Well, for Edwards Arabians, I know they were part of that huge Montebello thing that folded back in 1997. A LOT of Edwards' horses were not registered at the time of the sale; who knows how many actually got registered. When I got my colts from them in November of 1998 I had to register them from scratch, too. What a pain! I went through my 1999 sale book and counted 311 horses at auction; 81 on of them were foals -- either on the ground or in utero. I do know that there were foals and mares in foal who did sell prior to the sale because there was a full-brother of my colt Cartier in utero who obviously sold with him dam back way before the auction. The place knew they were going under, so why breed all these mares the year before? I don't get it. As you said, Heidi, 99% of the breeders I know out there really don't make big bucks at this, so why these huge numbers for horses that (I feel) weren't carefully bred except to slap an "Egyptian Arabian" stamp on them? It doesn't
seem like they had any great vision of plan, like, say Varian Arabians or Baz Tankersley. I still think it goes back to that Pyramid Scheme (ever see those "This horse paid for my daughter's college education, and *you, too* can make loads of money breeding Arabian horses!" ads?). Like I said...I just don't understand why someone would go to these extreme numbers -- but what's that got to do with endurance, anyway, huh? :-)
And speaking of Datasource, I don't subscribe to it, since I really don't have a reason to --- but is there anyway to find out where a horse is that was unregistered at the time it was sold? There was a beautiful filly that I loved at the sale from Edwards and just wanted to see where she was...
Mary
Well, folks who don't even bother to register their horses can't apparently be out to make a buck--more like they have some sort of "acquisition illness." The numbers at the Registry don't support the concept that such a thing is going on to such a scale among people who avail themselves of registration. On the Datasource site, one can look up the "top breeders" (by number) both for lifetime registration and for the time period of 2000-2002. The latter's "top" breeder is Godolphin Racing--an outfit with Middle Eastern money behind it, that sends a lot of its stock to the UAE. They only started breeding with the 1995 foal crop, and for the period from 2000 to 2002 registered 126 horses--that averages 42 per year. Second on the list is Bazy Tankersley, with 105 over that three-year period for an average of 35 per year. Third and fourth are Ventura Farms and Varian Arabians, with 74 and 72 respectively (24-25 per year). The numbers drop quickly from there, to where the m
ajority of us "big" breeders are down there with 25 or less foals for a three-year period. (Yep, I'm on there with a grand total of 10, which will jump to 15 once I get hair samples sent in on my 2002 babies, whose applications are still pending.)
