Saturday 26 May 2012

We obviously get a lot of horses coming through our system. Some have had yearling preparations and come from the sales and others come directly from breeders, sometimes straight out of the paddock. You can tell quite easily as the yearling that has gone through a sale is usually much more professional. The real key and the most important part, in my opinion, is who you use to break your young horse in. Early management of a yearling sets the course for the rest of its life. We receive a lot of horses that have been broken in by the "guy down the road". "Your bloke is ok but my guy can do it for $1200 cheaper". This has to be the worst saving that an owner can make. Horses are creatures of habit and they can form good or bad ones very quickly. Horses that are not broken in well are hard to handle have terrible manners/habits and usually take a hell of a lot more work than one that is broken in well. The trouble is that they end up taking an extra 2 or 3 preparations than a horse that is well broken. Now the owner that thought he was saving himself $1200 has probably ended up costing himself an extra $10-$15k. Dont get me wrong, they do end up coming around and most of the time come right but it takes that much longer. Then there is also the chance that they dont come right. Then they can be a problem for the rest of their lives. So the next time you are thinking about where to send your horse to be broken, put a lot of thought into it. It can make the difference for the next 5-6 years. We use two places to break our horses in. We use Julien Welsh (Booralite Prak) & the boys at Princess Park. Both are extremely good and our horses are set up for the rest of their racing lives.

1 comment:

  1. So true. Amazes me how people can spend $300k on a horse then cut corners when it comes to breaking.

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