Stallion restrictions

Stallion restrictions

This year’s crop of foals will include future US-based stallions who will have their books capped at 140. Melissa Bauer-Herzog chats to breeders to discover the various positive and negative implications of the US Jockey Club’s new policy

WHEN THE JOCKEY CLUB announced its consideration in September 2019 of a rule to limit all North American stallions’ books to 140 mares, it also invited people to get in contact with suggestions.

Eight months later, after hearing the feedback and making their own changes, The Jockey Club officially announced the rule – all colts born in 2020 and later will only be able to breed 140 mares or less. However, any of those born before that year will still have unlimited books.

KatieRich Farm’s Mark Hubley is in favour of the cap for multiple reasons, from helping the diversity of the breed to helping breeders in the sales ring,

“One is it’ll keep the genetic pool more diverse so we won’t be so concentrated on the stallion of the day,” he explains. “Being a seller, when you invest a lot of money into a stud fee, the more mares the stallion is bred to, the more competition you have.

“So, if you spend $150,000 or whatever you spend, you want to be the best of 140 opposed to 240. Your risk is compounded by the numbers that are out there.”

However, Leah O’Meara of Stonehaven Steadings believes that the limiting of books should be down to the stallion owner. She believes that the cap will help genetic diversity, but also notes that a lot of farms already limit books.

“I appreciate supply and demand and allowing the market and needs of breeders to determine the need to breed to a certain stallion,” she says.

“I do understand a stud farm’s decision to cap certain books, and there are several farms that do it themselves. To me it should be up to the stallion’s owners and managers to determine what that number should be based on their plan for the particular colt’s potential as a sire.

“A free market to operate as any other industry does [is important to me]. Let that supply and demand work its way out and give the owners of the horse to have the choice and the stud farms that stand the horse to have the choice. However, I do hope the positives they want to see happen.”

KatieRich Farm’s Mark Hubley

Photo: Anne M. Eberhardt

Weanling colts going through this season’s breeding stock sales will be the first to test the market’s reaction to buying colts restricted to the cap. But the universal thought of the breeders interviewed for this piece was that the market won’t react as much this year.

“I don’t know that it will have the greatest affect this year because of bigger market conditions,” says Price Bell of Mill Ridge Farm. “If we’d had a big September Sale and were on the same trajectory we were on this time last year, I think it would have a greater influence. But at the moment I don’t know people are thinking about it as much as they were this time last year.”

Machmer Hall’s Carrie Brogden agrees, with her thought being that there won’t be any noticeable changes until the first racehorses are purchased as stallion prospects.

“I don’t think you’ll see the impact until possibly when stallions are being sold that are 2020 foals, but even then I think it’s going to be late to factor. I just don’t think it will become a reality until these horses are sold as stallion prospects,” she says.

Brogden is in favour of the cap though she also sees the other side of the coin. Brogden has booked between 200 and 300 mares a year for over a decade and breeds nearly 100 mares on her family farm and feels like the cap will mostly be a return to the past.

“I used to hear all the time ‘sorry, he’s full’ and we’d have to readjust and breed to another stallion,” she explains. “You don’t just leave your mare open because you can’t get into your number one choice.

“But now with all these stallions breeding 200, 225, or 250 mares it’s rare that I hear ‘no.’ Because of that, most of these mares you can breed on your first choice because they breed 100 more mares than they used to 10 years ago. “I personally believe that has led to a complete polarisation of the market.”

One added benefit of the cap according to Brogden is that it will allow stallions to be given a bigger chance before being sold.

This autumn’s Grade 1s have put the spotlight on stallions being exported before having a chance to prove their worth in the breeding shed with the exported Daredevil siring the Kentucky Oaks (G1) and Preakness Stakes (G1) winners.

Price Bell: cap might help a stallion with more support

For Brogden, the cap will help that phenomenon.

“I think it will give more stallions a chance,” she says. “I think the reason Daredevil and some of these other second and third-tier stallions when they come in don’t have a chance is because people don’t have to [breed to them].

“When the farm is not saying no to Klimt and they’re breeding 250 mares to him then he’s taking 100 of those mares who in years past would have gone to Daredevil.”

MILL RIDGE has been selective in the stallions it stands over the years, Gone West and Diesis are past residents, and Oscar Performance is currently the only stallion on its roster.

For Bell The cap won’t lead to the farm standing more stallions, but may lead to it having an easier time supporting any stallion it chooses to stand.

“I think that the cap, if it has its affect, will put more stallions into the game that you feel you can get mares to support,” he says. “So yes, I think it will make it easier for us to potentially stand a stallion, but I don’t know that it will change our thought on. I believe if there’s a horse we really want to stand then we’ll find a way to get him and this may make it easier because there will be more stallions that you know you can get more support for within the market.”

For O’Meara, the major worry with any stallion standing under the cap is potential stud fees. While the majority opinion among the group was that those not under the cap won’t see much change, it could be a different story for the popular stallions born in 2020 and later.

“I don’t know that it will affect the stud fees of those that aren’t under the cap,” she says. “For those that do apply, there’s a huge concern that the demand for those sires will drive those fees too high for some people to participate.”

But before worrying about the stud fees of colts who will be at stud for a few years, Hubley is hoping the market corrects itself with current stud fees.

With a tough sale market due to the current factors, KatieRich is already looking at changing some of its usual breeding practices.

“I’m hoping that the stallion farms take a look at the market and take that into consideration when they set their stud fees,” he says. “The top stallions I’m sure are going up, I know Into Mischief has gone up but I would hope that the market dictates some of what stud fees are going to be. I think the stallions who have really high stud fees breeders may choose to breed to those less, we’ll have to see what happens. For our farm, some of the real high-end stallions that we would go to, we’re rethinking some of that.”

When looking ahead, the one thing Hubley thinks won’t change is the amount of young stallions making their way onto Kentucky rosters. Forty-three stallions bred more than 140 mares in 2019 and 39 in 2018, leaving plenty of room for those below the cap to pick up extra mares.

“I doubt [it brings more stallions to Kentucky],” he says. “The reason I say that is because there are so many good stallions who don’t approach the cap.

“It’ll definitely make some of the more marginal stallions more popular. I don’t know how much it’s going to help the bottom stallions, but I really don’t see any negatives for the cap at all. The only negatives being it may reduce the numbers some of these stallions get syndicated for.”

Price also thinks the cap rewards the breeders not only by giving them less yearlings by a stallion to compete against at the sales, but also letting them follow their goals for their mares a bit more without being knocked commercially.

“More horses will have more of a chance and it will give breeders a chance to play the game as they wanted, which is ‘I like this mare for these reasons, I like that stallion for those reasons, I’m going to see if it produces a fast horse’.

“That stallion may not be a Kentucky Derby winner or two-year-old champion or a world-record holder at a mile, but he might have exhibited enough that a stallion

“I don’t know how much it’s going to help the bottom stallions, but I really don’t see any negatives for the cap at all farm is willing to take a chance and recruit enough breeders with a similar thought.

“So I think that can only be beneficial,” he explained.

When giving her opinion on the topic, O’Meara brought another argument to the discussion by pointing out the limited books will keep breeders from being able to use what they feel will best suit their mares.

“As a breeder we prefer that, even if we know a stallion is going to be bred to 200 mares, we want to make a racehorse and give our mares that opportunity to make a racehorse,” she says. “So we may still choose to breed to a stallion who is going to cover 200 mares.

“We would like to be able to do that and achieve the goals we have for our farm as a breeding operation. We breed to race and want to give our mares the best opportunity. If we have a young mare we think a lot of, we don’t mind spending a little more money to send her to a little more popular sire.”

One thing that everyone agreed on was that it was hard to know exactly how the cap would work out, though all were hoping it will be a success.

“At the end of the day, I think this is a philosophical question and we’ll see how it plays out,” says Bell. “I think it’s impossible to say which way will be better or worse.

“But I hope if it’s deemed a universally bad decision then it can be adjusted again.

“This was done because the intent of the Jockey Club is to protect the breed

“If it’s deemed in two decades that it didn’t protect the breed then you’d like to think that they can adjust again. Let’s see how it works!”