1968-Voice Of The Tennessee Walking Horse 1968 January Voice RS | Page 75

" STALLION SYNDICATION : AN APPRAISAL
" To syndicate or not to syndicate ? That is the question faced by many owners whose good race horse is ready to be retired to stud . It is also a question that must be answered by many breeders whose young stallion ’ s early get begin to run well . 6
" The popularity of stallion syndication cannot be denied . A heavy majority of leading sires are owned by syndicates , along with many of the top young stallion prospects . And the proportion of syndicated stud horses seems to be increasing every year .
" This form of stallion ownership , as its developers and advocates are quick to point out , offers definite advantages to members of the syndicate , sometimes to the stud manager , and in certain cases to the horse himself .
" But a growing number of horsemen are having second thoughts and reservations about the syndicate system . Some regard it as a necessary evil under modern breeding conditions ; still others believe that , at least in certain aspects , it is detrimental to the breeding industry in general , and even to the future development of the breed .
" In an effort to arrive at some basis for evaluation of this issue , it is attempted here to set down something of the history and development of stallion syndication , along with the comments , be they pro or con , of many qualified horsemen with whom the matter has been discussed .
" An effort was made to achieve a representative survey of opinion , and a balance between those favoring and those opposing syndication . It was soon discovered , however , that , while few horsemen are ' dead set " agin " it ,’ few , even among syndicate members and some syndicate organizers , fail to detect certain faults and dangers in the system . Therefore , there may be a slightly disproportionate emphasis on the negative side in this report .
" It was also found that a surprising number of horsemen , normally a highly articulate group with definite opinions , were reluctant to discuss the matter publicly and declined to be quoted directly by name . Therefore , several of the comments in this report must be anonymous or paraphrased . " First , though , let ’ s fill in the background of the subject . " Broadly speaking , there are two types of stallions , depending upon the circumstances and conditions under which they stand .
" First , there is the public stallion , whose services are available to any breeder with a mare and the
stud fee . " Of course , as the breeding industry has developed ,
some of the better sire prospects and more successful stallions have had their books limited to a reasonable number of mares . Sometimes the stallion ’ s manager reserves the right to approve any mares bred to the
horse , in order to improve the quality of his mates
and hence , it is hoped , of his get . " The public stallion is still the most common type . " Second , there is the private stallion , bred only to his owner ’ s mares or to those of other private-stallion
owners with whom stud seasons may be exchange . " It obviously requires a large broodmare band to fill a private stallion ’ s book , plus an inordinate degree of faith in him to base a total breeding program on one horse ’ s unforseeable stud prowess . Changes m
January , 1968 tax structures , the decline of large independent fortunes , and the general increase in the cost of thoroughbred mares and other breeding expenses have drastically reduced the number of breeders rich enough to afford to maintain a private stallion .
" Today this type of stud horse has virtually disappeared , save for a very few great sires who , because of age , serve only a few mares each year . Bull Lea ’ s later stud career is an example . " The syndicated horse falls somewhere between the public and the private stallion , and represents an attempt to evolve a system of stallion handling suitable to modern financial and breeding conditions .
" Syndicate , according to the dictionary , is ' an association of persons who combine to carry out a financial or industrial project .’
" And a stallion syndicate , simply defined , is an association of persons who combine to purchase , own and stand a stallion , often though not invariably under professional management .
" While stallion syndication in its modern sense is by and large a post-war arrival , group ownership of a horse is nothing new .
" The first instance of the application of the term ' syndicate ’ in breeding literature , so far as can be determined , occurred in connection with the 1913 dispersal of the Castleton Stud stock for the James R . Keene Estate .
" Some question exists as to whether early stallionowning groups , such as those that handled SWEEP , SIR GALLAHAD III and BLENHEIM II , were actually syndicates in the true and modern sense of the term , or simply associations of multiple partners . This doubt explains the previous use in this report of quotation marks in referring to such groups as ' syndicates .’
" There is really no clear-cut and generally accepted distinction between partnerships and syndicates .
" Indeed , there is nothing to keep two people who own a stallion from calling themselves a ' syndicate .’ BIMELECH , belonging to a three-way partnership between Greentree Stud , King Ranch and Ogden Phipps , is sometimes listed as the property of a syndicate .
" The chief distinction between partnerships and syndicates is the number of members . Generally partnerships consist of two , three or four members ; but syndicates may have twenty , thirty , thirty-five or more members .
" Since the membership complement of both partnerships and syndicates may vary so widely , though , this is not an entirely reliable distinction .
" Some horsemen attempt to distinguish between the two types of group stallion ownership through the terminology used to describe the organization .
" In a partnership , each member has a fractionally specified interest in the horse - a half , third , quarter , fifth , eighth or what have you . Sometimes one partner may have a larger interest than others , of course .
" But in a syndicate , at least in the modern version of that term , each member ’ s interest is specified by the number of shares he holds in the organization . Each share normally carries with it the right to send one mare to the stallion each breeding season . Some members naturally may hold several shares apiece , while at the opposite end of the scale some syndicates include holders of half-shares which presumably indicate that they can breed to the horse only in alternate seasons .
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