Oakes Bay Ranch

🐴 STALLION SPOTLIGHT | Lenas Dualin

Great programs are built on great horses, and “Dualin” is ours.

A direct son of the immortal Dual Pep, one of the most influential cutting sires the breed has ever known, and out of the great Lenas Lucinda — a Doc Olena daughter who earned over $161,000 herself and went on to produce the earners of more than $900,000. That’s cow sense stacked deep on both sides of his papers.

Dualin backed it up in the arena to the tune of $174,000 NCHA, with plenty more won in the sorting and penning pen. And at 24 years old he’s still standing sound and handsome as ever. 💛

But his real legacy is what he throws — the mares building the foundation of our program, and Kendayl’s exciting young stallion, KS Sassa Dual.

Proven pedigree. Proven performer. Proven producer.

📍 Oakes Bay Ranch | Drayton Valley, AB

This is a great read!

Why does the stallion have to prove himself, but the mare gets a free pass?

This is something I genuinely do not understand about breeding.

I see mare owners with completely unproven mares turn their noses up at junior stallions because, “He hasn’t proven himself yet. Okay, but…

What has your mare proven?

Because apparently little Pumpkin Pie standing out in the pasture needs to be bred to the hottest, highest-earning, most expensive stallion currently standing to the public. Anything less simply isn’t worthy of her. 😂

Meanwhile, Pumpkin Pie has never shown. She hasn’t produced anything. She may not even be 6-panel tested. Sometimes she hasn’t been panel tested at all. Her owner may not even know whether she has DNA on file.

But that junior stallion? Oh, HE needs to prove himself. He needs more earnings. More accomplishments. More foals on the ground. More successful offspring. His owner needs to spend more money showing him, promoting him, nominating him, testing him, and proving that he deserves the privilege of breeding this completely unproven mare.

Make it make sense.

Now, if you own a mare that has earned significant money, produced significant earners, or comes from an exceptionally proven maternal family, I absolutely understand having very specific expectations for the stallions you consider. You have something proven, and you are making calculated decisions about how to build on it.

But an unproven mare does not automatically deserve a proven stallion simply because you love her. And breeding shouldn’t just be about finding the biggest name you can afford.

Sometimes a younger stallion actually complements your mare better. Maybe he improves her weaknesses. Maybe his conformation matches hers exceptionally well. Maybe his temperament, movement, bone, size, pedigree, genetic diversity, or athletic ability makes more sense for her than the current flavor-of-the-month million-dollar stallion.

And here’s another part of this equation that gets conveniently ignored:

Opportunity matters. A LOT.

Genetics can give a horse potential, but opportunity, training, ownership, money, management, and plain old circumstance have an enormous influence on whether we ever actually get to SEE that potential.

It is just as possible for a foal by a junior sire to land in a top-notch program, receive exceptional training, get shown by the right person, and eventually become a futurity or maturity champion as it is for a foal by the hottest stallion in the industry to get sold to someone who never shows it and spend its entire life as a glorified pasture pet.

Does that pasture pet suddenly mean the famous stallion couldn’t sire a great one?
Of course not.

So why do we automatically assume the opposite about the junior sire? If he has fewer money earners, does that automatically mean he can’t sire them? Or has he simply had fewer foals, fewer offspring reach performance age, fewer offspring placed into elite programs, and fewer opportunities for those offspring to accumulate earnings and or opportunities?

Those are two VERY different things.

We love looking at statistics as though they exist in a vacuum.

They don’t.

A horse cannot win money it was never entered to win. It cannot become a futurity champion sitting in someone’s pasture. It cannot prove its sire if nobody ever gives it the opportunity to prove anything.

And sometimes the difference between the $100,000 money earner everyone knows by name and the incredibly talented horse nobody has ever heard of isn’t genetics.

It’s where they ended up.

That is the part of the nature-versus-nurture conversation that I think gets completely overlooked in the horse industry. We put an enormous amount of emphasis on pedigree, genetics, earnings, and statistics, and obviously those things matter. But what happens AFTER that foal hits the ground matters too.

Who buys it? How is it raised? How is it fed?
When is it started? Who trains it? How much money is someone willing to invest in it?

Does it stay sound? Does it ever get entered?
Does it land with someone who recognizes what they have and gives it every opportunity to succeed?

Or does it end up standing in a pasture being somebody’s favorite pet or worse just a really expensive lawn ornament!

Neither outcome changes the DNA that horse was born with. It changes whether anyone ever gets to see what that DNA was capable of siring/producing.

So I’ll say this in case your eye is already twitching or something else I said has completely taken over your last conscious thought:

Every proven stallion was once an unproven junior stallion. Every great producer was once an unproven mare.

Somebody took a chance on them.
Somebody put them in the right hands.
Somebody invested the money.
Somebody gave them the opportunity.

And THEN they became “proven.”

So if you’re asking me what I’m doing to prove my stallion, that’s fair. But I think stallion owners should start asking the same question back:

What are you doing to prove your mare?

Because she contributes 50% of that foal too.

🐴 REVEALED! 🐴

Our mare It’s About Time (“Miley”) is confirmed in foal to DOWN RIGHT AMAZING! 💥

Big congrats to Lindsay McMurchy for guessing it right! 🎉 Thanks for playing along.

This one’s going to be special. 🙌

Visit TikTok to discover videos! Watch, follow, and discover more trending content.

Some crosses you dream about for years. This is one of them. ✨

Our own Dont Be Tuff, a daughter of Dont Look Twice, the winningest cutting mare in history — is confirmed in foal to Amarilobymorning for 2027. 🐴

Sired top and bottom by legends. Metallic Cat, Woody Be Tuff! OBR is building something special, and this one’s worth the wait.

🐴 That’s a wrap on breeding season! and what a season it was!

We are beyond excited to announce that Oakes Bay Ranch is expecting 13 foals in 2027! 🎉

This year’s foal crop will feature babies by our very own herd sires: BFR Boon Zan, Buen Pistolero, and Amarilobymorning, and we couldn’t be prouder of the mares carrying them!

What makes this season extra special is that some of those mares are our own maiden mares — fillies we bred, and raised right here on the ranch, out of our own mares and stallions. Watching the next generation step into the broodmare band and carry the program forward is exactly what this ranch is all about. 💛

Here’s to a healthy winter, easy foalings, and a barn full of healthy, strong foals come spring. We can’t wait to introduce you to every single one of them.

Stay tuned — 2027 is going to be a good one. 🤠

RanchRaised AQHA

Who needs a therapist when you can spend your day with your best friend doing the things you love! Great horses, cattle and beautiful countryside to ride in! h