so, this is my situation.. 

my mare was at my vets to be bred, this is her 5th colt and she aborted this spring at 8 months, went to rebreed her and her cervix didnt relax like it normally does, and she didnt check in foal, she has cysts on her overies now and she is quite old and has navicular and is pretty uncomfortable and after talking with my vet she reccomended that we do not try and rebreed her, it would be alot of work and money and the risk of her loosing it again is defintly high, 

so I talked with the stallion owner and they are so amazing, they are going to let me switch mares, but heres the thing, the only mare i have is my current barrel horse..... 

now this cross would be amazing, hes a very nice stud and timing wise its not terrible because I am going back to school in the fall for a year... 

theres always an embryo transfer, but its costly enough for me.. 

if you only had one horse that you run and have fun on would you breed her due to the circumstances or just cust my losses, pay my vet bill and run.... 

I'm feeling really torn 

I'd buy another mare. 

I would breed her. I hate cutting my losses and it seems like the timing is ok for you. And I know some ride them for the first few months so you might still be able to compete on her this spring/early summer. 

Maybe look at leasing a mare?

Breed her, you'll be going back to school and fall will be here befor you know it, if you cut your losses now you will regret it when fall does get here.  Or do you have a friend that you could least a mare from? I would not let this breeding go, or could you breed your barrel mare next breeding season so you can finish this barrel year on her, will the stallion owner let you wait till next year? 

Breed your barrel mare.  You can still ride her through the summer and when school comes you can concentrate on that while your mare makes you a nice baby.  It's actually quite good timing. 

thank you for the replies! 

as of now, I dont have any other mares I could use... 

definatly not my idea plan.. but this still could work, 

how soon can you start riding a mare after she has a colt?

My first broodie enjoyed going out for a spin up until her last few weeks of pregnancy. She let me know when she was done with being saddled so I'd ride her bareback for another month or so, and then she'd let me know when it was time to stop riding altogether. I usually started riding her again when the foal was up and all legs good to go (no tight or loose tendons and ligaments). I had an arena to myself so letting the foal run loose while I woked the mare was nbd. But you can start lead training and then pony the foal after a bit too.

You can keep them working - I've never had one that didn't clearly let me know when it was time to slow down. They literally won't RUN anymore. I had a 2D mare win the 2D one show and then two weeks later barely placed in the 4D. Time to stop running! 

I was just in this situation last year. I only have one mare, my good barrel mare. I ended up breeding her. I had a 4 yr old I really needed to get started on the pattern so it gave me sometime to work on him. I feel it can be good to let them have sometime off too. With you going back to school what better timing can there be. 

Where are you located?

I made the mistake of breeding my barrel mare, the best one to date I've ever ridden.  She never ran as fast, after her foal, but she gave it all she had. Ive wished a thousand times over I'd never bred her, if I could go back in time... Just my experience, but one I've regretted over and over, especially since her foal wasn't 1/2 the horse she was.

Sorry about that hit LIKE and the ANGRY face is what it put. Not angry just agreeing

I think you can go back and hit it again and you can remove/change your "vote"   

I'm sorry that happened.  But I didn't have that experience. When I was a kid I bred my competition mares. When I got them back in shape after foaling, there was no slowing down. In fact they were unchanged or faster.

I had one I even ran while she nursed her foal. I would take the baby with and put it in the horse trailer while we ran, then came back to the trailer and let it out.  The other mare I couldn't do that with. She couldn't concentrate with the baby not in her sight.  

Well, I thought I would update you!

thank you for all of the suggestions, I also had a 6 year old mare that im running as well, my intentions with her to eventually sell her (hence why I didnt intitally think of her), but anyhow after some serious thought, I took her to my vets yesterday and she is beautifully in heat, and the studs owners are going to ship today for us and we will breed her! 

her pedigree is really nice and  built correct shes a bigger mare but for her size she can really get her hocks under her and turn and flat out fly! shes just coming into the 1d, and last year she only had a handful of runs, I think she will make a beautiful baby for me! its all coming together now!