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The Stern Ranch in Malibu California has had success in raising excellent racing prospects. They owe this in great part to the day by day management of owner Patricia Stern and her very unique "common sense" methods. This entails a very deliberate and carefully constructed dietary, exercise, medical and preventative disease program, which starts with the care of the mare prior to and during gestation, care of the weanling through yearling period until they are sold or their race training program begins.

Patricia's methods can serve as a model for any small to medium sized horse rancher wishing to achieve excellence in race horse raising and competes very favorably to anything the very large ranches can hope to achieve due to the smaller numbers and closer supervision possible. "I am happy to share our ideas and methods, I love horses and am happy to see other people raise strong, fine healthy animals as well"

Just a few years ago the Sterns, Al, Patricia and son Shawn, who operate under the name STERN RANCHES LTD., decided that they were going to "pare down" their brood mares, thereby achieving the highest standards of excellence. They decided they would have a band of no more than six to ten mares, and no matter how good she was, always sell number eleven. In this manner they are able to constantly distill their brood mare band until the ultimate goal of having top producing mares is achieved. "Many times you fall in love with a mare, for one reason or another, even though she does not meet your goals, and you keep hoping a miracle will happen; you have to really be strong, and realistic", says Patricia. The Sterns hold fast to their program, even though it is many times emotionally painful, as they truly love their animals and think of them as their children. They have sold a lot of excellent horses, some of which have gone on to be Stakes Producing mares. "We are delighted when our bottom mares achieve success for their new owners, as this just proves the worth of our horses, strengthens our program, and proves the whole theory works".

The Stern Ranch criteria is very tough, and relies on the tried and true theory that runners produce runners and the female family is responsible for the "ultimate running ability", and a great sire is of utmost importance to add that "finishing class". Their mares are all from heavy stakes families and are either themselves stakes winners, full sisters of stakes winners, or stakes producers; "there is no compromise in this regard." Champion and deep producing blood lines are also figured very heavily into the equation. They breed only to the nations top sires and are share holders in the First Down Dash Syndicate, and now the Separatist Syndicate, which gives them breedings yearly to these great sires. They also seek "balanced beauty" and "extreme intelligence" in their horses. They look for beautiful specimens and regard intelligence of their animals as an important factor, "a smart horse wouldn’t make as many mistakes, and will win more races in the long run, additionally their survival rate is greater as they wouldn’t hurt themselves or their babies as easily".

Their mares bloodlines read like the who's who in quarter horse racing. As an example among their broodmares, they own a Beduino mare, out of ARTESIA Broodmare of the year in 1998 who earned $361,000 and who's full sister was California Champion three year old and earned $108,000 and although only eight years old has produced a stakes horse, and is in foal to Strawfly Special with a FIRST DOWN DASH colt at her side. They have a Stakes winning mare ETTA CHICK TOO by Stakes winner ETTA CHICK (1/2 sister to THE SIGNATURE), all of whose daughters have produced stakes winners including the producer of Champion Develope a Plan.

They are not afraid to occasionally do some careful line breeding to strengthen and augment the potency of their bottom line. They bred a grand daughter of The Signatures’ half sister Etta Chick back to the Signature because they liked this formidable female families potency. They luckily got a handsome filly, which they will sell this year at the Pacific Coast Sale.

Patricia Stern carefully supervises, with a hands on approach every facet of the care and feeding of their herd. "I attribute our strong and very large yearlings to our great nutrition, preventative disease, and model exercise programs along with personal monitoring of each individual"

Regarding Nutrition: Patricia relies on these basic principles in feeding her horses.

1. Be certain of the nutritional value and analysis of what your horse consumes.
2. Supplement with proteins and carbohydrates with sufficient vitamins and especially minerals.
3. Even though she relies on analyzed pelleted hay and grain feeds, she also feeds "natural" unprocessed hay and grains for reaching desired protein and mineral levels. She feels, nothing takes the place of good bailed alfalfa and oat hays. "Of utmost importance, we must never forget horses are herd, "grazing animals", and their digestive system and assimilation works best the more frequently they are able to chew and eat. In the wild, horses graze, move, graze, etc". Therefore she feeds at least three or four times a day alternating with pellets, alfalfa hay, oat hay, grains and supplements.
4. Patricia stresses minerals as much as vitamins, "we make sure they get plenty of salt, and do not rely just on a salt block, we buy the mineral added salt in sacks and give each horse their salt mixed with their grains daily. They use a special vitamin supplament rich in minerals that are sometimes missing in commercial alphalfa.

As the mares progress towards the end of their term, the Sterns carefully increase the amount of grain, vitamins and supplements, "the last three months prior to the mare delivering a foal are perhaps the most critical nutritionally for the developing foal, and are very important for the mare as well, as the large baby is by this time going to draw down on the mares reserves". Although you want the mare "in full flesh", when she foals, you must monitor the mares carefully as either a malnutritioned or an overly fat mare will have difficulty in foaling or getting rebred.

Alfalfa Hay and oat based grains an excellent source of proteins and most everything a horse needs, except for the fact that if you rely solely on alfalfa and grains you run the risk of "Epephyshitis", (metabolic bone disease), a condition that causes inflamed enlargements and deformities, (remodeling in an abnormal manner), in the growth plates at the joints. This can cause crooked bones and legs. This serious condition occurs in foals if there is an excess or imbalance of protein or energy, causing the foals to grow too rapidly and their calcium, phosphorus and mineral levels are not correct. "Depending on the soil quality and which cutting you are getting, alfalfa varies a great deal, and you never get everything you need, we feed a cup a day of an alfalfa supplement which actually is measured against alfalfa and balances back the essential nutrients and most critically the calcium and phosphorus etc. that are missing in the hay and grains. Most importantly monitor your grain intake and don’t worry about forcing their growth. A foal that is given excellent nutrition, plenty of exercise, disease and sickness free along with a sound parasite prevention program will mature rapidly to their full potential".

Once a week or even more often we give each horse a huge cup of Psyllium Husks which cleans them out of any sand or dirt they may have ingested and which may remain inside. The Psyllium Husks have no nutritional value but form a jell like substance which captures the sand or dirt and carries it out of the horses system. These husks are pretty dry and tasteless and horses do not like them by themselves, so we mix it in with some sweet feed that is damp with molasses, and get it into them this way. We have not had a single case of sand colic since we started this program several years back. We also periodically check the manure for sand content: you take a large palpation clear plastic glove, put a little manure in and fill the "hand part" with water, after several minutes if there is sand in the horse you will feel it in the bottom finger part of the glove". You may have to go on a more serious program at this point and increase the psyllium daily for a week or two and consult your vet.

"We feed medium sized pelleted alfalfa which is supplemented with vitamins and minerals as a staple and has guaranteed protein analysis along with baled alfalfa hay. Years ago we just fed the pellets by themselves, but for many reasons including the "roughage", the horses natural tendency to forage and graze, we feel it makes sense to feed good baled leafy alfalfa hay. We are very finicky about the hay quality, and insist upon only the best, small stem hay we can buy. We do not feed "cubed" hay for many reasons including the fact that you can not see the quality nor is it close to the natural feed a horse would graze upon". "We do not hesitate to throw away hay or any feed that gets too old and musky or that may have the slightest trace of mold, (this is a particular problem if you do not store your hay in a well ventilated area or in winter when the hay can easily get wet). One large vet bill , or colic surgery and throwing away suspect hay and feed becomes cheap insurance".

"We prefer to feed a high quality grain in a "sweat feed" mixture that is Oat based. You must be sure that it is not barley based or you run a risk of having your mares abort prematurely; "I read several studies that were conducted and they weren’t quite sure why, but barley based grain feeds seemed to increase statistically the risk of a mare aborting, and that's enough for me to avoid them". We feed the mares a 12% protein grain and the weanling and yearling a 14% protein grain formula. You must still be careful not to "overgrain" your horses, too much can lead to big problems including founder for mares.

Mares have a tendency to naturally slow down and not exercise so much as they should by themselves and this can cause "founder" if they are not burning off the feed and the fetus has more than it can use. We make each mare do at least a minimum amount of exercise daily. A few good suggestions are to turn your mares out into new surroundings periodically and rotate their pastures or paddocks from time to time, as well as keeping the feed and water as far apart as possible".

THIS IS AN EXCERPT FROM AN ARTICLE BEING WRITTEN ABOUT THE "STERN RANCH" METHODS IN CARE AND RAISING OF FOALS, THE FULL ARTICLE ALSO CONTAINS INFORMATION REGARDING PATRICIA STERNS METHODS AND PROGRAMS REGARDING FOOT CARE, SANITATION, WORMING, INOCULATIONS, SPECIAL EXERCISE AND TRAINING OF FOALS, DEVELOPING THE YEARLINGS FULL POTENTIAL, HOUSING ETC.

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