I have said this before, and I guess I will say this again. This problem does not just relate to the horse market, but to all animal markets. There are back yard breeders, mill breeders, and gotta get a quick buck breeders in horses,dogs,cats etc. We are flooding the market on everything.
You get a handful of breeders on one specific animal,be it horse, dog, cat,etc. More people see it, have to spend the money to own it, then decide they need to get on the band wagon and breed it. Either to "make money" or to "recoup" their expense. Or "would it not be fun to make one of our own".
All of the sudden the popularity of that breed grows and then come the mill breeders, they are in it to "MAKE MONEY" They do not care about their animals and breed and breed and breed. The animals are poorly taken care of, and who cares if they die, no proper vet care is utilized to take care of these animals as it woud cut into the bottom line.
Our Miniarure horses are in this last category now. There are so many breeders that have 20, 30. 40 to 100+ foals a year. WHY? You can not possibly give these foals the individual care they need. There is no market for this many foals. You might be one of the top breeding farms and have produced some top winning horses, but you know the combinations that do not work, you know that out of perhaps 100 foals that you do have, only about 10 of them are going to be any good, but you still breed them. Many of these top breeders are really,perhaps, breeding a lesser quality foal then some smaller farms, but they have enough money to promote these foals and get them sold to unsuspecting buyers.
In these top breeders mind, there is still a market for these other horses. There are many buyers out there that do not educate themselves to what a good horse is. They go for the foals of the last winning horse or the foals of a World Champion. Even if that World Champion can not produce his way out of a paper bag. (We all know many.many,many World or National Champions that have never produced a Champion or even a Top 10 for that matter) We have also heard stories of the horse found in someones back yard with no special pedigree who has gone on to be one of the top producing stallions in the Miniautre horse history.The educated eye found this stallion.
The buyer has never educated themslelves to what is required to have a good horse. IT IS NOT ALWAYS THE PEDIGREE, but yet how many of you are just pedigree chasers? As long as buyers chase a pedigree, and not the quality of the foal, more inferrior foals will be produced.
How many buyers have looked at the smaller farms foals? Sometimes there are real gems on smaller farms that would cost the buyer a fraction of the cost for a much better quality foal than if they bought one from the latest winning stallion.
How many breeders are there out there that have foals, but never ever show them? Have you ever asked yourself why you are breeding these horses, if you are not going to be showing them? You may say to improve the breed, but how can you even begin to improve the breed if you never go to shows to even learn what is required to make a good quality foal?
What is the point of breeding horses, just to sell them? Many breeders did this to "make money". Many others started buying horses from others, then either breeding them to their "World Champions", or just re selling them for 3,4 5x as much as what they paid for them. Thus encouraging the "backyard breeder" to continue breeding.
If we are going to save this wonderful breed that we have, we all have to slow down our breeding programs or stop breeding them just to have babies. No one is making money on this breed if you figure all of the expenses involved. There was a time when they did, selling these horses for $25,000 or more,just becasue of the stallion involved. But those times are gone.
The other thing that I notice is all of the mares that are bred for resale. For instance, I have several mares that I want to sell. These are quality mares that I spent a lot of money on, but either I have decided to go a different direction, or the mare does not breed well with the stallion that I bought her for. This does not mean that she can not be a Wolrd Champion producer with another stallion. Nor does it mean that these mares are barren or of a poor quality. Why should I have to have them pregnant in order to sell them? In no other horse breed do we require the mares to be pregnant in order to buy them. If you are interested in a mare either check out that she has had foals before, or have a breeding soundess exam done. Just like you would have a pre purchase exam done on a large horse to be sure that it was sound.
We have a wonderfu breed here, and we are improving the quality in leaps and bounds, but the over breeding needs to stop. The breedings to make money, or to just have some foals, needs to stop or the Miniatrure market wil be just like all of the other large horse markets, DEAD!!