My Visit to Polo Ranch

Recently, Clay, Danielle, Danielle’s husband Wade, and I had the opportunity to visit Polo Ranch in Marietta, Oklahoma. Polo Ranch is home to the stallions Gallo Del Cielo “Rooster”, Soula Jule Star and Boonlight Dancer.

One of the stallion managers, Shane Wilson, kindly spent the time with us to pull out each of the boys and show us what they looked like away from their stalls. Even fresh out of bed, the stallions were perfect gentlemen.

With a foal by Soula Jule Star expected from our herd later this spring, we were super excited to see what he looked like up close. His conformation did not disappoint and he proved to be quite a character. We like horses with personality.

On the note of breeding, Wilson offered us this little piece of advice: if you’re producing foals to ride, they can be born later in the year. But if you’re producing them to sell, they really should be early babies. Gaining an advantage with January, February, or March AQHA papers may help you as a breeder, meet the demands of the performance horse market.

However, early-in-the-year foals are not often feasible for Canadian horse folk and that’s why they can sometimes be the subject of “colorful” discussion amongst breeders. While Clay and I appreciated Wilson’s honest advice, the stallion manager did offer this ironic tidbit: if you look at the statistics, most Kentucky Derby winners are March / April babies.

Wilson also brought up the notion that there are some people who of the opinion that a mare’s first foal is always her best. And as she gets older, she doesn’t produce as well anymore.

Yet he reminded us that if you take a look at Secretariat’s dam – she was 18 when she had him!

The Polo ranch stallions have sired multiple champions in cutting, reining and reined cow horse events. All are ranked by Equi-Stat as leading sires. And I can tell you from personal experience, Polo Ranch staff are extremely helpful and accommodating if you are trying to ship semen to your mare in Canada.

www.poloranch.com