January Newsletter

Game of High Fives

With each turn of a New Year, January 1st,  you renew your spirit for fulfilling the dreams of your clients/friends and your own. For the Thoroughbred, in the Northern Hemisphere, it is their national birthday when they are categorically, a year older; weanlings become yearlings, yearlings become 2-year-olds no matter their actual birth dates. With this, you are able to race 2-year-olds against each other and 3-year-olds against each other. 

And with this calendar change, you review the prior year and whether you were able to fulfill your goals that guide you in your process. For the Thoroughbred, gestation is eleven months, and the breeding season starts each year February 15th, so your pregnant mare does not foal prior to January 1st and thus put that offspring at a disadvantage as a racehorse. That foal/baby is raised on their mother, nursing her, for about five months at which time they have grown strong enough to be separated and join the herd of others, approximately the same age. Now labeled as weanlings, separated, they grow among a herd that is established with their foaling dates and a number, generally 14 or so that can be housed in a barn with stalls and access to a field for play. They stay in this herd until the Fall or October when they relocate on the farm, once again divided into the same size herd, about 14, but based on their sex and age. During this stage of change, stage of growth, they are defining their personalities and athleticism prior to January 1st and those weanlings becoming yearlings.

If you have chosen to participate in the Thoroughbred business starting on the breeding side, you know it is a process that requires an investment of time and patience. Important in this process is to grow an appreciation that you are investing in the creation of a horse, that is being reared to have the opportunity to participate as an athlete against others of the same breed, the Thoroughbred, that are bred initially for this purpose, racing against each other. You are creating an athlete based off its pedigree, and reared to the best of your abilities, giving it every chance to be the best it can be. There are no guarantees and there is no magic formula. This mystery tied to the association and hopefully the love you grow of this horse and your dream, fulfill you in this journey of breeding a Thoroughbred that can compete at the highest level as an athlete.

This is our goal as we start each new year, to assess where are we in the journey for each of our programs? No doubt, it is a test of patience and thus when you are 'touched with greatness' it is an earned appreciation grafted through the journey of the horse. Price and my hope is you enjoy the journey so when you have that moment, your hands 'sting' from the hearty 'high five'!! There is really nothing quite like this 'game of high fives!'

Headley and Price