Can we have a frank conversation about breeding restrictions? They seem to be becoming the norm.
I agree on that - I can see an owner wanting to get the best of the best for a first year stallion, to help up his chances on being a standout, but I dont think they should be absolute. For example, alot of the mares I am personally breeding to Drum Major are mares I think will mesh well with him, not necessarily ones that are breeding shed standouts. If given the choice, I would rather be at fault for screwing up his first crop than blaming other stables for breeding low quality mares that have little to no meshability. What were your thoughts?
I have had pretty nice horses cone out if mares that didnt do a whole lot, and then I’ve had ones ive spent a lot on yet to give me anything decent, so why would I gamble that extra bit on a pricey heavily regulated stud when I can give a new guy a shot.
The exception being horses that sometimes throw easily injured foals and requesting that the mares have raced with minimal injuries.
I’m hesitant to advocate additional regulation of how owners manage their stallions but I do wish that for breeders there was a way to look at a foal crop and see that there were breeding restrictions on outside mares that year. Because really, two stallions with comparable breeding and race records but with different quality mares are probably going to have a pretty significant ranking difference. A stallion with a foal crop that is out of only gold ranked or MSW mares isn’t really comparable to stallions breeding to a mixed group of mares. We all know mares make a huge difference, that’s why we hoard them 
I thought that was just me being greedy Jade 
Personally I like Cat’s theory that a good stud should produce good stock with a wide variety of mares. Having said that I’m also trying to upgrade my broods by slowly weeding out some of the poorer quality mares. But it’s hard, I find it hard to let them go lol. I think there’s probably a slight reflection on real life where some of us, myself included, breed from or have bred from mares with quite poor race records. Having said that, as Carole points out, mares with poor records on the track can turn out to be good producers so I think they’re potential as producers could be hindered if the better stallions aren’t available to them.
The fancy new stats in the beta should help with that. 
They’ll help indicate whether a stallion is improving on his mares or not (regardless of the overall quality of the mare).
I agree with this. If a stud is super amazing but he’s only seen the best of the best, is he really great or is it mostly the mares contributing the quality? Obviously we’d all like a stud to produce a bunch of MSWs, but I think as long as he’s an improvement on the mare (whether due to his stats being better or that particular bloodline combination working well), he should get credit.
Every single breeding has the opportunity to produce a horse with any level of quality - superdud to superstar. Breeding two very high quality individuals skews things slightly in favour of superstar, and breeding two very low quality individuals skews slightly in favour of superdud. But just by breeding two MSW multi-millionaires you can get a horse that can’t run its way out of a paper bag.
I am flattered you remember my previous grump, imagine.
I am just really frustrated by them. If you don’t think your stud can stamp out good foals regardless of the mare, then should he be standing at stud?
I am not looking for a ban. I am hoping that as a community we can have a discussion about them.
Here’s a factoid my starter mare (deceased) Danzinallnight wasn’t stellar on the track she ran 32(2) with a record of 1 / 4 / 5 / 3 $97,650 but with a variety of studs has produced 5 foals 3 are Ch, prob would have gone further if I had really known how to manage them at the time. 2 were msp/MSw 1 millionaire, the other 2 are 2 ( hasnt matured really yet) and 1yo. Only 2 have the same sire Starzen. The others are devil may care and high chances, and yrlg s is GDR.
Another mare Nefertiti ran only 10 races with a 1/1/2/2 $32,000 , but has produced a filly I ran to GCh. Who’s now a brood, and out of 6 racers has had 4 winners, 1 msp, 1 msw, youngest running as yet unplaced. Again a wide variety of studs. (The GCh is by highland wizard)
I wouldn’t enforce a ban in the code anyway (unlike the other breeding things I plan to add, like LFG refund/rebreed options).
Personally, I look to non-restricted studs before ones with restrictions, and will only breed to restricted studs if they’re the only match for that mare at that time. That’s just me, though.
Hot dog! The beta is sounding mouth watering btw.
Seems like stallion owners are having an “arms race” with their foals huh? 
lol I don’t know if I can blame anyone for wanting to compete with other studs who are doing the same, just sucks for the rest of us.
You can try it out now if you like. You’ll need to join the Beta Testers group on the forum to get access to that board about beta testing.
Sounds cool, I’d like to try it out, how do I get access to that board? I don’t even see it.
There’s also a thread in the Announcements board.
I’m of the thinking its my stallion and I want top mares to go to him. If you don’t like it, you have other choices. I have enough mares which meet my requirements to make my restricted stallion a private stallion if I chose to.
It’s totally your choice Jason. I guess the flip side to having studs with restrictions is that it encourages the likes of me to buy/breed mares that meet the criteria (does that mean I can blame you for me spending so much money on fancy girls this year? ) At the end of the day it’s down to each individual stallion owner how the manage their boys and thinking about it even if a horse like I’m No Fool wasn’t restricted I probably wouldn’t send a mediocre mare myself, I’d rather send one of my better girls in the hope of possibly getting a better runner. But I do still like to use the unrestricted boys if they’re good value and I think they’ll suit the mares I have. Hopefully in a couple of years I’ll see if my mix and match policy is any good 
Jason, it is not you specifically. There are several new stallions that have had breeding restrictions. I would prefer if they were the exception rather than the norm. But that is only my opinion.
I also wish I could send a number of mares to studs but they tend to get shut out because of requirements. Only through LFG’s have I been able to get a few foals by certain studs (the mare having been bred, in foal, before I bought her) or chatting behind the scenes with owners. For me, I just want Joyeux to get mares and if they’re good, they’re good, and if they’re duds they’re duds. His first season I stood him at 1k just to get a book and he’ll now be at 5k until his foals hit the track and then I’ll look from there but I still wouldn’t restrict mares.
Ideally yes, we all want fantastic mares in a stud’s crop but I know I would personally never shell out 20k+ for a freshman stud regardless if he won 1 stakes or 50 because a horse’s value is entirely revamped once they hit the shed. All my good broodmares so far tend to be horses who MAYBE breached 100k earnings.
I agree with Jason that it should be the choice of the Stallions owner whether they want to put restrictions on the mares that are sent to him.
However, I also agree that, by putting restrictions on the mares that can go to a Stallion, doesn’t necessarily indicate whether he is a Super-Stallion because, it could be the mares affecting the quality of the resulting foals and not the Stallion.
Basically, breeding racehorses is little more than a crap-shoot. After all, look at the number of RL racehorses that owners pay millions for at the yearling sales because of their breeding, only for the foal to be a dud, also, look at the instances of Champion racehorses who turn out to be duds at Stud - I can’t think of any specific examples off the top of my head, but know that there are some recent cases, including one a few years ago who was found to be “firing blanks” and was brought back to the track.
I do not plan to put any restrictions on any of the Starfish Stallions, however, I am not going to criticize any Stallion owner who does. In my opinion, it is your Stallion, and it is nobody’s business what you do with him. If the mares owners don’t like the fact that you have put restrictions on your Stallion, they have many other Stallions to choose from.
The Green Monkey 
George Washington, who died. 
Also, Empire Maker apparently thinks mares are evil and is very picky about who he’ll breed with.