Sunday, March 23, 2008

Field of Starvation...another breeder bites the dust

This was forwarded around the Internet last week:


Subject: [RC] FREE HORSES QH & PAINTS- KY Contact Glenda....directly. NOT ME. Info from the KY Horse Council: There is a breeding herd of Quarter Horses and Paint Horses in Breckinridge County that are hungry. The owner is struggling to provide feed for the 55 horse herd and wants to give away about 25 horses. The herd includes stallions, mares, and young stock of various ages. Some of the stallions in the herd are Breeder's Incentive Fund stallions. Please note: the horses are not trained and do not have current coggins. If you would like to give a hungry horse a home please contact the breeder directly: Breeder: Glenda Wright Phone: 270-547-3000 (h), 270-617-0022 (c)Email: gwright215@aol.com

*sigh* Too many horses? Check. Can't feed 'em? Check. Didn't lift a goddamn finger to train them? Check. What else is old. The place is called "Field of Dreams." Well, no shit, it's obvious it's not the Field of Reality and Good Planning.

So I did a little research. Glenda, according to the QH Directory, has FIVE stallions. Why do you need FIVE stallions? I guess so that you can breed lots of horses YOU CAN'T FEED. The stallions are Kys Command Finale; Kys King Fritz Too; Kys Nu Chex To Cash; Mo Poco Leo; Reminics Magic. Here's one of the products of her breeding program pictured at left. While I have to say he certainly does not appear to be starving, when you breed something with this back end, you have to ask yourself: What am I doing wrong? It does not appear Ms. Wright ever asked that question, and instead kept on breeding until she had 55 horses she was unable to feed and apparently equally unable to sell.



Here's a filly Glenda's had up for sale. It's out of a grade mare. WHY??? Why did you breed a grade mare? She is by your stallion so I can only assume you're the responsible party here. And WTF is that out with the babies, an old kitchen appliance with sharp edges? Awesome.

This is a cute filly but lots of cute fillies grow up to be awkward 2 year olds and wind up packed into double-deckers. Now she is for sale for $500. Or more likely free. Sure hope she still looks this curvy!






Ah, apparently that was the appliance department up there. Now we're on to the used car lot!

People! Your horses do not belong turned out with all kinds of crap that they can get hurt on.

This is a 2006 colt. Why it is a colt is anybody's guess but my money is on "no money to pay for gelding." God knows it's not stallion quality. It was $1500 in the ad but I am
guessing that it's now free!







You guessed it - another stallion. Bleah. This is everything I don't like about the low end of foundation bred QH's. Nest? Check. Long? Check. No hip? Check. Basically just looks like some little grade horse off an indian reservation.

Look at all of these damn horses. Everywhere. Not trained, my money's on haven't seen the farrier in way too long. No, nothing is starving in the pictures but is anybody surprised they are starving now? I just do not understand how people keep popping out dozens of horses, failing to sell them, and fail to understand that they are creating a huge problem someone else will have to clean up. You know, if you had a widget factory, and you realized after a few months you couldn't sell the widgets, and they were just piling up, wouldn't you have enough sense to change your business plan? In ANY other business, you do not see this stubborn refusal to accept that there is no market for the product being produced. It's just the horse business where people plow merrily forward making more and more horses without a thought to the reality of training and marketing those horses, or even if a market exists.


Someone asked me this morning how, how, how do we educate and make this stop? Beats me! I really would like to sit down with someone like this and pick their brain, see how this happens, but I have a feeling I know what I would hear...they have great bloodlines! Their father was worth a kazillion dollars! I paid a lot of money for them! What it comes down to is that you really have no business breeding if you can't also supply training. Unless you are breeding something so rare and special that they all sell prior to weaning (and really, who is doing that consistently?), you need to be able to provide training. If you're a middle aged person with a lot of fear about handling young stock, and you are not successful enough to be able to afford outside training, maybe you need to accept that breeding is not for you. Really, why can't you people find a different hobby? Something that does not involve live animals? C'mon. Beanie Babies! Breyer Horses! Troll Dolls! Something else. Anything else.