Picture: Torpenhow Lia by It's the Business

I’m getting increasingly concerned about the state of British Horse Breeding, as a country we have to face it we have made a real mess of things by not having adequate controls in place. Anyone can breed a horse from any mare, colt or stallion that they chose. Currently you have to have paper work for your horse, but it is still relatively easy to obtain a passport regardless of the parentage of your horse.

Last week in the Horse and Hound magazine there seemed to be hundreds of stallions adverts, hopefully that was just my perception and it was only a few dozen, but it is still worrying. Many of the stallions now advertised seem to be of good established and proven bloodlines, but many were young unproven animals. Obviously you have to start somewhere but it just shows people are planning to breed more horses in the UK . The owners have bothered to buy/breed themselves stallions with decent bloodlines. My issue is not with people doing this, after all I have been breeding horses myself now for over 10 years, but the issue is where is the market that they are breeding for?

Horse riders still seem to be looking abroad first rather than looking in the UK , why is this, there are some very good animals coming through in the UK having been bred here. It is that difficult to find a decent British Bred horse? Personally I don’t think it is that difficult, all you need is the right contacts and you should be able to find any number of animals that will fit the bill. Maybe it’s not as glamorous as being able to say I bought this in Holland , Germany or the like, but I bet it will work out cheaper and you’ll be far more likely to be buying a better animal, not the usual continental rejects that seem to be all too common.

If your looking to buy a horse why not give us a call and if we don’t have anything suitable we may be able to give you other contacts that can help.