding at the top of the game, whether initially bred by you or not. By 'breeding up', you ultimately create a decent broodmare band for yourself and you create horses who will sell for a decent dollar and thus afford you the ability to go out and buy the quality mares who are worth top-dollar. Talk to successful breeders to gain wisdom as to what bloodlines mix best, which are the most successful competitively, etc.
3. Make your horses stand out
This includes picking the best bloodlines carefully, the bloodlines others are going for and maybe cannot get. Watch the up-and-comers and get foals out of them before others do (this takes a good eye and a lot of knowledge).
4. Compete
The best way to make a profit is to get your horses to race and hopefully win a few. Compete your horses - your mares, your progeny, everything. Get your own name out there, your farm's name, and your mares' names and those of their foals. Take your mares and foals to the top of their discipline, if possible. This means winning multiple races and trying to get some valuable black type onto her pedigree.
5. Look for the deals
Like quality proven broodmares who can no longer be ridden and who are going for a decent price, quality mares who are being sold cheap because their owners do not realise what they have, quality mares who are being dispersed because their owner went under, 'problem horses' who have great temperaments underneath but have simply been mis-handled or mis-managed.
6. Gather the knowledge
You need to have knowledge of the industry(ies), have a good eye for horses (and for the potential in horses), and know your bloodlines. You need to know your business inside and out. This is not a business for the faint of heart, the inexperienced, or the non-equestrian. Do your research, do your time in the industry, and consult with the successful and wise.
7. Buy only the best
Buy the best you can afford and work your way up. It costs just as much to feed and train 'crappy' and non-marketable mares as it does the quality ones, so feed and train up the quality ones who are going to earn your money back.
8. Be prepared
This includes being prepared to put in a financial investment and being okay with not seeing your return for awhile (it will take many years for the average person to build up a quality self-sustaining herd that actually turns a profit), as well as surrounding yourself with the appropriate mentors, contacts, and people who will and can help you - people who are successful themselves. It pays to be personable and to be a sponge open to learning!
This is just an opinion with the aim to try help breeders or prospective breeders.
http://theperfecthorse.blogspot.ie/2010/03/how-to-make-money-breeding-horses.html [1]
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[1] http://theperfecthorse.blogspot.ie/2010/03/how-to-make-money-breeding-horses.html