Choosing A Stallion For Your Mare
by: Tina Lewis of the 
Lewis Stallion Station
Breeding season is fast approaching and trying to find the perfect stallion to match up with your mare in order to get a foal, with the color, pedigree, conformation, temperament and ability you have always dreamed of, is no easy task. For some of us, this is our first attempt at the breeding process and even though we may know exactly what we want our foal to look, act, and perform like, we still need to figure out how to get our mare to produce it, especially with so many stallions out there to choose from.
Whether you are attempting the breeding process for the first time with a maiden mare (one that has never been bred before), you have decided to breed your pride and joy this year, or you have purchased a nice broodmare to experience breeding for and raising a foal of your own, here are a few tips to help make the search for that perfect stallion a little easier, and maybe, help make a few things a little less confusing.
Choosing the right stallion to breed your mare to can be a very exciting, yet, time consuming, process, as there are more options out there today than ever before. We are no longer limited to the stud down the street, with access to stallions across the country via Cooled Shipped Semen, and, with Frozen Semen Storage and shipping, we can also have access to stallions that are deceased or have a rigorous show schedule, that in years past, would have made them virtually impossible to breed to while they were still involved in an active show career.
DNA testing in horses has also made huge leaps and bounds over the past few years with regard to color and genetic disorders/diseases, and, with simple, and relatively inexpensive, tests, has become paramount in searching for a stallion to breed to, especially when trying to avoid any possibility of genetically passed diseases without having to steer clear of some of the best performance or halter bloodlines. We can literally breed to almost any stallion we want to and get almost any color we want with remarkable accuracy, especially if you have had your own mare tested and know exactly what her genetic makeup is. Most stallion owners today have their stallions tested and know exactly what they can and cannot produce, taking a lot of the guesswork out of it for us as well.
Let’s begin with conformation. A horse should be built for the discipline in which you plan to use it. If you know what you plan to do with your foal, once it is grown, and if you know the discipline you are interested in, you probably already know which bloodlines you should be looking for. A little research can go a long way when deciding what you want to do with the foal down the road, whether it be showing or competing in Western Pleasure, Halter, Cow Horse events, Racing, Ranch Versatility, Breeding, Pleasure, Trail, Endurance riding or just simply having a horse around for you or the kids to enjoy taking a pleasurable trail ride on.
The key to choosing a stallion that will give you a foal with the right conformation is to choose one that will “compliment” your mare’s features and body conformation. A stallion that will produce, when crossed with your mare, a foal with conformation that will not only look great to you, since a big part of conformation is personal preference, but also be functional, since functionality is conformation and will have everything to do with the ability of the resulting foal to do what you want it to do. A tiny head, refined legs, extreme height or huge muscle aren’t suitable conformational attributes for every discipline. Big, strong hooves and a lot of bone, for instance, are more suitable attributes if you are thinking of trail, packing, etc. Match your mare with a stallion that will produce a winner, whether it’s a winner in a breed registry’s Hall of Fame or just a winner in your book. You need to be able to succeed in the discipline, or disciplines, you have chosen, even if it’s just a simple backyard trail ride.
The disposition of the stallion you choose is extremely important but doesn’t necessarily mean we all need to choose a stallion that is gentle, sweet and “laid back”, especially if you want a foal that will perform. If your mare is extremely calm and gentle, or lazy, a stallion with the same temperament could produce a foal that, quite literally, won’t move. If your mare is very hot and nearly impossible to control or channel her energy, you would want to choose a stallion that is calm and “laid back” if you want a quiet trail riding horse. Each parent will give a big chunk of their own personality to your foal and sometimes, too much of something, even when it’s good, will come back to bite you in the end.
Pedigree is also very important, and not just for producing a winner in the show ring. You need to be careful of line breeding or crossbreeding that could potentially cause a problem. Know your mare’s bloodlines and have her DNA tested for any diseases or genetic disorders that can occur because of her pedigree. Most stallion owners give easy access to the pedigree of the stallions they stand so watch for bloodlines in the stallion’s pedigree that don’t cross well with the bloodlines of your mare due to these diseases or genetic defects. It is always best to do your homework because, sometimes, if there is a bloodline in your mare or in the stallion you are looking at that has the potential for a problem, as long as the stallion is tested and cleared of it and found to not carry the defective gene, there is no need to test your mare or to steer clear of that stallion because it takes two defective genes (one in your mare and one in the stallion) to cause the foal a problem. Stallion owners are usually aware of potential problems in a bloodline their stud carries and will most likely have had him tested and cleared before ever standing him to the public.
Part 2 Choosing A Stallion with Color coming soon.
