by Cynthia McFarland

Selling weanlings is a bit of a double-edged sword. Sending a young horse to the sale reduces risk because, as horse owners well know, the longer you own a horse, the greater the odds of something going wrong.

The average price for a weanling selling at a North American sale in 2007 was $44,385. The average price for a yearling selling that same year was $55,020, not a huge difference when you consider the yearling owner had to feed, insure, and pay other expenses on the horse for eight to ten months longer.

However, far more Thoroughbreds sell at public auctions as yearlings than as weanlings. In 2007, only 1,955 weanlings were sold, compared with 10,215 yearlings sold at public auction. There are some practical reasons for those numbers.

It takes a precocious weanling to present itself as a future racehorse at that young age. In addition, the time of year when weanlings must be sales-prepped is precisely when days are getting shorter and cooler, and Mother Nature wants to put a warm coat of hair on those babies. Feeding is also a balancing act, because you want young horses to grow and put on weight but not too quickly.

Stanley D. Petter Jr. has been involved in that balancing act for many years, and he has been a highly successful consignor. His success was so notable he was known by many as "the Weanling Man."

One of the first in the industry to offer his entire crop as weanlings, he started with about 15 each year. Among the many young horses Petter sold that became successful racehorses were the Group 1 winner Be My Native and Grade 1 winner Akissforluck.

He sold weanlings under the name Hurricane Hall Stud for about 40 years. Today, the Lexington horseman buys and sells as agent and also conducts appraisals. He shared his method for prepping weanlings and some of the things he learned over the decades.

Sold entire crop

Petter explained that he decided to sell weanlings after "having a devil of a time" getting places in the Keeneland July yearling sale, which was the premier yearling sale at the time. After finally getting in, he had an "unfortunate" sale with the three yearlings he had consigned and made a decision to sell all his horses as weanlings the next fall.

"People have always sold weanlings, but nobody ever sold his entire crop of horses as weanlings," Petter said. "Usually, sales weanlings were culls, but I put all my weanlings in the sale and advertised that none would be held back. There was some sniggering behind my back, but when it was over, I was very successful. Before the sale was over, several people came up to me and said, 'Next year you'll have some horses for me.' Some of those were very prominent yearling sellers."

Although he initially sold every horse he raised as a weanling, he later refined the process when he realized certain horses sold better as weanlings than others. Late foals were not among those that sold well.

Whether his babies were selling in November as weanlings or in January as short yearlings, Petter started prepping on August 1, but this was not their first introduction to grooming. His foals already were accustomed to being handled and groomed every morning when they were brought into the barn with their dams.

"I know some farms only started prepping six weeks before the sale," Petter said, "but in my opinion, the longer time is better. You have to start early and treat them like they're your bread and butter, because they are."

Weaning itself is a crucial time, and Petter admits weaning practices today are much kinder to the foal than in years past.

"Years ago, a day was picked, and all the foals were taken away and put in dark stalls. It was awful. There were January foals and June foals, but they were all weaned on the same day," he said. "Little by little, common sense intervened, and now you'll find most farms will remove the mare [from the herd of mares and foals] so there's no stress on the foal."

Although, it depends on the individual foal. Petter said if one follows the general practice of weaning at about five months of age, most foals will be weaned when it is time to start sales-prepping.

Petter believed a farm was only as good as its help, and he was one of the first, if not the first, to use an all-women crew on his farm. In the late 1960s and early '70s, he advertised in the University of Kentucky newspaper, and several college students—many of them female—applied for work. At the time, equine-studies programs were not yet a reality, and many young people wanted to study in Kentucky because they hoped for an opportunity to be around horses.

"The women were available, they wanted to work, and for the most part, they were pretty good," Petter said. "There were some really good horsewomen. You didn't used to see many women working at the racetrack, but suddenly it seemed like everyone arrived at the same conclusion I had reached. For the average good old boy, working with horses is a job. For the average horse-crazy girl, it's a privilege. We had wonderful results, and I made several lifelong friends in the process."

Differ from yearlings

"Preparing yearlings is as easy as falling off a log because it's the right time of year," Petter said. "Selling weanlings is an art, in that Nature does not want a nice, slick horse at that time of year. You have to be careful when blanketing them. You begin with light sheets when necessary, then move up to blankets as weather dictates. Too many blankets will make a horse 'snotty,' and not enough won't do the trick."

Petter remedied this by putting his sales weanlings under lights to mimic longer days. By starting in August, his weanlings would end up with slick coats by sale time.

He acknowledged it is a fine line between keeping sales weanlings out of the sun to protect their coats, and leaving them out of the stall long enough each day so that they build muscle and do not become frustrated or sour from being inside. If kept inside too much, weanlings can hurt themselves in the stall when they get bored and try to play.

"The only exercise for a weanling is being turned out; you can get into trouble with forced exercise," Petter said. "If you're raising an athlete you want them out all you can with an eye on the weather. You don't want to sell a hothouse plant, yet no one in this country will bid on a shaggy dog."

Babies were introduced to the vacuum early on. Petter believed in plenty of rubbing and currying, then vacuuming every day. He made sure weanlings were bathed often, but never used a brush on a tail. Feet were handled and picked up on a daily basis, so weanlings did not raise a fuss when the farrier arrived.

Petter is not a fan of body clipping unless it is for a horse used for sport or work in cold weather. In that case, body clipping helps a horse cool off and dry more quickly. But for a sales horse, he prefers a slick coat that has not been clipped.

"It's amazing how quickly that foal hair will fuzz up, but if you clip them before the sale, you get a funny color, and you never get a sheen," he said. "I see excessive use of the clippers now. It's like preparing a show dog; the purpose of the clippers is not to remove the hair, but to enhance the attractiveness of the animal."

Walking and standing for inspection are important aspects of selling a horse, and Petter believes this should start early.

"We didn't say, 'This is the day we're going to teach them to walk,' " he said. "It was a natural, day-to-day process. We taught them to walk with their dams from day one; they were never allowed to gambol along behind the mare, but were led out. They were very well halter-broken long before weaning."

While most sales weanlings and yearlings are shown in a Chifney bit, Petter did not go with that trend. (Also called an "anti-rearing" bit, the Chifney is a bit that attaches to the halter with snaps. Its invention is credited to the British jockey Samuel Chifney.)

"A great deal of damage can be done by a Chifney," Petter said. "A Chifney is a dangerous item in the hand of most people, especially with a foal."

As a result, he invented a bit for foals similar to the narrow overcheck bit used for a driving horse. His bit consists of a straight bar with a leather strap under it and two metal snaps that attach easily to the halter. "It's much easier on the mouth," said Petter, "so it's not as resented by the horse."

Petter likes to remove halters when foals are inside. This serves multiple purposes: the halter can be cleaned and oiled, if necessary, and the foal gets accustomed to having a halter taken off and put on. This also encourages the handler to check halter fit and make sure it is not too snug or rubbing the face.

Feeding and trends

"A good horseman feeds by eye," said Petter, emphasizing that feed should be adjusted for each individual. He began feeding foals when they were quite young, tying the mare so the foal could relax and eat on its own. By the age of two to three months, foals were already eating well.

He found this method worked much better than using a creep feeder at pasture. "I was never very comfortable with creep feeding because you never know who's eating what. The big foals could be eating all the grain and the little foals could be left out."

Petter also found it important to check a foal's teeth when it was just four to five months of age, looking for any sharp points or problems that could make a foal back off its feed. Filing those points removed any excuse for not eating.

Over the decades, Petter has seen plenty of improvements in preparing weanlings for sale, including veterinary work that can correct a "parrot-mouthed" horse (overbite), and corrective surgery on crooked-legged foals. Changing technology allows farriers to work on very young horses to bring about vast improvements. Glue-on shoes also have been a big help in some cases.

Unfortunately, not all the changes are positive. Because of his past successes, Petter is frequently asked to inspect weanlings for potential buyers.

"I'm seeing a lot more baby horses with bad habits. I'm seeing more cribbers and stall walkers," he said. "When faults are announced [in the sales ring], it's amazing the number of cribbing foals that are announced. I see many more of those than I used to.

"I also see a lot more weavers and stall walkers, although these don't have to be announced. I think it's a manifestation of boredom or frustration from being kept up too much. I know certain lines produce cribbers, but is that because they are actually cribbers or just from a nervous line of horses?"

Next: How Bluewater Sales prepares weanlings.

Cynthia McFarland is freelance writer based in Fairfield, Florida