Bannockburn Farm Thrives In A Business For The Brave

SPORT HORSE
BREEDING ISSUE
W
Allyn McCracken has a
knack for researching
bloodlines on paper
and an eye for developing young Belgian
Warmbloods for hunter,
jumper, eventing or
dressage careers.
Bannockburn Farm
Thrives In A Business
For The Brave
Sport horse breeding is not for the faint of
heart, according to Allyn McCracken, whose
Belgian Warmbloods exemplify her steadfast
intuition—and success—within the industry.
BY TAYLOR JOYCE
PHOTOS BY THE EQUINE MEDIA PROJECT
34 The Chronicle of the Horse
hen Allyn McCracken
served as an auxiliary
timer in the jumper
ring at the 1987 Pan
American Games qualifier hosted by her
Indianapolis hunt club, Trader’s Point,
she wasn’t expecting the epiphany that
occurred as she clocked in its winner, Big
Ben.
But the flashy Belgian Warmblood
sparked her fascination with the
breed and led to the establishment
of her Bannockburn Farm LLC in
Patricksburg, Ind. In 2013, that farm
ranked third in the 2013 U.S. Equestrian
Federation standings for jumper
breeders.
“I was just so impressed with this
horse that I began to do research on the
BWP,” said McCracken. She spent the
year following that encounter studying
bloodlines before purchasing her first
stud, Branco, who was standing in
Michigan and became the first approved
stallion by the North American District
of the Belgian Warmblood Breeding
Association (BWP/NAD).
Wary after her past endeavors
breeding Thoroughbreds and Quarter
Horses, for which she’d found a meager
market, the mother of two knew she’d
finally found her niche when she bred
Branco to one of her Thoroughbreds in
1993 and reaped her first profit with the
sale of that foal as a 3-year-old. “I initially started out breeding
Thoroughbreds,” explained McCracken,
whose goal was to produce Americanbred horses. “But the track was so
disappointing to me; I couldn’t stand it.
I just felt like the horses were used up
too early, and they were never given a
chance. So as a horse lover, I couldn’t
handle that.”
McCracken originally catered to the
amateur market, in part due to her own
humble beginnings as a horse-crazy
kid in Kentucky, where her family
was one of the rare few in the neighborhood which didn’t foxhunt, race a
Thoroughbred or show a Saddlebred.
By age 10, she joined the masses when
gifted the latter.
“They [made for] a huge sport in our
area. I had him all his life; we didn’t put
him down until he was 32,” she recalled.
“I showed him all through high school,
and he came to college with me.”
After she graduated with an art
degree from Indiana University and
married Fletcher McCracken, who
worked in the Air Force ROTC, their
two children, Kevin and Michael,
took rides on the old Saddlebred
before he passed away. McCracken
learned to jump in her 30s and got the
family, which moved to the more rural
Patricksburg, into foxhunting.
Although she also whipped in for
the New Britain Hunt (Ind.), they were
mostly involved with Trader’s Point.
McCracken’s patience to thoroughly
research the Belgian Warmblood
poised her for the successful launch
of her 1,200-acre breeding facility,
Bannockburn Farm, which she built up
from about five to 50 horses. Although
her husband frequently offered her
business advice, she spearheaded the
operation singlehandedly.
“What makes a difference to people
who are doing research is finding
exactly what a horse’s pedigree is, so
you can see what connection between
what mares are making the best
horses,” she said. She devotes endless
hours to studying European websites
detailing horses’ pedigrees and performance records.
“I spent almost a year doing that kind
of work, and then I decided to go to
Europe and buy some mares. I’m way
more involved with mares than I am
with stallions because, in my opinion,
the mare is the basis of everything,” she
said.
“What happens a lot in the United
States is people think they’ll breed a
really good stallion to a not-so-good
mare and get something that’s good,”
she added. “It doesn’t work out that way.
So I bought some really good mares, and
that was kind of my start.”
Similarly, McCracken took advantage
of the power of observation at horse
shows; she’d study the day sheets posted
about competitors’ breeding at Spruce
Meadows (Alberta). At other venues
that didn’t post such information, she’d
frequently approach riders at the gate to
inquire about a horse’s breeding.
Trying Times
Despite building up an encyclopedic
knowledge of the breed and industry—
and serving roles as treasurer, secretary
and president of the BWP/NAD—
McCracken also had to brace for the
disappointments all breeders face at one
point or another.
“With breeding, you have to
Bannockburn Farm
spans 1,200 acres in
Patricksburg, Ind.
March 17 & 24, 2014 • chronofhorse.com 3 5
Allyn McCracken stresses the
importance of turnout and her
youngsters’ socialization in a herd.
always a must as mares approach their
births, and routine training schedules
that aim for the sale of a 4-year-old prospect developed from birth require man
and machine power.
A six-horse exercising machine, for
instance, is of great use to prepare mares
for a healthy delivery without turnout.
“If they don’t get a lot of exercise, then
they can have really bad deliveries,” said
McCracken.
“I’m essentially the barn manager, so
I make sure that whoever is supposed
to be coming in gets there, that the
horses’ general health is taken care of
and whatnot,” said Mendoza. “I also get
to play nurse maid, so when it’s 4 in the
morning and time to receive the foals, I
make sure everyone is in good shape.”
They make sure the mares are up and
healthy and eating within a reasonable
amount of time. “After that, we try to
lead them in and out every day so [the
foals] get used to handling and moving
with a person, even if it’s just 10 feet
from their stall to the paddock at first,”
Mendoza said. “We start picking up
their feet after a week or so, just trying
to handle them as much as possible
without being overbearing about it.”
love it, or you would never do it,” she
said. “You can put an enormous amount
into breeding, and the mare can lose the
baby, or you can have a bad birthing, or
a lot of different things could happen
along the way.”
Last year, she had to euthanize a promising foal by her stallion Simsalabim
(Nonstop—Patina, Feinschnitt I V D
Richter) who had fractured its shoulder
at a week old. “If you let it discourage
you, then you’ll never do it again,”
she said. “It’s kind of like having your
first baby; you think you’ll never have
another one.
“Even though you do all your work on
trying to make the right breeding decisions—a lot of really looking at horses,
studying their bloodlines, studying their
actual performance record—things still
may not work out,” McCracken added.
“The thing that I had to learn about was
what we were actually doing here, or, in
other words, what our farm was actually
36 The Chronicle of the Horse
meant for.”
The pastureland produces about
10,000 bales of hay per year and
provides ample turnout for 50 to 60
horses, four to seven of which are bred
each year.
“We don’t like to keep the babies
stalled for very long at all,” said
McCracken. “A breeder in Belgium once
told us, ‘I’ve never seen a champion
raised in a box.’ ”
Training Philosophy
Robert Mendoza is the head trainer and
go-to sales person who oversees the
daily, unpredictable going-ons at the
breeding facility.
Of the five employees, two specialize
in equipment maintenance—tuning
and operating the machinery required
to put up such vast quantities of hay
—and other tasks that revolve around
breeding and training young prospects.
Night watch and milk testing is
SPORT HORSE BREEDING ISSUE
The young horses are exposed to
ground work, long-lining and free
jumping. “As they get older, we tend to
do a lot more riding,” said Mendoza. “I
typically try to jump them two or three
times a week depending on what we’re
doing. We tend to do a lot of gymnastic
work.”
In addition to his managerial tasks,
Mendoza travels to horse shows and
is a well-known face in the competitive show jumping world. This is a part
of his own training business, which
started with young Irish Sport Horses in
New Hampshire, and it’s also supportive
of Bannockburn’s word-of-mouth
advertising style.
Of their business strategy, Mendoza
said, “We try to keep it manageable but
tend to sell a fair bit as young horses.
So we keep enough to stay around
that 4-ish range. Even though the U.S.
market has changed, we’re trying to
adjust our plan a little bit, and we’re
trying to breed horses for the more
experienced jumper riders; we’re trying
to shift our margins a little bit.
“Your average buyer wants a horse
Much of the foals’ groundwork begins in
Bannockburn Farm’s indoor arena, where
they become familiar with the sights and
sounds of a future show career.
that is educated,” he continued. “Some
people are shopping for babies, and
those people we can appease quite
easily with wonderful bloodlines. But
the average U.S. buyer wants a horse he
can take to a horse show, and educating
a horse in this country is exceedingly
expensive compared to what educating
a horse in Europe is. So our margins
are far better for 4-year-olds and
under. Once you get above 4 years old,
it’s harder to compete with what the
European prices are.”
The Human Touch
Mendoza and McCracken emphasize
that athletic bloodlines aren’t enough;
instilling a good temperament in the
babies is equally important.
“What we end up getting are a lot
of really talented horses that, from my
experience—and part of it has to do
with Simsalabim because we have a lot
of his babies—tend to be very smart and
very trainable,” said Mendoza.
“That helps a lot when you have
such a talented horse, that it has
Cake And Icing
A
llyn McCracken explained
what she looks for in a mare
and stallion to produce the
right match: “I always want to free
jump to see potential,” she said.
“Every horse has a certain sense
about the jumps, and I want to see
how they react,” she said. “Good
conformation is a must: medium
length of back, with the hocks under
them. Of course bloodlines are very
important; there are a couple of lines
that always produce great horses.
Certainly a mare with a good mind is
very important. I want to see a horse
that carries itself well.
“The walk is indicative of what
they can do, shows potential and
ability. There has to be swing in the
loins, and I look really hard at the
canter. What they do up front is not
nearly as important as what they
do behind. You can train through
gymnastics to help create a better
front end, but you can’t train or
create a horse that doesn’t naturally
have a good hind end.
“Essentially, the mare is the cake,
and the stallion is the icing. You have
to have the foundation before you
can add in the stallion.
“I try to pair up horses for a good
weight; they cannot be too heavy
for sale purposes. When looking at
bloodlines I like to put Holsteiner or
Dutch with French to balance out the
‘heaviness.’ If my mare is a heavy
mare I will breed her to a lighter stallion and vice versa.
“When I was a kid our farm
overlooked a race horse farm, and
I would go back to see them. The
manager would tell me that to
choose a stallion, it has to have presence. When you look in the field you
should be able to tell the horse is a
stallion. There are too many stallions
that get approved that don’t have
presence. In a natural herd, the stallion that is the best and strongest is
the one that gets to pass on his genes,
as it should be.
“When we attend the stallion
selection in Belgium, one of the main
comments we will hear as to why
a stallion that jumped and moved
well but did not get approved will
be, ‘That one is not a true stallion.’ In
other words, no presence.
“There are several top stallions here in the States, but I also
purchase semen from Europe.
I choose a stallion that has had
very good, solid performance and
consistently good offspring. I’ll
try a younger stallion that doesn’t
have as many offspring if he has a
fantastic mare-line and is with a top
rider—much like Emerald. I find
that there are too many stallions
standing here in the States that lack
good bloodlines and performance.
Breeders need to realize this and
understand that paying a higher
stud fee for a higher-quality stallion
is at times necessary to breeding
good offspring.”
March 17 & 24, 2014 • chronofhorse.com 37
SPORT HORSE BREEDING ISSUE
Free-jumping develops the
young horses’ comfort,
natural shape and timing
at Bannockburn Farm.
the mental acuity to actually manage
all of that [talent],” he continued. “A
lot of very athletic horses have trouble
managing themselves because they’re
like little kids; they don’t know quite
how to keep themselves together. The
Belgian Warmbloods, from my experience so far, have been exceedingly
trainable, which has made the ones I’ve
had the pleasure to ride very competitive in the ring.”
Lisa Goldman’s show jumping
partner Centurion B, perhaps one of
McCracken’s most successful horses
(he’s earned about $250,000 in the grand
prix jumper ring to date), exhibits the
result of that human touch.
“It’s all about bonding,” said
McCracken, who praised Goldman and
Centurion B’s 10-year partnership.
“I’m very careful about their feelings,
and they do have feelings; they have
feelings about people, and we grow with
McCracken On Challenges
Facing U.S. Breeders
e need riders that
really ride,” said
Allyn McCracken.
“Riders are so busy training and
showing that they do not bond
with their horses. I think parents
are partly responsible for this by
allowing their kids to just show up
at the barn and ride, not being
encouraged to learn to take care of
their own horse. Learning the
fundamentals at whatever point in
life one begins to ride is critical.
People need to take the time to
learn the care, nutrition, farrier and
conditioning of their own horses.
“We don’t have enough people
to properly start young horses,”
she continued. “Young horse
development training has been
sadly overlooked by our riders.”
Finally, “We don’t have enough
good mares to breed,” she said.
“And by good mares I mean good
bloodlines and performance.
People that own a mare that they
love unfortunately breed them
because they love the horse,
regardless of their bloodlines.”
38 The Chronicle of the Horse
Allyn McCracken and Robert Mendoza don’t predetermine the discipline a foal is best cut out
for; its own aptitude, or inaptitude, becomes apparent when the standards are raised and is
based on its desire to jump.
Robert Mendoza (left) manages training and sales at Bannockburn Farm;
he and his wife, Kezia (right), have
lived on site with their two daughters
for the past three years.
our horses a whole lot because we know
that they need to be able to relate to
people almost more than they relate to
other horses,” said McCracken.
Similarly, every socialization effort is
thought out. New horses are introduced
to a herd by first being stabled for a few
days with the leader of its pecking order.
“Then the new horse has someone
who’s pretty big in that herd to relate
to, and he ends up being OK,” said
McCracken.
“If you just stick him in there by
himself, he worries about it, and he’ll get
picked on all the time. So almost all my
theories and mission statements have
to do with the horses’ feelings about
different things,” she added.
McCracken has produced four horses
that have jumped into the open jumper
division: Centurion B, Baccarat B, who
is a full brother to Centurion B and
whom Mendoza rode to the grand prix
level; El Dorado B and Etienne B.
In vitro fertilization using outside
semen, usually purchased from Europe,
is McCracken’s preferred method of
breeding. Embryo transfer and standing
one stallion have also contributed to
successful foaling over the years.
March 17 & 24, 2014 • chronofhorse.com 39