Breeding for Profit

[Izzy]

For people who breed horses for profit, just how profitable it is? I just cannot see people ever really making money out of it because of the health costs for the horses, feeding and sheltering them. How do people do it?

[Sugar89]

They manage by breeding high quality performance horses, for racing, dressage, eventing etc, and by doing it on a large scale. Certain organisations (such as thoroughbred racing) will only accept horses from certified parents into their competition, so there is only one place you can get young horses, and that's the breeding farms.

[aplslch]

The best way to make alot of money in any horse business is to start with even more . Making money in the horse industry requires alot of investment capital in the animals, equipment, land, structures, etc. Sometimes the horses are the cheapest part of the investment.

[beauty]

Although some statements above are surely true, it can also be profitable to simply breed, if you have a champion breeder, and people are willing to do invitro fertilization. One of the vets I used to have part-owned a breeding horse, meaning the papers were in both his name as well as his brothers'. Every time a person bought a semen sample, they were paid $1000, and each time the horse gave a sample, which was about once a week, they split it into at least four or five sellable samples. There was a guarantee from the company that handled all of this that said that his semen would fertilize the egg, but there was not a guarantee that they would get a foal out the whole deal. It was an amazing investment!

[rdez]

I would love to know more about this, is there any place online that would post maybe prices of horses for sale that are purebreds and breed specific for selling?

[Izzy]

I can see that, for the stallion owner that it could be a real money spinner. They don't have the medical costs associated with pregnancy to deal with, nor the the housing of the mare and her foal.

But if they are charging $1000 for the sperm sample, then how much would the resulting foal cost?

[aplslch]

The sperm sample is shipped to whomever wants to breed. They are responsible for fertilizing their mare, and the foal which may or may not result. The actual value of a foal would be a combination of the parents worth an the foals conformation, etc. It is important to remember that for such a high caliber stallion worth easily 20-50 thousand it is an investment. The horse costs more, is insured, etc. You don't simply buy a stallion like this and make money on sperm

I believe I say horse sales sites listed elsewhere on the forums if you search rdez.

[beauty]

Originally Posted by aplslch

The sperm sample is shipped to whomever wants to breed. They are responsible for fertilizing their mare, and the foal which may or may not result. The actual value of a foal would be a combination of the parents worth an the foals conformation, etc. It is important to remember that for such a high caliber stallion worth easily 20-50 thousand it is an investment. The horse costs more, is insured, etc. You don't simply buy a stallion like this and make money on sperm

I believe I say horse sales sites listed elsewhere on the forums if you search rdez.

True, the investment was not simply to make money on the sperm, but rather, with the intent of forming a good line of horses in general. He had been injured so could not race anymore, but was great at training other young horses and the sale of the sperm was also to get "good lines" out there.