How did you build your horse program?

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How did you build your horse program? Moderators: luluwhit, gotothewhip, cindyt, crossspur, ForumAdmin Jump to page :	Last activity 2014-07-19 11:09 PM 3 replies, 2558 views View previous thread :: View next thread
General Discussion -> Barrel Talk


S_W Reg. Apr 2011	Posted 2014-07-19 10:26 AM Subject: How did you build your horse program?
Veteran Posts: 154 Location: Tennessee	For those of you that raise/buy and train your own horses. How did you get started and what are some good lessons you have learned and things you regret doing while building your program? My husband and I are from two different worlds as far as the type of horses we have always rode. His father shod horses for a living so he would bring home outlaws for them to ride and they would always turn them into something nice and make a good amount of money. But they would NEVER spend that on a nicer horse. They would just continue getting outlaws that no one wanted and put a ton of work into them, turn them into roping horses, and wait until someone came along wanting to buy them. My husband rode bulls professionally in the PBR and while he was on the road he lived and worked for a lot of top horse trainers in TX, WY, etc. Which is why he now starts and trains horses for a living here in TN. Bottom line my husband has a lot of knowledge as far as training horses but has always had outlaws and turned them into something nice. Me on the other hand I have always had good horses for the most part. My mother always made sure that I was well mounted in high school rodeo, college, etc. We never spent less than $4,000 on a young horse and the most we gave for a finished horse was $25,000. So you can see where I would have a little bit of a different taste when it comes to purchasing horses. I do want to add that I am so very blessed to have had the opportunities that I did when I was a child, and wish that I would have realized just how good I had it back then! Now we are married and are working on building the place we have always dreamed of. Our house is finished, barn is almost done, and arena is in the process of being completed. We have 40 acres and have cleaned out on the herd of horses we did have. My husband got rid of all of his horses that were outlaws but once again he had turned into pretty nice roping horses, and I sold my two good barrel horses so that we could build on our land and start with a whole new program of NICE horses that we plan on training ourselves. So where did you start at when it came to building your program as far as the horses? Did you put your money into yearlings and go from there? Did you buy some good quality broodmares and breed to some nicer studs? Or something different?
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RacingQH Reg. Aug 2004	Posted 2014-07-19 12:09 PM Subject: RE: How did you build your horse program?
The Color Specialist Posts: 7530 Location: Washington. (The DRY side.)	I think the "way to go about it" really depends on your end goal. Are you wanting to BREED or TRAIN or both? If training and/or competing are your main goals. I think I would buy long yearlings or 2yo's. Less time to wait for "results". Besides the fact that being gone a fair portion of the time doesn't exactly make it easy to get mares bred unless you are sending them off to be bred AND foal. Mares need bred when they need bred! NOT when it is convienient. Can't just skip it because there is a barrel race or roping when the mare needs bred. One thing I will say is if you and your Hubby like different "types" of horses,(Meaning say he likes shorter thicker calf horse types and you like taller more "lanky" appendix looking horses.) there is nothing wrong with having "his" and "hers". (Wether you are breeding mares or buying youngsters.) ILOVE the mares and babies. Other folks DON'T like babies, so they buy youngsters and go from there. Edited by RacingQH 2014-07-19 12:14 PM
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casualdust07 Reg. Mar 2005	Posted 2014-07-19 11:06 PM Subject: RE: How did you build your horse program?
You get what you give Posts: 13030 Location: Texas	I would do both. We have a few mares that we have bought over the years. Most are barrel horses but we have one or two that are broodmares. Next year we will have two permanent broodmares and then maybe one that is a competition mare who will have a year off kind of thing. The pros to having your own mares are- you get to create your prospects by breeding them to the stallion of your choice. You get them from day 1. The cons- it costs a lot of money to get mares in foal, and vet bills can add up. Also, you have a long way to wait if your goal is to run them yourself. So, we have a couple mares that have babies every year, and then we look for a prospect or two to have around. Right now we have a three year old filly and a four year old filly. One we are going to keep and the other we are going to sell… whichever sells first kind of thing. If they are both around in January they will both run. Then the last thing we do is always kind of keep our eyes out for older mares/finished mares who may be a good investment. Those are fun because we can run them immediately and then decide if we want to breed or run.
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casualdust07 Reg. Mar 2005	Posted 2014-07-19 11:09 PM Subject: RE: How did you build your horse program?
You get what you give Posts: 13030 Location: Texas	I also wanted to add.. we sometimes sell our babies and sometimes keep them. We sold both of our 2013 babies this year. My colt went to a futurity home and has a really bright future. The other one went to a girl who has a record a the big added money shows, and I think she is wanting to try out the futurities with the filly. This helps me out because they are getting a shot to prove themselves and hopefully prove my breeding program.
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