The second horse I bought for myself was a mare - Violette. She was only 4 years old, and at the time I really didn't appreciate how young she was. Her breeding was unknown, but she looked like she was at least half Friesian. A Friesian is a Dutch horse that was originally bred to pull carriages, but the new Friesians are also bred to ride. She was a bay with a long flowing black mane and very full long tail, with feathering around her feet. She had not had an easy start in her short life and it took some time to get her to trust me enough to get a saddle and bridle on her. Once we had a relationship building and I had begun to ride her some, I started thinking about breeding her.
I had never bred a horse, and I didn't know much about how it should be done. I didn't do everything the way I would tell someone now to do it, but I had no one to give me advice. I would recommend starting with a mare that has registration papers with a recognized breed registry and hopefully is also already approved for breeding. I did manage to get her approved through the American Warmblood Society and bred her to a TB Stallion that was also approved thru that registry.
Most breeders in Europe and the U.S. as well breed a mare when she is 3 years old after she has been started under saddle. During that year she can continue to do the light work required to start her and after the foal is born she can either go back to work or become a broodmare.
I took classes on foaling (labor and delivery of a mare) and continued to ride her until she let me know that it was no longer comfortable for her - around 8 months. During the last month I watched her constantly and was lucky because on the day that she delivered the foal she had shown by her extremely restless behavior that it was coming soon. She delivered a filly before midnight - another stroke of luck - they usually like to wait until the wee hours of the morning when everyone has passed out from exhaustion. She was surprised at what she had done and at first didn't know what it was (not unusual for a maiden mare), but when it started whinnying to her she responded immediately and the mother-daughter bonding began.
Violette and her filly, Alia, were my first mare and foal. I guess you could say I experimented with them and while they were not a huge success, the were not a failure, either. I remember when my oldest son was about 2 months and I was going crazy with his daily colic. A neighbor who had a son a few months older commented that it was a wonder the 1st ones lived past the 1st year given the amount of training and preparation we are given for parenting. I felt this way with my first mare and foal, even though I had attended some classes and tried to prepare myself.
Now that I have had 12 more foals I feel more confident about what I am doing, but they all seem to have something new to teach me. Over the next few weeks I plan on sharing some of these stories so that other people can use this information to make their experiences more successful. If new breeders can get started with a good plan and realistic expectations we can expect to see better and better horses coming out of the U.S.
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