I've owned close to a dozen stallions over the past 20 years and have noticed that they all seem to have their favorite mares and sometimes colors (i.e. chest or pinto, etc...)..
I have a stallion now that is not interested in breeding his Grey mares...which is unfortunate since his breed is about 80% Grey...I've managed to eek by each year for the past 3 years by teasing him with colored mares, but it seems to be getting worse not better (i.e. in the past he would breed a grey mare after about 30 minutes of standing around now he just wont' consider them, aside from saying hi)...
He's not every been handled roughly during breeding nor has he ever been kicked.
Just wondering if anyone else has come across a similar problem...
Hi Laurie, It is funny how they sometimes have their preferences !! My stallion of 14 years had his "favorites" and then not so "favorities". Our biggest one was a pinto mare that was just under 54 inches that we used to breed. We would have to tease him to his "favorite" paint mare and then we would not have any problems . So for us it was not as much as color but size, he seemed to measure them when he would talk to them , check them out with his chin on their hips and then would determine if they were tall enough !! So if he decided he was not interested in a mare , we would use this bay toby mare that seemed to be his favorite, and it didn't seem to matter even if she were in heat, as long as he thought she was coming up to be breed then thats all it tooK!
This may sound crazy, but you may want to have a "breeding blanket" that is a colored pattern that you can cover the mare with. Paint patterns do stimulate most stallions in general.
I find that many stallions retain a special interest in the color of the "first" breeding partner.
I actually did try a blanket...I left it on his 'favorite' mare for a week (so it would smell nice) then put it on the mare he needed to breed, inside out so that the smell was there. Unforunately all he did was spend the entire time trying to undo the leg straps (he also unties shoe laces if your not careful).
The only good thing to come out of this is that he started with a 'breed it' or 'fight it' mentallity and with these grey mares, there is absolutely not a trace of either, so I make sure to allow him plenty of time to socialize with them (have even turned him out with them individually-using an abundance of caution), which I think is good for him, to be around a horse he doesn't want to breed or fight..
Maybe I'll look for a 'cow pattern' day sheet, I've seen them before in the tack shops, cut off the leg straps....maybe he'll like that..
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. So for us it was not as much as color but size, he seemed to measure them when he would talk to them , check them out with his chin on their hips and then would determine if they were tall enough !! So if he decided he was not interested in a mare , we would use this bay toby mare that seemed to be his favorite, and it didn't seem to matter even if she were in heat, as long as he thought she was coming up to be breed then thats all it tooK! 
