At 11:32 AM 10/17/2006, you wrote:
>As a stallion owner, I'm not crazy about giving away breedings to
>anything that comes down the road because ultimately it will sink my
>horse's stats and it's always the stallion that gets blamed for
>failure. Unfortunately, nowadays numbers are considered
>"everything" so we still need to get as many mares as we can.

I have also heard that a stallion's connections will sometimes offer
the free breedings to individuals they trust to get the baby to the
races. Many babies get stuck in a pasture somewhere with no
resources to start training. So a new stallion can get help by
striving to get his babies to the races!

So sometimes free breedings are to get the best mares, and other
times they are to get babies to the races and give the stallion a chance.