Three key North American bloodstock metrics regarding 2018 matings and 2019 live foal reports all posted declines from previous-year breeding statistics, The Jockey Club (TJC) announced Thursday.
With the reporting of 2019 live foals now estimated at 90% completion, TJC stated in a press release that the 20,363 live foals reported through Sept. 26 represent a 3.6% drop over same-time reporting from last year.
Based on that figure, TJC is projecting that the 2019 registered foal crop will ultimately top out at 20,800, which would be the lowest total since 1966, when 20,228 Thoroughbreds were foaled.
The high mark for the continent's crop was in 1986, when 51,296 Thoroughbreds were foaled. With the exception of one very small (12-foal) uptick in 2015, the North American foal crop has declined every year since 2006.
According to TJC, 1,630 stallions (down 8.3% from last year) covered 32,508 mares (down 5.2%) in North America during 2018.
For a historical perspective, the number of active stallions on the continent has now declined in every single year since at least 1991 (the oldest date for which TJC publishes those online statistics), when TJC reported 6,696 active stallions. The 2018 figure represents 24.3% of that 1991 year-end stallion total.
And the number of mares bred in 2018 is now just 51.2% of what the year-end report was for 1991, when 63,479 mares were bred.
The individual leading stallions in terms of foals produced in 2019 are Into Mischief (Harlan's Holiday) with 199; Klimt (Quality Road) with 158; Cupid (Tapit) with 153; Overanalyze (Dixie Union) with 151, and Practical Joke (Into Mischief) with 147.
The state of the states
As expected, perennial bloodstock epicenter Kentucky topped the continent in terms of Thoroughbred breeding activity. Kentucky-based stallions accounted for 53.7% of the mares reported bred in North America in 2018 and 59.9% of the live foals reported for 2019.
Individual Kentucky stallions took the top 36 placings on TJC's list in terms of number of foals produced, and they also occupied the top 18 positions in number of mares bred.
The 17,446 mares reported bred to 241 Kentucky stallions in 2018 produced 12,200 live foals, a 1.4% decrease on a year-to-year comparison. The number of mares reported bred to Kentucky stallions in 2018 increased slightly, by 0.3%.
Chauncey Morris, the executive director of the Kentucky Thoroughbred Association and Kentucky Thoroughbred Owners & Breeders (KTA/KTOB), told TDN that even though the industry has contracted for the better part of a decade, “We're still the deepest part of the lake here in Kentucky as far as breeding is concerned. The Kentucky-bred horses really distinguish themselves in open company in North America and also around the world.”
When asked if he thought the year-after year declines now require bloodstock benchmarks that are based on a “new normal,” Morris offered a two-part answer.
“We'd love to breed more horses if there were buyers for them. That's the first part,” Morris said. “But the second part is, you see what the percentages are of how much [Kentucky] is contributing. We've never contributed this much to the foal crop, ever. Not to tempt fate, but if you look at Books 1 through 4 of Keeneland September and compare those averages and medians from 2018 to 2019, there was appreciable growth. Most of those were our horses. So it shows that there is an appetite for what I'd characterize as the commercial market, still, for our horses.
“As far as larger questions that are outside of the realm of breeders, [the answers] really depend more on the health of racing, not only in North America but around the world,” Morris continued. “We'd love to breed more horses. I think we're breeding quite a bit here in Kentucky. And hopefully, at some point, we outlast this plateau and have growth.”
Among the 10 states and provinces with the most mares covered in 2018, three produced more live foals in 2019 than in 2018: Maryland (up 11.2%), California (up 2.2%), and Louisiana (up 2.1%).
“It's really competitive in this region,” said Cricket Goodall, the executive director of the Maryland Horse Breeders Association. “We've got some new and exciting stallions, and I think that piques people's interest and gets people to pay attention here. We also have stallion managers and owners that have been pretty aggressive in their recruitment to get mares, because each state around here has its own interesting incentive program, and you have to weigh the benefits and talk people into breeding in your state. Those guys work really hard to get mares from Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia and other states.
“We're all competing for the same pool of broodmares,” Goodall continued. “So I think it's good news, but what we really need is more owners. That's the next step. We have to get people in this business and breeding, and the only way to do that is by making it economically viable for people to breed horses and at least recoup some of their investment. They have fun and they love it, but they still have to be able to get some of their investment back.”
The seven remaining states/provinces within that 10-most-active list all showed year-over-year foal declines. Those that took the steepest drops were Ontario (down 23.8%), New Mexico (down 17.5%), Oklahoma (down 12.2%), and New York (down 9.5%).
TJC's foaling statistics also included 303 progeny of stallions standing in North America but foaled abroad. As reported by foreign stud book authorities at the time of publication, the individual countries that led that category were Saudi Arabia (107), Korea (57), Ireland (27), and Japan (22).
TJC reported that 279 stallions mated but did not produce a live foal.
The 80/20 Rule
You've heard of the 80/20 rule. That's the long-established economics axiom that rings true across all sorts of large-number endeavors, consistently showing that the top 20% in any given population base reliably generates 80% of the results.
It turns out that the 80/20 rule–also known as the Pareto principle, named after the 19th-century Italian economist who coined the calculation–is right on the money in terms of gauging the 2019 foal crop.
If 1,631 stallions covered mares in 2018, that puts the cutoff for the top 20% at number 326 on the list.
Collectively, that top 20% subset of 326 stallions produced 16,369 foals–or 80.3% of the total crop.
The accuracy of the 80/20 rule when applied to the 2019 foal crop wasn't a surprise to the KTA/KTOB's Morris.
“It's a trend that's been happening,' Morris said. “Not only has the broodmare population contracted in the United States, but also the number of stallions. So to infer [by using a] market forces argument, that which survives [will be] a little bit more marketable and serviceable, and [it will] add value to any market—in this case the bloodstock market.”
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