If you have gone through all the pros and cons and decided to breed your mare, you have nearly a year to prepare for the new arrival, but don’t wait until the last minute — start now.

As I have written before, I have never had one of my own mares bred, but I have some experience. My sister-in-law was an Arabian breeder long ago, and I have many friends and neighbors that stand stallions or have a nice crop of foals each year.

I have heard many sad stories of what can go wrong. Generally those come from the horse owner who is breeding a mare for the first time. Big breeders have sad tales to tell too, but they also have the background and experience to be prepared when things go wrong.

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When the new year comes along, all the stallion advertisements come out. I love to look through them, see the beautiful horses, read about their accomplishments, and do some dreaming, even though I am not a mare owner.

At this point I have three geldings in the barn, so clearly I’m not in the market for stallion services, but even when I had some very nice mares, I never took the big step to breed one.

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