To afford the international quality horses, our best riders have to build enormous training service businesses catering to the rich or “mega rich” as George Morris refers to them. To keep the clients happy, the trainers have to not only work on their own riding but become super teachers, business people, marketing executives, marriage councilors, babysitters..you get the idea.
To afford the international quality horses, our best riders have to build enormous training service businesses catering to the rich or “mega rich” as George Morris refers to them. To keep the clients happy, the trainers have to not only work on their own riding but become super teachers, business people, marketing executives, marriage councilors, babysitters..you get the idea. More often than not, these same clients that can afford to buy these top young open horses also want to ride them themselves so often the good ones become amateur horses long before they are ready short-ending what might have been a promising international open career. It should be enough to be a great horseman and a rider and then to be able to be matched up with the best horses bred in our own country. Unfortunately, breeding industry economics, the way the USET and High Performance athletes are managed/funded in the USA, and the horse show management function in this country don’t really encourage that connection to be made or kept. Here’s what we can DO about it:
So here is my idea proposed back in 2007 in the Chronicle of the Horse in response to a Linda Allen “Between Rounds” column and later that year to George Morris after his West Coast Olympic “victory” USET foundation dinner at Signe Ostbey’s house:
The USET or USEF could set up a 501(c) (3) foundation (maybe the existing USEF foundation) which would:
1. Identify trainers/riders who have genuine training/riding talent and interest to produce an Olympic level horse. Selected trainer/riders would agree to donate their time to work with one or two “team” owned horses and would be reimbursed ONLY for their actual costs for boarding, shoeing, vanning, entries etc for these horses but no more.
2. Identify breeders who are producing really superior offspring and offer a program where in return for specific benefits and concessions, they would “donate” to this foundation one or more promising 3-5 year olds. Donor breeders would receive: a)fcareer breeding rights (limited to six – eight weeks of collection or embryo harvesting at an approved USEF facility until the horse retires from a competitive career or is injured) and then on-farm residential service after the horse’s sport career is done; b) exclusive participation in a USEF sponsored annual showcase of young horses including an auction of USEF “team” trained horses (those that perhaps are not making the absolute highest levels ) and some number of the breeder’s other stock; and c) some reasonable amount of mentoring, coaching, and apprenticeship support from the participating trainers.
3. Hold a young horse breeders championship show in conjunction with an annual auction where participating breeders can showcase their talent and “team” horses can be sold to defray the costs of maintaining the best ones in the program. For tax purposes, it would be important to keep pricing information on European horses of the same age and experience as part of a public record for appraisal purposes since the breeder/owner might also benefit from a tax deduction in manycases. Most of this data is on the internet.
4. A team chef d’Equippe or Board of Directors would have the right to a) accept or reject (it should be tough to get one accepted) potential Breeder “donations” ; b) assign a donor horse to any specific trainer/rider; c) police that the horses were indeed being properly developed in the various participating training barns; and d) chose which horses to cull each year for funding for the remainder. Clearly there would have to be some careful management of how breeding rights could be exercised and there is some potential conflict there but it is getting easier all the time to collect and store reproductive material from both the mare and stallion with a minimum of interruption of the competitive schedule and some compromise is probably acceptable to get a string of top horses for “free” from breeders.
5. For this to work, the breeders of the team horses would have to really be recognized at the competitions where the horses were seen and there would have to be a proper board of directors to keep the whole thing honest and fair. It won’t work if it is just about training and turning over good quality youngsters for profit to fund the team buying in Europe. But we have horses in this country, and riders good enough. We just need a framework to bring them together successfully. I think it could actually work.
Kc Branscomb Kelley www.branscombfarm.com
PS. If you want to see some kind of interesting examples of what we are breeding right here in Northern California just take a look of these videos of babies: four year old horses staggering around 1.10m+/- All these have 1.50m quality if someone has the patience, skill, and vision to see what they can become:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qSLAN7alcc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBaseQfuSVk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATal3aTcXhM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMrPYjwDkXA
YOU are always welcome to visit – anytime. If you think you can help me sell here in the USA, I would be eager for any business relation that made mutual sense.