Feeding different diets to a range of growing foals and mares living in the same field is an art form which Lucy Procter has mastered

It’s relatively quiet on the stud, with the mares and foals out grazing all day and night. Despite the lack of rain, we still have just enough grass for them to get the majority of their feed through grazing, but we are supplementing with what is termed ‘hard feed’ – energy rich grains and pulses with carefully balanced vitamins and minerals.
Traditionally, hard feed would have consisted of ‘straights’ – rolled oats and barley with no additives. But modern feed companies now manufacture balanced all-in feeds. They come as a muesli-type mix, or an extruded cube. In recent years ‘balancers’ have been introduced, which are a popular way of feeding horses which are in light work and would get too fat on the recommended amount of hard feed. Feeding a balancer provides concentrated nutrition without unwanted calories, and ‘balances’ a forage-based – grass or hay – diet.

No mares allowed
The mares without foals at foot, or mares with older foals, are all now on a daily cup of balancer. The mares with younger foals, who are still drinking a significant amount of milk each day, are being fed a calorie-rich stud nut, in much greater quantity than the balancer feed, to ensure an adequate milk supply for their young foals’ needs.
As the foals get older, their feed requirement comes increasingly from grass and hard feed more than it does from their dam’s milk, leading to the point at which they will be weaned, between five and six months old. All the foals are being fed hard feed in a creep feeder, which means that we can provide calorie rich hard feed to the growing foals, whilst their dams are fed a balancer. The creep feeder is too low for the mares to enter, but the foals happily duck under the rails to get their breakfast.

Prep work for Hurdles
Work-wise, we’ve been concentrating this month on backing and bringing on four two-year-olds and two three-year-olds. One of the three-year-olds, a Montmartre gelding, is being aimed at the new Junior National Hunt Development Hurdle Races, which start in October. The second gelding by Black Sam Bellamy, being bigger and what we would term more ‘backward’ will shortly be turned out in a field for the summer to mature, and will come back into work in the autumn with the aim of getting him ready to race in the spring.
The two-year-olds are having eight weeks of walkering (exercise on a mechanical horse walker), lunging and long reining with the aim of getting them well-handled and partially backed before being turned away again until next spring, when they, in turn, will also be fully backed and ridden away in preparation for the Junior National Hunt Development Hurdle Races, autumn 2023.

Taking on the French
This new programme of Hurdle races, designed to help the development of Jump horses in Great Britain, was announced last November. Entitled Junior National Hunt Development Hurdle races and open exclusively to three-year-olds from October to December and four-year-olds from January to April, the races will be run from early-October 2022 to the end of the 2022/23 Jump season. They will be open to horses that have not previously competed in a Flat race, or a Jump race (except for a National Hunt (NH) Flat or Junior NH Development Hurdle Race). Each racehorse will be restricted to a maximum of four starts in the series.
Richard Wayman, Chief Operating Officer of the British Horseracing Authority said at the programme’s launch: ‘By adding these races to next year’s programme, we’ll be able to gain a much better understanding of the impact of providing young jumping horses with the opportunity to start their careers at an earlier stage. Such an approach is already well established in France and to some extent as part of a vibrant point-to-point scene in Ireland. We hope that owners and trainers …[will] view them as an ideal opportunity for the right sort of jumping horse.”
Bryan Mayoh, Chairman of the Thoroughbred Breeders Association National Hunt Committee, said: “We have long believed that differences in upbringing, rather than in breeding or environment, is the principal reason why French-bred Jump horses have outperformed those produced in Britain and Ireland. The impact that Irish four-year-old Point-to-Points are now having on the successes of Irish-trained horses, supports the hypothesis that Jump horses need to be backed and taught to jump earlier than has been traditional in Britain.”
So, we will pre-train our Montmartre for another few weeks, before he will be sent to our trainer, Kieran Burke, in Dorchester, to do the final fittening and race preparation work, aiming for a run mid-October at Newton Abbot.
Horses being horses, we just have to keep our fingers crossed that all goes well in the next few months – just getting a racehorse to a racecourse is an achievement in itself, running well is the bonus we are always dreaming of.

Wassailing the mares
It’s not been all work this month, however. We joined in with Racing Staff Week, held nationally to celebrate the role of all stud and racing staff who work tirelessly in all weathers, by hosting a staff barbeque. After we had eaten, we loaded the truck up with staff and bottles of Monopole to raise a glass to the mares, who are the source of everything The Glanvilles Stud does – our take on the local tradition of ‘wassailing’, but with champagne and thoroughbreds!

Breeding from your mare is a step many owners consider – Sara Greenwood shares the pitfalls and her experienced tips to make it work

Your children have finally left home, and you are left with the lovely mare the whole family has enjoyed riding or competing. What do you do with her? For many, the first answer is ‘let’s breed from her!’
But this isn’t (or shouldn’t be) a snap decision and there’s a lot you need to think about. Consider why you are breeding from her – is it just because you don’t know what else to do with her? Or you want something to sell? Or perhaps you want something for the future? Also think about the practicalities –
have you got the land and stabling required for more horses? Will you be foaling her or will you be sending her away to stud to foal?
Finally, and perhaps this is the most important, consider her temperament. Her conformation. How is she put together, how sound is she? Will any of her bad points come through to the foal? Can you even tell when she is in season?

No doubt one of the reasons you ever considered breeding from your mare was that you watched a stallion parade and saw a beautiful one. But just like the mare you need to consider his temperament and conformation too. Have you seen any of his progeny? What has he done in his life?

Now – are you going to send her to the stud for natural covering, or will your mare stay at home for artificial insemination? Or perhaps you might consider embryo transfer. Each has advantages and disadvantages, and all need to be researched and considered to work out which is the best option for you and your mare.

The family dynasty
Having read all that, you may be thinking HELP! So many questions to be answered.
I started breeding horses about 40 years ago using a friend’s Thoroughbred mare – who had already had a few foals. I took her to Skippy (a well-known Irish Draught), but before he was famous! All went well and lovely Poddy was the result. I loved the foal so much that my mare went back to Skippy. Sadly, this was without a happy ending – we had a dead foal.
However, Poddy was the start of a dynasty. As a four-year-old she had a foal by National Trust (a Thoroughbred) while I was pregnant. Some years later, having been a wonderful hunter, competition horse and great for leading the children’s ponies from, she had two more foals.They weren’t all successful but the last one, from Relief Pitcher, was my superstar, who took both daughters to BE Intermediate and retired as the family’s hunter.

Since then I have bred five foals with another mare. We lost one to a lightning strike, one was beautiful and enjoyed dressage so I sold him, one is utterly non-competitive but moves beautifully and is a lovely hack, another is tricky but talented and my last one, by a Connemara, is a star – anyone can ride her.

Choosing the match
Having started with Skippy the Irish Draught, I put his offspring Poddy to three Thoroughbred stallions – National Trust, Past Glories and Relief Pitcher.
With the second mare I bred from I deliberately went for the power and movement of the Warmblood, which is what the mare lacked. This was not such a success due to their temperaments – although we still love them, we have to find the right job for them.
Lastly we opted for the Connemara, which definitely produced the best all-rounder. I would have loved to have used Relief Pitcher again, but he had just died and Thoroughbreds only used natural covering then.
This year we are trying to get one of the Warmblood mares in foal to an Irish Draught but sadly it’s not currently happening (watch this space for future breeding programme!).
My conclusion? Breeding is not all happy and easy, but we have so many happy memories. It can be very expensive unless you do everything yourself, and a good vet is the most important thing.