Early last month, three of the leading Kentucky thoroughbred stallion farms –Ashford Stud, Spendthrift and Three Chimneys – sued the Jockey Club and the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission, seeking to overturn a new Jockey Club rule that would eventually limit stallion books to a maximum of 140 mares per breeding season.
The American Jockey Club announced its new Rule 14c amendment of the American Stud Book rules and requirements on 7 May 2020 to address ‘a declining and concerning degree of diversity within the thoroughbred gene pool.
Declining genetic diversity has been linked by one study to a trend since 1996 of stallions breeding books of well over 100 mares.
The cap at 140 would begin with stallions foaled last year. For stallions born in 2019 and earlier, there continues to be no limit to the number of mares reported bred in the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico
On 29 March, The Jockey Club asked the United States District Court for the Easter District of Kentucky to dismiss litigation filed by Spendthrift Farm, Ashford Stud (Coolmore), and Three Chimneys Farm relating to their proposed stallion cap, reports bloodhorse.com.
The Jockey Club argued that “any injury to plaintiffs’ alleged future lost stud fees as a result of the stallion cap is entirely speculative and not ‘certainly impending.’
The farms have not and cannot point to a single yearling, weanling, or foal that they own or intend to purchase and predict with any accuracy that that horse will become such a popular stallion that, absent the stallion cap, it could have drawn upwards of 140 covers.
Further, The Jockey Club contends that it has the legal standing to limit a stallion’s foal crop.
In 2007, 5,894 mares (9.5% of the total) were bred by stallions who covered more than 140 mares.
By 2019, 7,415 mares (27% of the total) were covered by stallions with books of more than 140, a threefold increase, according to The Jockey Club’s report of mares bred statistics.
