Opinions on the Cap: Sones and Yoshida

[Wandering Eyes]

Editor’s note: This entry concludes our daily opinion submissions on The Jockey Club’s proposal to cap the number of mares in a stallion’s book to 140.

Aaron Sones, Breeder
Naoya Yoshida, DVM, Veterinarian and Breeder
Winchester Farm, Lexington, KY

Important facts to remember while discussing this subject:
1. America is about free market and free competition. Any limit to a Thoroughbred stallion production should be natural only. Natural selection, natural breeding, fertility, libido and stallion management are the basis of the Thoroughbred industry. In the wild, the most physically capable males are the ones that breed.

2. Let the breeders decide which stallions they want to send their mares to. Small and medium sized breeders should have the chance and opportunity to breed to the stallion of their choice. It is extremely difficult to book a mare to a “capped” stallion who has a maximum capacity of 140 mares. Stallion farms make priority to their stallion shareholders and boarding clients. Capping the number of mares is an anti-competitive practice that will keep some stallion farms in business and force breeders to use sires they frankly have no faith in.

3. The U.S. Thoroughbred foal crop is estimated to be around 20,000 per year. There is very little difference statistically between a stallion who sires 200 live foals per year (1% of the foal population) and a stallion who sires 130 live foals per year (0.65% of the foal population). A 0.35-point difference holds little effect on the genetic pool.

4. High crops actually increase the chances of new sires and sire lines coming to the fore. The selection occurs on the racetrack and the present system works well. If a young sire cannot make it with his first two crops, then he is ruthlessly removed from the stallion farms’ breeding program to make room for new sires to get their chance.

5. The present genetic pool in fact relies on the 30,000 thoroughbred broodmares who are bred each year in the U.S. Every breeder knows that having a select broodmare band is the key to success. As 4th generation breeders, we believe that the best broodmares transmit between 60% to 70% of their genetic quality to their progeny. Thanks to many recent imports of top fillies and broodmares from Europe, South America and Australia/New Zealand, the genetic pool continues to progress in the area of diversity.

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