By Bill Finley
The Jockey Club (TJC) announced Wednesday that breedings in 2021 have resulted in 18,609 live foals of 2022. At this same time last year, The Jockey Club reported that the breedings had resulted in 19,021 live foals, which marks a year-over-year decline of 2.2%. The foal crop has declined every year since 2015 and was at 35,274 as recently as 2008.
The Jockey Club estimated that the number of live foals reported so far is 85-90% complete.
In total, 1,303 stallions covered 29,065 mares, according to statistics compiled through Oct. 6. The number of stallions declined from the 1,447 that were active in the preceding year, a drop of 10%, and the number of mares bred declined by 2.1%.
Kentucky was once again the runaway leader when it comes to Thoroughbred breeding activity, accounting for 57.8% of the mares reported to be bred in North America and 61.6 % of the live foals. A total of 16,796 mares were bred to 207 different Kentucky-based stallions, producing 11,460 live foals, for a 0.7% decrease over figures from the previous year. However, the number of mares bred to Kentucky stallions showed a slight increase of 1.9%.
Among the 10 states and provinces that were among the top 10 in terms of mares covered, four–California, Ontario, Oklahoma and Indiana–produced more live foals in 2022 than in 2021. Indiana had the biggest gain, with the number of live foals reported going up by 20.3%.
Outside of Kentucky, California was the leader in number of mares bred with 1,939. Florida was next with 1,617.
The Coolmore stallion Practical Joke (Into Mischief) led all stallions in the category of mares bred. He was bred to 231 mares. Second on the list was Goldencents (Into Mischief) at 230. Showing the popularity of sons of Into Mischief, Authentic (Into Mischief), in what will be his first crop, was next at 229 mares. Vekoma (Candy Ride {Arg}), also a first-crop sire, came in fourth, having been bred to 222 mares. Maclean's Music (Distorted Humor) was next at 221, making a remarkable jump after being bred to 57 mares the prior year.
Still another son of Into Mischief (Honest Mischief) led the way in the category of non-Kentucky-based sires. Standing in New York, he was bred to 127 mares.
Twelve stallions were bred to 200 or more mares and 43 were bred to 140 or mares, which exceeds the cap The Jockey Club had attempted to impose to encourage diversity in the breed.
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