About breeding horses

First of all, a few words about the principles of breeding. Sport horses are not machines, and they are not bred like cows. They are animals with an ability to play a sport/ to jump/ to run. This ability is the most important trait they have, it is a gift that can be stronger or weaker, but it is posed from day one and could be exploited by a well organized enterprise with clear decisions and knowledge of the greatness of this quest.

The Coram says that "heaven is granted to those who care and feed horses", and after years of reading from different sources I came to these conclusions that I hope could be useful to those who find their heaven between horses in this activity.

Once the main activities are defined the next step will be to find the people that could help to find the foundation of the organization, the mares without which it is impossible to start breeding (obvious, isn´t it?). But it´s not that easy, it depends on different issues where the investment could be a limit but as significant as in other activities. Great breeders like Tesio found great mares from dormant mare lines at cheap prices. It all depends upon the knowledge of whom is looking, like going to a flee market, but you have to fish where you know the fishes are, or someone tell you so. In other activities, like in the petroleum exploration, you can determine different ways where to look for oil business, where nobody is looking or where the analysis (geologists) says that could be, or where it´s already known as well exploration. These guidelines can also be used when you are looking for mares. You can find great horses in incredible places, like the story of one of the foundational sires of the TB “Godolphin Arabian”, (brilliantly written by Marguerite Henry in “King of the wind”), in which the horse was found carrying a two wheel chaise in England. This was a real story, and things like these happen. For years Argentine polo players sold horses to their patrons all around the world, so there are some very good or extraordinary polo horses lines somewhere next to you (!), mostly in England, USA, France or Australia.

In the search of non expensive polo horses, near the great cities of Argentina you can find polo horses raised by countrymen or “peones” that provide the best for the Argentine middle handicap polo players. They are found in not a great shape due to the inexpensive way they are raised, because this is done by people who work in activities related to polo, like tamers or “domadores”, and also by grooms, named “petiseros”, that work for the polo breeders or players . Their main source are criollos mated with TB stallions (most of them coming from the Cuadreras, similar to quarter horse races ) or PA stallions (registered or not, some young PA stallions given away because of conformation problems) That was the origin of the Argentine polo ponies. They give personal care and attention to these homemade horses because their pride is to see them later in great hands of well known polo players, and because if they sell them it means an extra in the family income. These horses are very well educated from their break in/tame, due to the many man-hours of teaching on them by their owners, that sometimes also do these same activities.