Mare Cap

In the face of an end run in the Kentucky legislature, The Jockey Club will rescind its 140 mare cap for stallions, the organization announced in a press release Thursday morning. "The Jockey Club announced today that it is rescinding the following italicized language in Rule 14C of The Jockey Club's Principal Rules and Requirements of the American Studbook that addresses limitations to the total number of mares bred per stallion: The total number of broodmares bred per individual stallion whose year of birth is 2020 or thereafter shall not exceed 140...

Lexington native Frank Penn raised both Thoroughbreds and tobacco for the better part of 50 years at Pennbrook Farm, his 300-acre spread out on Mt. Horeb Pike. Based on that experience, he has some words of caution for the bloodstock industry as it enters a new era of protectionism with The Jockey Club's recent rule change limiting to 140 the number of mares a stallion can cover, starting with foals of 2020. In short, Penn said, the Thoroughbred industry should read Kentucky's now-withered tobacco leaves to glean a lesson in...

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...