Yearlings & Stallions

I had my yearlings for sale at my normal venue and 2010 will have to go down as a tough year for me.  I guess a number of others too.  My sense is that the market is spoilt to the extent that producers will often (have to) sell at a loss.  Either too much supply or not enough interest.  Most sellers look to attract the attention of the very few strong buyers and hope that a couple of big prices will bail out the rest of their string.

Certainly there are many yearlings for sale who will not have siblings to follow as the great cull began some time ago.  I have been wondering which area has shrunk fastest: supply or demand.  It's really possible that horses can get expensive again because the breeders have cut back so much.

I anticipate that while breeders wait for times to get better, that they will have to have a hard look at the money they are prepared to spend on stallion service fees.  Stallion owners have already cut prices but young stallions are going to face increasing pressure to get the number of mares that will give them a chance to make the grade.  The market is extremely judgemental and the fate of a new sire can be decided before it has properly begun.

There is some smoke that indicates some big changes are coming very soon.  That it has taken so long for a radical change is what really surprises me.  I began to suspected that the breeders pockets' were bottomless and maybe they could go on indefinitely.  Even though there was a very real surge in income a few years back, a great share of that found it's way into the accounts of very successful stallions who literally held the whole show to ransom.  At any rate over a long drought it was just a shower.