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Honestly I wouldn’t keep either if it was my breeding program, the first boy is inferior quality to his dam and the second boy should have reached an A paper. I would put the mares in pasture right now and leave them there until they have a 30 day bonus next season. That should be enough to get you a good quality foal.

I’m partially basing off knowledge of the breeder of the dam, partially off the available information on both parents pages.
The sire is an ExPerf base, meaning he’s a 105% breeding ability. This puts him 5% from an A paper, meaning when bred to a comparable mare (think an ExPerf mare), it’s very attainable to have an A/Blue papered foal (in fact many require A/blue in their second generations when the parents are ExPerf/ExPro quality).

The dam is a second generation mare, by an ExPerf stud and out of an ExPerf mare. Knowing the breeder of this second generation mare, she definitely passed SBA and likely is at least about as good as her dam. This should put the dam right at about a 105%.

So, taking the ExPerf stud and breeding him to the mare can definitely produce an A/blue foal. However, if it’s done by hand without any sort of bonuses it can be harder.


It’s always possible to breed foals with better papers from either of those two colts, given the right conditions and proper mares. Ideally, any mares they would be bred to should be second generation mares that compare about as good as an ExPerf/ExPro foundation. Even better, if they compare superior to an ExPerf/ExPro foundation. You could even go to 3rd gen red papered mares, again as long as they compare about as good as (preferably superior) to ExPerf/ExPro foundations.

It’s worth a shot, can’t hurt to try. But definitely make sure the dams have full pasture bonus before you do, to give you a better chance at getting a higher quality foal.

To answer your other question, Tiger Eye makes the eyes a yellow/amber color when homozygous. It's easier to see on some base coats than on others. There are two variants, TE1 and TE2, and of those TE2 is a little bit lighter.

As far as which one you would keep goes, I actually have some different advice than others - I would say to keep the top boy because even though he is B-Papered, because he passed BA we know he is fairly close in quality to his Blue-papered mama - so he is a high-papered B. The other foal could also be a higher B-paper but we don't have any clues about where he lies in that quality range just by looking at his pedigree.

Your other option to determine for sure which colt is a better paper quality would be to do some comparison testing - which can get spendy. Start by comparing them to each other - is one superior to the other? Then compare them to their sire - do they compare differently? (Comparing them to their sire will also give you an idea of if they're advancing in paper quality).

Obviously, pasture breeding with a bonus would give you a boost in foal quality, but I'm guessing these foals were straw breedings since the sire is owned by someone else. I would ask for more straws if you can and keep trying for an A-papered foal (if you are going to use good quality second-gen mares, that is a possibility). But since straws are not guaranteed, I would still keep one or the other of these guys.

If your goal is to advance in paper level as fast as possible, I probably would snip, sell or turn these guys into girls.

If your goal is close to either or both of their colors/genetics and they work well for those goals, I would keep at least one of them a boy for now and see if you get anything closer to your goal next season.

If your goal is a mix of the two, or is to advance in paper level but maybe at a slower pace, with 2 or 3 generations at each paper level before you progress to the next one, I would definitely compare the two colts to each other and keep the superior one if there is one.

Two things I always remember when I get a colt that doesn’t quite measure up for me in some way but might be difficult to replace: 1) you can always turn them into a girl and hope that with a really good stallion and pasture bonus that they throw a couple of top of their range foals
2) remember it takes mares an extra season to be breedable, so especially if you’re just starting a line, you have an extra season to come up with the perfect colt. Let them sit in a barn for a season and then look at what else you get!

Also, there is always boosting! It’s quite expensive but it’s an option if you’re truly in love and want to pursue those paper levels faster ...r