Breeding plans was the topic for the 10th and final panel of the 2023 OwnerView Virtual Thoroughbred Owner Conference, which was held Tuesday, Dec. 5, The Jockey Club said in a release Thursday.
Panelists were Carrie Brogden, owner of Machmer Hall Farm; Alan Porter, founder of TrueNicks; and Mark Toothaker, director of stallions at Spendthrift Farm. The panel was hosted by OwnerView's project manager, Gary Falter.
Topics for the breeding panel included matings, nicking, conformation traits, inbreeding, broodmare preferences and stallion selection.
The first question to the panelists referred to the saying, “breed the best to the best and hope for the best.”
“I can't afford beautiful and pedigree, so I'm always going to lean more on the pretty side on my mares, and they may be just a little bit lacking on pedigree,” said Toothaker. “Buy the prettiest mare that you can afford.”
Brogden considers conformation to be extremely important when making breeding decisions. “It is the most important thing,” she said. “After years and years and years of being on the farm now, we started to see a trend where every single graded stakes winner off our farm, on the dirt, every single one was in the top 30 percent of physicals of our yearling crop.”
The Thoroughbred Owner Conference virtual panels will continue in 2024 with a full schedule available early in the new year.
Click here to watch the presentation and view videos from previous topics.
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