How much boarding discount is co-breeding right worth?

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wgc517
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How much boarding discount is co-breeding right worth?

Postby wgc517 » Mon Nov 29, 2010 4:54 pm

I have someone that wants to board a few horses with me and I would not mind being co-breeder and /or maybe foal share. What is that worth in board discount.

How much would you discount your boarding fee to be named co-breeder? What happens if the horse does not foal?

How about foal share?

Laurierace
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Postby Laurierace » Mon Nov 29, 2010 8:12 pm

I paid nothing for the mare and only paid for the foal's board after weaning in exchange for making the farm owner the full breeder. So maybe half for being co-breeder?

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Postby cewright » Mon Nov 29, 2010 8:19 pm

You really need to think about a deal like this. Feed, hay, bedding and labor are all predictable expenses you will bear if you board a horse. They add up quickly. The deal you are proposing requires you to make this cash outlay for the foreseeable future in return for what?

In my humble opinion if you want to get involved in a foal/mare buy one at the upcoming sales.

And by the way, if you are going to board these mares get your monthly board in advance. There is no sense in using your $ to finance feeding someone elses horses.

Chuck

wgc517
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How much boarding discount is co-breeding right worth?

Postby wgc517 » Mon Nov 29, 2010 8:35 pm

HI Laurierace,

That sounds like you got a very good deal with the farm owner taking all the risk. Not sure if I would go that far. What would have happened if the foal was born dead or the mare aborted? Did you have something stipulated for that?

Here is the risk I am seeing.
1. The mare never foals (aborts or foal dies)
2. The foal never makes it to the races.
3. Foal is taken out of state to race.

All would pay nothing to the farm owner.

My thought is to give the mare's owner a reduced boarding fee explaining all the risks.
For example, if I took $5/day off the board. That is $150/month, $1800/year. Multiply that by 2 (yrs) care = $3600 discount owner gets until the horse can race. Is a $3600 discount worth the co-breeding right. Does that sound fair?
thoughts anyone?

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r

Postby tbrace » Mon Nov 29, 2010 9:57 pm

Buy a baby. Don't lay out money up front for foals that statistically will never win (half don't make it to the track, of those fewer than half ever win).

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How much boarding discount is co-breeding right worth?

Postby wgc517 » Tue Nov 30, 2010 6:32 am

TBrace,

I am not sure I understand your reasoning to buy a baby.
My goal is to not to have to put money in. If I buy a baby the only real option I have is to race it (cant sell in this market) and that gets me to your statement 1/2 run and 1/2 win. If I get him to run, now I have a big monthly training bill (with bigger upside) as oppose to no bill with co-breed rights on a horse that may or may not win. I don't look at the discount as a loss, more like a small investment. Sometimes it will hit and sometimes it will not. Are you looking at the $3600 overall layout and basing it off of that? The problem to me is, the bigger risk of laying out all the money at once for a foal with the same risk I have with co-breed rights. At least I have more flexilibilty the way I want to do it and am not depleting bank account to do it.

I do appreciate your response, it definetly helps me think through all options.

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Postby KBEquine » Tue Nov 30, 2010 7:26 am

A couple random thoughts:

I think the first question is whether there even is a dollar amount that you can discount that would cover your costs & still appeal to the boarder.

I assume you are looking at it as a way for you to cover your own fixed costs for your own mares (or at least part of their fixed costs), so that whatever else comes in via the breeders awards from the boarders' mares is pure profit.

Since, as cewright says, there are a number of predictable expenses, I would add up the costs for keeping your horses, figure out the average cost per horse (not including vet & farrier that I assume the owner would still pay), then figure out the number of boarders you expect to have on this particular discount.

Once you've figured actual costs & what part, if any, you want to pay for your own horses, you've got the amount that boarders need to cover. It might be that there really isn't an amount that you can charge to make it worth while. But better to know up front.

Figuring out the fixed costs is the easy part. It is harder to predict whether the boarders will pay their bills & there are farms all over Pennsylvania & everywhere else where the boarders do NOT pay. I've heard countless stories where the farm owner thought they had a good boarder, one who paid their bills.

At first.

Then the boarder disappeared, leaving behind the mare (without her papers) and the foal (unregistered) and disappeared. So your boarding contract would want to cover that eventuality, including how to get the papers, register the foal, and the like, and what event triggers the ability to do so.

We had talked about boarding mares a few years ago, decided against it at the time because we were too full - and shortly thereafter, were very glad of our decision because when the market tanked, there were abandoned mares all over the place whose paper wasn't good enough to go through the effort of converting ownership & whose foals weren't going to bring anything at auction & weren't worth taking to the track yourself.

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Postby Laurierace » Tue Nov 30, 2010 10:07 am

I did have two mares abort and one foal born with no eyes and have to be put down. So we both had our share of bad outcomes. We took it as the cost of doing business I guess. I actually offered to pay something and the farm owner refused as that was not our deal.
This was field board on a giant farm so in reality my mares cost very little in the grand scheme of things. So small outlay for potential awards for years if all goes well.

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Postby majxmom » Thu Dec 02, 2010 12:13 am

There's a rather notorious person that promises free breedings in exchange for boarding his mares, then moves in quite a few more mares than the farm owner was ever expecting. Beware. If a stallion is really worth breeding to, he probably can pay his own way easily. This sounds like a similar deal, only with mares.
"When I am on my deathbed, I imagine I will say, 'Thank God I did that'" - Arthur Hancock, on buying back Gato del Sol from Europe after Exceller was killed in a slaughterhouse in Sweden.

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How much boarding discount is co-breeding right worth?

Postby wgc517 » Thu Dec 02, 2010 6:54 am

Thanks for the warning Majxmom but it is not the case in this situation.

I am the one suggesting the idea. The reason I was thinking of doing this is that, for me, it is cheaper than buying another mare and foaling for full breeding rights. By Having someone board with me and giving a small discount for co-breed rights I see it as worth the risk as long as I am still covering my bills.

I can't afford to buy a really good mare at this time and I am trying to be a responsible breeder and I saw it as a way to still get some breeding rights. Obvious I would not do it for just any mare. They would have to be decent mares. It is just an idea.

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Postby IcouldbeU » Thu Dec 02, 2010 7:18 pm

majxmom, would his initials be HM?
wgc, who is your stallion? If you don't mind me asking.

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How much boarding discount is co-breeding right worth?

Postby wgc517 » Thu Dec 02, 2010 7:32 pm

I don't have a Stallion, someone else posted about a person giving breedings for board.

My original post was about giving someone a break on boarding to be named co-breeder on their foal...

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Postby IcouldbeU » Thu Dec 02, 2010 7:41 pm

Sorry I was confused. I thought you owned the stallion and would board the mare in exchange for co-breeding. So would you be splitting costs of board and the studfee for a co-breeding.

I am just trying to learn since a mare that I claimed last year never did well after the claim and our partnership is considering what to do next year with her.