Training a cutting horse

I am a newbie to this forum and am not sure if this is the right place for this thread, but I hope you can help.
This is a saga so I'll try to keep it short.
I purchased an investment QH mare (Smart Little Lena/Freckles Playboy), she is in foal by Mr. Dual Pep. I have NO experience with the western world (cutting/reining etc.) What was supposed to be an easy sell back to the ranch that I bought her from, has turned into my nightmare. She has now become my responsiblity. In order to make back my investment, I now have to move forward with this mare/foal. WTH do I do? The mare is in TX, I'm in CA (not a lot of trainers in my area...) I'm fairly proficient with ground work training, and starting a horse/foal, but where do I go after that? Would I be best served selling foal as yearling? Or keep foal and put into training to sell as 2 yr old? I don't think money (economy) is there right now to sell mare in foal and recoup close to what I paid for her. I don't have a lot of money to pay for training...are there trainers out there willing to train for a percentage of sale price? Any advise? I moved this thread to this forum because there are more people viewing this one, and I could use any advise at this point... :)

Read more: Cutting horse advise wanted

If you don't have the money to invest into training then sell the mare now and cut your looses.

The mare is well bred and bred to a pretty nice stud. I don’t think you should have any problems selling her.

Has she been shown?
How old is she?

She's 8. I don't know what her training is, not much according to the info I got from the ranch that I bought her from. She's already had (at least) two other foals by Mr. Dual Pep. But no show records on them yet.

The problem with selling her now, with todays market I would only get a fraction of her purchase price. (Very small fraction) I'm trying to put together a program where (even if it takes a few years) I can make back closer to our investment.

This sounds like a Jim Babcock deal. He sold a LOT of people on a false bill of goods.

We have some very nicely bred cutting horses and there is no market for any of them uness the mares have won over 100K. Most foals and yearling will not bring back even the stud fees. We had $6500.00 bid on a daughter of Mecom Blue out of our Smart Little Lena daughter in January. This SLL daughter is out of a mare that produced the winners of over $600,000.00. Her sister produced Freckle Lena Boon (LTE of $235,000.00 and runnerup for Horse of the Year). Freckle Lena Boon is a 3/4 sister to the filly we had. We had over $25,000.00 in her and got $6500.00 back out and she is a drop dead gorgeous blue roan.

You might as well cut your losses and take the write-off. I have been watching horses like yours bring $1500.00. [I sold a Doc O'Lena granddaughter last January for $1100.00 just to get her off of the feed bill. Her dam -- a Doc O'Lena daughter won over $40,000.00 and was 3rd in the Super Stakes.]

Training will cost $1000.00 a month+ and she will not be worth a penny more with $10,000.00 in training in her.

The cutting market has become so selective and was soooo over-bred that only the top 1 or 2% are worth anything today.

DO NOT get suckered into the NCHA sales in Ft Worth. She will bring less there because they are the ones that are only buying that top 1%.

I wish I could tell you something better, but it just is not there. ETs and multiple foals out of the really good mares has killed the market for anything else.

Truthfully, she is worth more is you just train her to be a gentle saddle horse. I can still sell them for $5000.00 or more each.

PM me if you like. Cutting horses used to be all we did as far as breeding goes, but we did not even breed our SLL or Doc's Hickory daughters this year. They are just on the feed bill and they have TOP mothers and Big Time horses (like World Champions and NCHA Futurity winners) in their produce records from their dams and granddams.

1) Don't ever think you can make money off of horses...
2) Don't think you could EVER make money off of horses you don't know that well (Not knowing about western)
3) You don't have the money for a trainer let alone a good trainer.

I say sell them and move on to something you know about and could actually make money from.

If you want to make a small fortune in the horse business, you need to start out with a large fortune.

Our cutting horse breeding venture made money until 2008. It was all downhill from there and is still going.

The industry took about 4 hits all at once.

1) The slaughter market disappeared and that set the bottom or starting price on every other horse. So, overnight, saddle horses, broodmares and prospects dropped by at least $500.00 each and most dropped much more.

2) The economy took a nosedive that we are all familiar with.

3) The market was over-bred by a huge number. In 2007, so many cutting / reining / cowhorse bred mares were bred to the well known big-name stallions, that we all knew a crash had to be coming. Even a good market could not absorb all of the foals that were going to be born in 2008.

4) The registration of Embryo Transfers meant that there was an almost unlimited number foals that would be available that would be out of the elite performers and producers in all three industries. The middle quality mares could no longer produce foals that would sell for even close to their cost of production.

Pryor to 2008, you could take a $10,000.00 mare, put a $2500.00 stud fee in her and raise $10,000.00 babies and yearlings. Now, that same mare will raise $1500.00 - $3000.00 babies out of a stud with a $2500.00 stud fee. I have watched yearlings sired by leading stallions out of mares that won $25,000.00 in the cutting pen sell for less than the stud's fee.

Now, you have to take a $100,000.00 mare, put a $5000.00 stud fee in her to even get a $20,000.00 yearling.

I sold a Freckles Merada daughter in foal to Thomas E Hughes (has won almost $400,000.00 and I paid $3500.00 for the stud fee + mare care and a chute fee) for $3000.00. Oh, and by the way, the Merada mare produced a semi-finalist in the 2009 NCHA Futurity and won over $20,000.00.

Does that sound like there is money in it any more? Get out while you can because every penny you put in now is just more money you will lose. That is why I let the Merada mare go.