Mares Bred in 2015 Stable; Stallion Stats Indicate Change

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While the number of mares bred in 2015 is basically on par with 2014 figures, there has been a significant shift in the North American breeding industry when it comes to stallions. According to The Jockey Club, the number of stallions used by breeders in 2015 declined by 6.3 percent over 2014 levels and many of the more popular stallions had bigger books than ever. There was a 15.2 percent increase in the number of mares bred to stallions with a book size of 100 or more and a 13.9 percent decrease in the amount of mares bred to stallions with book sizes between 75 and 99.

The Jockey Club released the 2015 Report of Mares Bred statistics yesterday, a report that revealed that 1,449 stallions have been bred to 34,627 mares in 2015. In 2014 at this time, 1,547 stallions had been bred to 34,450 mares. The 2015 numbers on mares bred represents a 0.3 percent increase. The Jockey Club estimates that an additional 2,000 to 3,000 mares will be reported as bred in 2015 before the final numbers are tallied.

Uncle Mo led all stallions with 221 mares bred. He was followed by Scat Daddy at 217. Both are Coolmore stallions. Into Mischief, a Spendthrift stallion, was third at 210. In fact, Coolmore and Spendthrift dominated the category as 11 of the top 12 stallions in terms of mares bred to stand at one of those two farms. The only non-Coolmore, non-Spendthrift stallion to crack the list was Ramsey Farm's Kitten's Joy, who came in eighth with 187 mares.

Kentucky-based stallions dominated as only one non-Kentucky horse, New York sire Honorable Dillon, cracked the top 40. Honorable Dillon, who stands at Rockridge Stud, was bred to 170 mares.

Kentucky was also the runaway leader in number of mares bred with 17,448. That was an increase of 3.7 percent and accounted for 50.4 percent of all the mares bred in North America. Florida was a distant second with 2,890. There were some surprising figures among the state and Canadian breeding numbers as some jurisdictions with slot machine-infused purses are not exactly thriving when it comes to their breeding industries. Louisiana dropped 7.15 percent and Pennsylvania suffered through a 22.5 percent decline.

On the other end of the spectrum, the Ontario breeding industry has bounced back in a big way. The number of mares bred in the province fell dramatically when the government announced the end of the Slots at Racetracks program, but Ontario political leaders have since agreed to subsidize the industry for five years, virtually wiping out the losses from the slots decision. With the industry haven been given a second lease on life the number of mares bred in Ontario in 2015 rose to 797, a 26.51 percent increase.

Among sires whose first crops were conceived in 2015, Verrazano, also a Coolmore stallion, topped all others, having been bred to 185 mares.

The list of horses that showed a major increase in the number of mares they covered includes: Temple City (87 to 199); Munnings (94 to 196); Uncle Mo (166 to 221) and Shanghai Bobby (160 to 202).

“The 'Big-Book Era' (since 1996) which has seen 'normal' book sizes double has had the effect of concentrating the foal population into fewer stallions,” said breeding market expert and TDN contributor Bill Oppenheim. “One effect of this has been the lowering of the highest Apex A Runner indexes from the 5.00 range to the 4.00 range, in other words there has been a 'flattening' of the curve. The more random nature of a larger variety of influences is actually a good thing because it allows more stallions to influence the population in ways we can't necessarily predict.”

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