Why purchase an Aurum horse?
After all, there are many, many horses out there from all kinds of sources. It can get really confusing trying to decide what to buy and will it work for you.
We know this, we've been there too. We've scoured the countryside to find the 'right' horse, travelled hundreds of km's to see the 16.2hh TB who turns out to be 15.1hh. To see the 'bombproof' horse which spooks at it's own barndoor. Even to buy the horse which seems OK but turns out to be a psycho who wants to kill (specifically to kill you!). We met hundreds of these horses!
They weren't all bad of course. We did find a handful of real gems in the process but even those super talented horses had training, health or soundness issues to be corrected or 'worked around'.
These are some of the reasons we started breeding our own horses; to get a known quantity. Because if you breed from good stock with the characteristics you are looking for you will get a good result almost 100% of the time. The other important aspect of this is you get a clean slate. No bad training issues to deal with.
Our breeding ethos is Temperament, Talent, Trainability! This to us is not just a catch-phrase, it represents the three most important aspects of breeding performance horses. Each of these attributes is important in itself for the production of a top-performing competition horse but if any one element is missing you will never achieve the horse's potential. Of course not everybody wants to be an Olympic Athlete but with the Temperament and Trainability covered it doesn't matter if you don't utilise all of the horse's potential Talent! For the non-professional rider having extra Talent in reserve can often get you out of a sticky situation!
Of course, there are many other characteristics which are important in a competition horse. These include such things as conformation, genetic proof (ie proven performance bloodlines), courage, presence, size and in some cases even cosmetic issues and we don't belittle those characteristics at all. They are indeed important, however without all three of our primary characteristics nothing else will achieve your goal of a top level, reliable and consistent performer. In fact with our three primary characteristics in place some of these other characteristics become less definitive.
When we breed horses we look specifically to the match between the mare and stallion and ask ourselves 'what are we trying to achieve here?'. We are of course always trying to produce the perfect competition horse for a specific discipline! To achieve that we look to combine mares and stallions which have particular abilities that can enhance each others strengths and diminish their weaknesses. For a very basic example if we're breeding an eventer and we have a particularly talented jumping mare who is not so strong in movement, we try to use a stallion which has high quality movement but more importantly has shown that he passes on that good movement in a reliable fashion without compromising the mare's jumping ability. The latter aspect is important because some exclusively dressage bred stallions detract from jumping ability. It gets complex and most of our real-world breeding decisions involve many more choices than that!
People who come to see our youngsters are often surprised by how quiet they are and how friendly. That's no accident. It's only by careful selection of the stallion and the mare as well as the first few weeks of our professional standard 'people-orientation' that our foals receive. We believe it's one of the key differences at Aurum.
When you come to Aurum to choose a youngster it's important to us that you make the right choice. We want you to be extremely happy with your purchase because if you are you'll tell others! We'll talk to you about your experience level and what you want to do with your horse and make sure that you are considering horses which really are appropriate for you. In fact we sometimes steer people away from their first choice because we just don't think it will be right for them. I'm sure you, like us, have experience of those who will sell you whatever you want regardless of whether it is a good choice for you or not.
When you purchase an Aurum youngster you are not just buying a horse, you're gaining the benefit of our nearly 25 years of experience in breeding and in developing our product. Our aim has always been to produce the best possible riding horse for the intended purpose and for the non-professional or professional rider alike. You can purchase an Aurum-bred horse with confidence that the youngster had the best start possible. Your young horse had the best nutrition, the optimum preventative medications (wormings, vaccinations), the appropriate hoof care and professional standard early handling. With this beginning their ridden careers should be relatively uncomplicated allowing you to focus on their training which is what you want!
To illustrate the performance ability of the key bloodlines Aurum uses, check out our Performance Results page. For some comments by other Aurum owners visit our Testimonials page.