Jockey Club mare cap

In about three weeks, another breeding season will begin, but that's the easy part for stud farms. Getting those mares was the hard part, and that process played out over the last four or five months, an annual courting ritual of farms and breeders. It includes behind-the-scenes hustling, heavy-duty advertising campaigns, and some occasional arm twisting or deal making, because except for a handful of elite or popular sires that breeders are banging doors down to get into, most stallions need mares, usually as many as possible to fill books...

Recent developments in the U.S. on the 140-mare cap introduced by The Jockey Club on stallion coverings, and the subsequent lawsuits filed by Ashford Stud, Spendthrift Farm and Three Chimneys Farm, should be a wake-up call for owners and breeders in Europe. The justifications from both sides of the debate raise some interesting questions that must be addressed for the future of the industry. The Jockey Club's rationale for implementing the cap is that it is "formulating a rule that will promote diversity of the Thoroughbred gene pool and protect...

The Jockey Club's unilateral decision to regulate the market by imposing a mare cap on the breeding industry during a period of time when the sport of horse racing has been left staggering breathlessly against the ropes following a series of jabs, crosses and uppercuts, intensifies my fears about the future of our industry. That The Jockey Club chose to deliver this edict amid a global health crisis that threatens to bring many small breeders and operators to their knees, delivers a telling body blow. On the topic of the...

Chris McGrath's Value Sires series in the TDN has frequently touched on the difficulty in selling nominations to stallions in their third-year at stud, as well as to solid, established stallions standing for a moderate fee. We asked stallion managers and nominations teams as well as bloodstock agents what changes could be made, if any, to help the situation. Implementing The Jockey Club's proposed cap on numbers of mares bred would most certainly boost demand for unproven and moderately priced proven stallions. The overarching problem is the commercialization of breeding...