HGG Community Forums

Welp, I finally went ahead and ran all 600+ of my lined mares through SBA. 108 passed. Those are going to be the basis for my herd moving forward.

It was a big risk, knowing I would lose a lot of mares. I also lost a lot of mares who are better breeders than some of the mares that survived. I knew that was going to happen though. The older mares are likely to pass SBA, but not be as nice as some of the younger mares who didn’t pass SBA. I had to start somewhere though, and moving forward I should have better chances of getting evenly matched mares/studs, which means more intact foals. (There is also a pretty good chance that I will cull some of the older mares.)

I will admit to going through and unaltering 10 of the mares that were spayed by SBA. Those mares where listed on the top 25 mare list for Era 0. If you can make that list you deserve a chance to keep breeding, regardless of what SBA says. They may not be as good as their sires, but they are still some of the best producing mares in the game. Seemed silly to spay them.

I am going to miss getting 500+ new show horses a month, but since I’m cutting down my show herd it isn’t too big a loss. I can always use those pastures for Bootstrapping or show horse breeding with lesser mares.

So many empty pastures!!