Does a mare’s success in the show pen translate into a predictable future as a producing broodmare? When does performance outweigh pedigree in the breeding game? Where does the strength of the mare’s contribution land in the success of her foals?

For much of the breeding game, these questions are a challenge to answer. And on any given day you may reach a different conclusion. There are many factors that play into a foal’s success. Pedigree certainly is a large piece of the puzzle. But you must add in environment, training, individual experiences, health and care, and just plain luck sometimes in how a foal will grow up and show. And hopefully win.

It can be in the numbers

The American Quarter Horse Association recently published statistics showing that from 359 racing mares that had produced a Grade 1 Stakes Winner, only 17 percent were graded stakes winners themselves. But 45 percent of those producers were stakes winners and even larger 71 percent at least placed in stakes races. So, they were performers.

The technology of embryo transfer has certainly made it easier to begin breeding mares while they are still showing themselves, and getting a jumpstart on their production before retiring from the show arena.

The National Snaffle Bit Association compiled and recently published a list of the Top 25 NSBA Money Earning Mares, through Dec. 31.

Snap Krackle Pop leads the list with $172,759.73 in NSBA reported earnings. Her earnings, through 2018, including AQHA World Show and incentive fund are very nearly $196,000. The 2010 mare’s resume includes multiple World Championships, both AQHA Open and Amateur Champion, the Reichert Celebration Championship in the Equine Sports Medicine 2-Year-Old Western Pleasure Challenge and the coveted AQHA World Show Superhorse title. Her AQHA points exceed 1,612, shown primarily by Blake Weis in the open and by her owner, Twylla Brown, in Amateur and Amateur Select divisions.

Snap Krackle Pop has produced only three registered foals, one in 2016, one in 2017, and one in 2018, all utilizing embryo transfers. All three are gray and all three are mares. The oldest, Snap It Send It, by VS Code Red, is just starting her show career in 2019 as a 3-year-old.

Second on the NSBA List of NSBA Money Earning Mares is Certainly Inspired, bred and owned by Steven and Susan Thompson.

Last shown in 2014, the mare by Certain Potential out of Weretalkinradical has $162,319.19 in NSBA Lifetime Earnings. She has additional AQHA earnings of over $10,000 on her record and is an AQHA Champion. She has produced 10 AQHA registered foals in the last eight years, two of which have AQHA show records.

Her 2016 foal topped the 2017 Congress Sale as a yearling, selling for $35,000. The bay roan stallion is sired by VS Flatline, making him a grandson of Vital Signs Are Good. Rasscal Flatts (name change from SST Hez Flat Special) came back to win the 2-Year-Old Sale Stakes Western Pleasure in 2018 for Dr. Gail Mason and Jeff Temple, who purchased him in the sale from breeders Steven and Susan Thompson.

Number 3 on the list is Vital Signs Are Good, with $152,261.71 in NSBA Earnings. Combined with AQHA World Show and incentive fund, her earnings top $313,000. The 2000 mare, who passed away in 2017, produced 24 AQHA registered foals, including multiple World Champions and Congress Champions. She has three sons standing at stud, putting her on producing Grand Dam lists now as well. With her final foal in 2016, her foals have earned more than 3,500 AQHA points and more than $463,000 in earnings. As a Grand Dam, she is nearing $1M.

The Number 5 mare on the list is Cool Krymsun Lady, owned by Susan Knapp. The 2005 mare, last shown in 2017, has $122,243.84 in NSBA Earnings. The three-time AQHA World Champion and AQHA Champion has produced 18 AQHA registered foals through 2017. It is interesting to note that she has two foals on this Leading Money Earners list. Her first foal, Suddenly A Cool Lady, is in fact one slot ahead of her mother in NSBA Earnings, as Number 4 on this list with $143,410.10 in NSBA Earnings. She is also the dam of VS Lady In Red, who has $91,780.68 in NSBA Earnings, putting her in 10th place of NSBA Money Earning Mares.

Cool Krymsun Lady’s foals have earned 2,179 AQHA points and nearly $294,000. She has three AQHA World Championships and four Reserve World Championships on her produce record. At the 2018 AQHA World Championship Show, three of the 15 finalists were foals of Cool Krymsun Lady. How often does that happen?

“When Bill and I saw her for the first time, it was as if she floated around the arena,” recalled Susan Knapp. “Annie is a great mover, and she has a sturdy frame with a powerful build. And she is beautiful. She has a great look in the pen.”

Susan Knapp selects stallions carefully for Annie.

“Her show record is absolutely a selling point for her babies,” she said. “Potential buyers know of Annie’s success in the show pen and have been willing to purchase her foals for six figures.

Knapp said she has never had a baby baby out of Annie.

“ Sometimes they are slow to develop. If they don’t look great as a 2-year-old, just give them another year to grow up,” she said. “I remember Too Blazin Cool, by Blazing Hot. He was one of her first foals, born in 2011. He was OK at the pleasure, but not great. He was a ‘tweeny’ – too big for pleasure, not big enough for hunt seat. We sold him as an all-around horse and he’s had great success. He’s now the partner of the AQHYA President, Olivia Tordoff and a back-to-back Youth World Champion in the Hunter Under Saddle, plus Congress championships.”

Knapp said she feels the best cross on Cool Krymsun Lady has been RL Best Of Sudden.

“Kelly Birkenholtz purchased Whose Your Bay Bae, he’s a 2014 gelding. He is the most beautiful horse we have ever had out of Annie,” Knapp said. “From the day he was born, I knew he was the best horse we had ever bred. Big and pretty like his mother, Pat Heeley showed him as a 2-year-old in Western Pleasure and won the Tom Powers $25,000 (Sale Stakes) class. Now Chad Evans is training him up in the all-around and Kelly is having the time of her life with him.”

Knapp said she feels that the mare’s babies may have a longer show life, moving into the all-around events. The mare herself was a Longe Line champion who went on to win the World as a 2-year-old Western Pleasure horse, then Junior Western Pleasure, and Performance Halter.

Knapp currently has her eyes on a 4-year old mare out of Annie by VS Code Red, a full sister to VS Lady In Red.

“She is 17 hands, trots like a little horse and lopes like a charm,” she said. “She may be the one I keep, she’s so sweet. Maybe I’ll start riding in a hunt seat saddle again.”

When the Knapps started in this breeding business they could breed their mares and do embryo transfers into recipient mares. Now, with ICSI, they can get four or five embryos at a time without ever having to go into the mare’s uterus.

“We can produce more world champions from our mares than ever before,” Susan Knapp said.

A well-known mare not on this current list is Zippo By Moonlight. The 1988 mare was the 1991 AQHA Junior Western Pleasure World Champion and the 1992 Reserve World Champion. She earned two AQHA Superior awards and over $30,000 in lifetime earnings.

Zippo By Moonlight produced 24 AQHA registered foals, with 20 of them marking AQHA show records with 5,233 points and more than $213,000 in earnings. Her last foal was registered in 2013. In 2004, she produced a brown son by Invitation Only. Like Vital Signs Are Good, Zippo By Moonlight has proven to be a positive on the bottom side of a stallion’s pedigree.  Moonlite Ventures, sired by Only In The Moonlite, is 12th on the NSBA Money Earning Mares List with $82,327.51.

While Only In The Moonlite only showed himself for two years before moving to the breeding shed full time, he earned more than $24,000 himself. With 11 foal crops registered with AQHA, his offspring have  earned 16,573 AQHA points and combined AQHA recorded earnings of more than $978,918, with three AQHA World Champions.

An unshown mare, Goodbars Glamourgirl has produced 31 AQHA registered foals. Since she wasn’t shown, she carried her own first foals beginning in 2000. Their success in the show arena led owner Tim Delf to begin utilizing embryo transfers to increase her output while they were hot. Her last foal was born in 2018 after her death in 2017. A look at her produce record tells a story. By the end of 2018, her foals have earned 7,179 AQHA points and over $100,000 in AQHA and NSBA earnings, with four AQHA World Championships.

When Invitation Only was honored at the All-American Quarter Horse Congress as the #1 All Time Leading Sire, Tim and Barb Delf were invited to represent Goodbars Glamourgirl, who was the highest point producing dam of foals by Invitation Only.

Goodbars Glamourgirl, sired by Zippos Mr Good Bar, was started as a 2-year-old Western Pleasure prospect with sights set on the Congress. But the mare got sore in training and wasn’t sound enough to be shown. With veterinary advancements of today, whatever kept her from the show pen could likely be treated now. But that was then.

Tim Delf purchased her to add to his small broodmare band, and hit the jackpot.

“It was all a lot of luck,” he admitted. Her first foal, by Investment Asset, was Cool Assets. “He was knocking it out right away and became a World Champion. That made her a producer.”

Delf agrees it’s harder to market foals out of a mare without a successful show record.

“You can take nice colts to the NSBA or Congress Sales, and find that people will not pay premium for horses without solid performers on both sides,” he said.

Delf has found success with other unshown mares. Several years ago, he purchased Dublin Darlin, a racebred mare, strictly on her conformation.

“She was supposed to race. But her speed index was something like 30,” he joked. “But her conformation was excellent – she was higher in the wither than the hip, she was deep in the heart, low hocked with short cannon bones. She produced several show horses, including Double My Assets, AQHA Champion.”

Many of today’s successful show mares are becoming mothers while still working their day job as a show horse. The practice of embryo transfers and recipient mares has accelerated their breeding years and numbers, with multiple foals allowed with the modern day veterinary reproductive advancements.

Sometimes it’s the fact that someone owns a mare who had success in the show arena that puts them into the breeding business. The Glover Family purchased Vital Signs Are Good at the end of her 2-year-old year. Using embryo transfer, they bred her as a 3-year-old and she produced her first foal in 2004, when she herself was just a 4-year-old. Cool Krymsun Lady was first bred as a 3-year-old as well, using embryo transfers while she was showing in Junior Western Pleasure events.

By contrast, Zippo By Moonlight was 9 years old before she was bred, with her first foal born in 1998.

For a smaller breeder, purchasing a mare without an extensive show record can make their acquisition more affordable. Many times, the breeder is relying on their pedigree, or perhaps the show records of siblings for a similar cross, or maybe show records of the sire and/or dam as a promise for the future.

It’s an easy conclusion to reach that mares who are successful in the show arena. But the reasons for the exact success of the foals still depend on a myriad of factors, not the least of which is the contribution of the sire. Many old breeders and pedigree analysts will tell you the mama of the sire can have a huge influence.

It may be that owners of successful show mares invest substantial time and money into the foals to ensure their success, or they sell them to a party who goes on to show them. As a breeder, you want the foals you raise to go on to success, as it validates your breeding program and creates demand for your product – your foals.