POLAND 2007

The number of foals bred each year is between 200-300. This is a substantial number but a very small percentage of the total Arabian foals produced around the World each year. From the top foals come many Championships a much larger percentage than one would predict based on the percentage of the total foals being produced.

Horses are openly sold at action on a monthly basis at one of the stud farms throughout the year. That is how most of the horses are sold. Most of the buyers are from Poland, but anyone is welcome. German and Italian buyers frequent these sales because they are close by and the prices are relatively low.

The Pride of Poland action is a select group of horses. It consists of three groups of horses. Young high quality show horses ready to go into show rings around the world and be competitive, high quality broodmares with known production records and younger daughters to carry on, and horses that they need to sell for one reason or another.

An example of the last category is our mare MAKARENA (Borek X Marieta by Arbil) from Michalow. She was a Top 5 Yearling filly at the National Show, and one of the best Borek daughters I have ever seen. She however is a very dominant mare who must be stabled with care or she will kick the stall wall down trying to attack the adjoining mare. I have no doubt that she did not accept the standard angled board divider used to separate mares from each other in the Polish stable block. I'm sure she went over the board and attacked the neighboring mare. They can't have this and sold the mare.

All horses that leave the program are culls but the Pride of Poland horses historically been excellent representatives of the overall programs and they are valued as such.

Lot 15 CITRONETA (Pesal X Cirka by Borek) 2000 bred by Bialka State Stud. She was the LOWEST selling horse in the main auction. She sold for €10,000 ($13,300) to Kuwait.

Lot 9 PIETA (Gazal Al Shaqab X Pilar by Fawor) 2003 bred by Janow Podlaski.

She is an example of a ready to go show mare. She is beautiful, moves well and comes from a prestigious dam line. These are the horses that always command the highest price. Here sire is highly regarded, PIANISSIMA (Gazal Al Shaqab X Pianosa by Eukaliptus) is the hottest young mare in World. She has won every big Championship in the World. EJRENE (Gazal Al Shaqab X Emocja by Monogramm) had been named Junior Champion Mare the day before. This mare was going to sell high.

Mrs. Watts had not been to Poland in five years. She had gone to the Stones concert in Warsaw on the 25th of July and had stopped by to see some horses. She had seen Pieta and decided to come to the auction. She told me she was going to buy Pieta and I believed she would. Price was no object.

Pieta sold for €300,000 ($399,000), to Mrs. Watts.

The Poles have many satisfied customers, they come back year after year to buy horses. People may get caught up in the hype one time but if when they get home they aren't happy with their purchase they won't return.

Auctions are the freest form of market and this auction like all others responds to the reality of the market. The market says that their is a greater demand for high end Polish horses than there is supply and therefore the price is increasing. You could feel that at this years auction. The bidding was broad and the bidding was deep.

I consider this a very positive sign for the overall Arabian market. I find the negativity on this board pretty amazing. People bemoan a poor market and yet when a good market appears they throw stones at it calling the purchasers "stupid" and the horses "inferior".

Lot 11 GRETA (Pesal X Girlanda by Eukaliptus) bred by Michalow. Sold to Belgium for €40,000 ($53,200).

Lot 4 PRALINA (Ecaho X Premiera by Piechur) bred by Michalow.

She sold to Dubai for €85,000 ($113,000). Buyers from Middle Eastern countries were very much in evidence.

Christine and I were interested in lot 8 ZLOTA WIEZA (Ganges X Zatoka by Arbil) a five year old from Michalow. I bid on her but backed off when the price soared. She sold to Belgium for €85,000 ($113,000). Belgium was the country that spent the most money in the auction.

Lot 12 SIKLAWA (Laheeb X Siewka by Eldon) bred by Janow Podlaski. Siklawa was a very successful show filly having been name the 2003 Reserve Junior Champion of Poland. I am sure she will see the show rings of the Middle East and Europe for her purchaser Al Shaqab Stud, Qatar.

Lot 16 WIAZMA (Arbil X Wieza by El Paso) 1991 bred by Michalow State Stud.

I first saw Wiazma in 1993, on our first trip to Poland. She was a two year old. She was hotter than hell. She broke her trainers ankle in the ring, when she reared and landed on him. She won the class and was named Junior Champion Filly.

We have seen her beautiful daughters in the show ring. WIEZA BABEL by Laheeb, WIEZA WIATROW by Ganges, and WIEZA MARZEN by Ekstern. She was the mare that highlighted the fact that Arbil daughters cross very well with Monogramm sons. A piece of information we have used successfully in our program.

We would have loved to have her, but with as much discussion as there was about her I knew she would go for more money than we were willing to pay for a 18 year old mare.

I took lots of photos of her but few do her justice. It is hard to capture her essence in a photo. She is big bodied, and very powerful but she is let down in side shots because of her soft back and big belly the result of her having 9 foals and another due in March 2008.

She is very dark in color so it is hard to capture her beauty. She is extremely flexible and can bend herself both left and right. She is very athletic and moves forward in giant strides but is restless in movement and doesn't settle into a fluid line.

She is spectacular to see, not so great to photograph.

She sold to Belgium for €80,000 ($106,000). Lucky people, I hope they do justice by her.

Another photo of WIAZMA.

Another horse I was extremely interested in was Lot 21 ZULEJKA (Ganges X Zuzanna by Wojslaw) a six year old mare from Michalow.

We purchased ZUZANNA (Wojslaw X Zula by Probat) in 2005 in foal to Ganges. She produced a filly we named, TA ZOFIA, who we sold. We obviously were interested in how much the full sister to ZOFIA would sell for. The answer was €205,000 ($273,000) to Belgium.

We didn't get anything near this amount for ZOFIA but we were still thrilled that ZULEJKA was so highly valued. She was the 2nd highest selling lot of the sale.

Another high selling lot was Lot 24 LAVERNA (Ekstern X Loretta by Wojslaw) bred by Michalow. I didn't write down which country she is going to but it cost them €140,000 ($186,000) to purchase her. This young mare looks like a sure fire show prospect.