January 2022 - Sprieser Sporthorse LLC

For Want Of A Schoolmaster

By Lauren Sprieser|2022-01-21T05:29:46-05:00January 21st, 2022|Snippets|

I have a hypothesis. And it’s only a hypothesis and not a theory because I have 0 data to back this up. But bear with me.

Everyone is always looking for some version of this horse: 8-15 years old, amateur temperament, easy to ride, trained to Prix St. Georges. We’ve never, ever had enough of them to satisfy the market. But man oh man, lately it’s like… where are they?

I could sell ten Fenders a day, if I had them to sell. Sue Stickle photo.

Now to the math part, and a trip on the Wayback Machine. Remember when the bottom fell out of the economy between 2008 and 2010? Horse breeders and horse trainers were affected, just like everyone else, so breeders made fewer babies between 2009 and 2011, and fewer quality trainers could afford to give the horses born in the few years before the the right start. Great horses are made between ages 3-6; from there, even if they’re waylaid for a few years, they can still make it up the levels, but if they don’t get pressure applied in the right way, and learn how to learn in those formative years, it makes the journey up the levels really hard.

So that economic downturn would have affected horses, roughly, born between 2003 and 2011. And in 2022, those horses would be between 11 and 19 years old, particularly at the bottom of that range.

There’s a million other factors about why good horses are so hard to find right now, and the demand for youngstock is wild too. But the trickle down effect of that economic downturn might be a factor as well (and, unfortunately, one I don’t know how to solve!)

But certainly if you’ve got the time and the funds to invest in a quality young horse and park it under someone competent to make it, now’s a heck of a good time. Well trained horses will always be marketable!

Designing A Show Season

By Lauren Sprieser|2022-01-21T05:32:07-05:00January 18th, 2022|COTH Posts|

Joanna Jodko photo.

It’s the beginning of a new year, and for those of us with horses, it means thinking about what we’d like to achieve with them and mapping out how to get there. Show calendars are online, and I put together a schedule for where my group of riders might go to show. There’s qualifying criteria for the various regional and national-level championships, including lists of shows for those championships that are dedicated qualifying events. And there’s the long, hard look in the mirror about where a horse or rider is at this moment and what reasonable progress might occur between now and that first show, to set a realistic goal for the season. Here’s how we do it at my house.

Read the rest at The Chronicle of the Horse!

The Florida Set-Up

By Lauren Sprieser|2022-01-05T14:18:30-05:00January 4th, 2022|COTH Posts|

I took you all through the insanity of the past few months in my last blog. Now join me on the past few weeks: our trip to our winter location outside Wellington, Florida.

This is, I believe, my 10th consecutive winter in Welly-World, so I’m not a rookie. But this year is different on a few fronts. While we’ve taken more horses every year, this is the first year where we’ve had so many going—and so few left behind—that we decided to close my Virginia operation down. This required a lot of shuffling, to get our handful of non-Florida-bound horses to their winter gigs, and a little creativity with my staff and where they were going.

This year is also different because it is the first at a new facility for us: Perfect Cadence, bought this spring by amazing longtime clients and friends. It’ll be amazing; they’re committed to turning the farm into a world-class facility with a covered arena, substantial turnout, a hacking path around the whole facility and more. The problem? Between all the challenges of getting plans approved by Palm Beach County and an HOA under normal circumstances, plus the joys of building during a global health crisis, we are pretty much nowhere. We have the existing farm, which is perfectly lovely, but we’ve never been there before, so everything will be a first-time experience.

But we have a plan. First, the great exit, in stages.

Read the rest at The Chronicle of the Horse!