The North American Thoroughbred breeding season got off to a slower than usual start this year, with commercial breeders delaying their mating decisions for months with the hope of gathering more information to bolster their stallion selections or negotiating a lower stud fee.
BloodHorse MarketWatch reported last summer that the Thoroughbred foal crop is predominantly a commercial product, with 51-52% of foals in the United States and Canada, respectively, being offered at auction. In Kentucky, 71% of foals are offered at least once as weanlings, yearlings, or 2-year-olds.
Breeders' emphasis on the commercial market comes with additional economic pressure to produce a foal suitable for a marketplace that is highly selective. Consequently, breeders are taking more time in making their mating decisions.
"The nature of the game is certainly evolving. And it's not just the sales that have become polarized. The seasons market has become polarized, too," said Darren Fox, sales manager with Darley Stallions at Jonabell Farm. "It's really tough to hit that bullseye over in the sales ring with the hot stallion, the physical, the x-rays, the scope, the walk—you know, it's daunting. So, breeders are just being careful and selective and maybe trying to delay that decision as long as possible to arrive at the right one."
Many of the major stallion farms in Central Kentucky reported seeing fewer commitments prior to the breeding season's start but said the number of mares ultimately booked rose steadily since mid-February. Unquestionably, it has taken the better part of the breeding season to get the books close to last year's totals.
"We'll be off a little bit but better, at this point, than where we were concerned we might be," Ned Toffey, general manager of Spendthrift Farm, said about the total number of mares bred at the Lexington farm that stands 29 stallions, including first-year sires National Treasure , Dornoch , and Kingsbarns .
"There are a certain number of breeders making decisions early on the high-end horses they know will be tough to get into. After that, people are being cautious. They're trying to see a foal or two and wait as long as they can to make a decision. We saw that a lot this year," Toffey said.
What has not changed is the commercial breeders' heavy focus on first-year stallions. The percentage of North American mares bred to first-year sires has varied from 11% to 20% in the U.S. and Canada since 2005, but the broodmare market share attracted by the new sires is more pronounced in Kentucky, ranging from 10% to 26% during the same period of time. Since 2005, first-year sires have bred 20% or more of the total mares bred in Kentucky for seven breeding seasons.
The most dominant first-year sire class in recent history entered stud in 2023 and included 11 stallions standing for $25,000 or more, the most to enter stud in this price range since 1997, according to research done by BloodHorse and Darley. This sire class included Flightline ($200,000), Life Is Good ($100,000), Jackie's Warrior ($50,000), Epicenter ($45,000), Jack Christopher ($45,000), Olympiad ($35,000), Corniche ($30,000), Golden Pal ($30,000), Cyberknife ($30,000), Early Voting ($25,000), and Mandaloun ($25,000). The 2023 first-year sires collectively bred 26% of all mares bred in Kentucky that year.
"There has been this troubling trend that everybody wants to breed to the same three or four horses at the different price points, and that remains," said John Sikura, president of Hill 'n' Dale Farms at Xalapa. "We're fortunate that we had horses like that at different price points. I don't think that it is necessarily the best thing for the business, the best thing for a breeder, or for the industry as a whole, but we don't have the ability to define what a breeder should do, only offer our stallions and it is their decision who they want to patronize.
"People breed now for sales profit as the primary criteria, and the secondary criteria is whether they believe this will be a great sire," he continued. "It is not all breeders, but it is generally speaking. Often the most popular horses are popular for all the right reasons, but people gravitate toward the ones they think will sire the most marketable first-crop yearlings. Then they are on to the next ones and to the next. I'm not complaining because people want to buy the (progeny by) freshman sires, so breeders are producing the horses they want to buy."
Young stallions typically endure a market adjustment after their inaugural year with the number of mares bred dropping from the second year through the fourth year at stud, when their first foals are 2. Once the first runners have shown their ability at the racetrack, then book sizes adjust accordingly.
These gap years for stallions are important because they need enough foals in the pipeline to keep the momentum going should they be successful as freshman sires. Filling the books during this period is becoming increasingly challenging for stallion owners.
With breeders slower to respond ahead of this year's breeding season, Spendthrift Farm and Taylor Made Stallions publicly adjusted their initial stud fees on 13 stallions, of which eight were in their second through fourth years at stud.
"With most farms, we were hearing about deep discounts. We decided to be very transparent about it and advertised it and got the word out," Toffey said. "At the end of the day, it's really no secret that this was a little bit tougher market. We try to be breeder friendly, and we want people to be able to make money.
"We're left with a very, very heavily commercial market and the trend that I've seen over the years is that people's filters at sales have just gotten that much finer. There may not be quite as many people buying horses out there and I think that breeders have reacted and feel they have to be as discerning as they can with their breeding decisions, because it's just that much tougher to sell," he said.
Ben Taylor, president of Taylor Made Stallions, said breeders did respond to the adjusted fees.
"Traffic definitely picked up," he said. "Breeders are very hesitant to use a stallion that has any chance of having a negative at the yearling sales, so they go to first-year horses or proven horses. The second year or third year will see a drop-off because the market is brutal. But you have to maintain a respectable pipeline because it's a numbers game. If a horse happens to get hot and they don't have the numbers, then you have a lull. A horse with 75 foals versus a stallion with 150 foals has to do twice as good to show up on a leading sires list."
Not every first-year stallion goes into the doldrums for their second through fourth years at stud. Some stallions have the charisma, strong early market returns, or the support of an ownership group controlling a large number of quality mares—maybe all three conditions—to carry them through.
"Yes, the breeders fall off a little more quickly than they used to (with the second-year stallions). But it all depends on the horse," said Elliott Walden, president/CEO and racing manager for WinStar Farm, which offered first-year sires Cogburn , Timberlake , and Heartland this year. "It's really specific to the horse. Like with Nashville and Life Is Good, we have no issue. Life Is Good has been 190 mares three years in a row."
Walden said this year's breeding season has been exceptionally consistent from the beginning for WinStar.
"It comes and goes. We didn't have a great breeding season last year, but we've had a good one this year," he said. "As far as contracts go, we're up about 25%. So it's just a question of where your horses are on the cycle, and this year we have three nice new horses."
First-year sires not only attract mares, they also help a farm promote the rest of its roster.
"They always help bring people in and then we can show them a wide range of horses when they come around," said Peter Sheehan, Lane's End's farm manager. "People want to breed to the popular horses and the rest you have to hustle on, but we have had another solid year."
Lane's End introduced Senor Buscador and More Than Looks to the stallion ranks this year. Sheehan said they have continued to get strong support for undefeated 2022 Horse of the Year Flightline as well as second-year sires Arcangelo and Up to the Mark .
"Arcangelo is a little ahead of last year and Up to the Mark is not far off where he was last year. It helps when they have good foals hitting the ground. I think quite a few breeders waited to see the foals and with these two they've been impressed, and we've had quite a few return breeders," he said.
Taylor said stallion prospects coming off the track have become so expensive that the ownership group behind them is critical to the stallion's success.
"When you're doing your proforma, you can't count on 150 foals in a third or fourth crop, it will be cut in half. You have to have the ownership group that supports a horse," he said. "We have been fortunate with Tacitus to have more than 100 mares in every crop and that is because of Don Alberto and Juddmonte."
Sikura said Hill 'n' Dale's multiple grade 1 winner Charlatan has remained popular with breeders as well.
"He is the first horse we've had that's had total immunity to this differentiation in interest between first, second, third year, and fourth year," he said. "Charlatan is as popular with current-year 2-year-olds as he was the first year he went to stud. But that is the rare exception."
This year Hill 'n' Dale is standing first-year sire Arabian Knight , a grade 1 winner by the late Uncle Mo.
"So it's funny, and I won't mention specific stallions, but it seemed every fifth mare that went to Arabian Knight went to one of these first-year stallions the year before," Sikura said. "It happened so often I thought: Am I looking at the same pedigree? Maybe I'm missing something? No, they're all bred to this horse. And next year, maybe instead of Arabian Knight, lots of them will go to whoever the new horse is."
| Percent Mares Bred by Stallion Covering Year (KY only) | |||||
| Percentages calculated from all mares bred in Kentucky | |||||
| Covering Year | 1st Year Stallions | 2nd Year Stallions | 3rd Year Stallions | 4th Year Stallions | 5th & Up Stallions |
| 2005 | 24% | 13% | 9.2% | 8.9% | 44% |
| 2006 | 20% | 18% | 11% | 8.3% | 43% |
| 2007 | 17% | 15% | 16% | 11% | 42% |
| 2008 | 20% | 13% | 10% | 14% | 42% |
| 2009 | 17% | 15% | 10% | 9.8% | 48% |
| 2010 | 9.6% | 15% | 12% | 13% | 50% |
| 2011 | 17% | 6.0% | 14% | 12% | 52% |
| 2012 | 16% | 13% | 6.5% | 14% | 51% |
| 2013 | 18% | 14% | 11% | 5.7% | 52% |
| 2014 | 18% | 13% | 12% | 11% | 46% |
| 2015 | 14% | 17% | 11% | 10% | 47% |
| 2016 | 21% | 12% | 14% | 11% | 43% |
| 2017 | 18% | 15% | 10% | 12% | 45% |
| 2018 | 19% | 15% | 13% | 9% | 44% |
| 2019 | 21% | 13% | 12% | 11% | 43% |
| 2020 | 15% | 16% | 11% | 13% | 44% |
| 2021 | 23% | 12% | 12% | 10% | 44% |
| 2022 | 17% | 18% | 10% | 13% | 42% |
| 2023 | 26% | 11% | 12% | 8.7% | 42% |
| 2024 | 19% | 19% | 8.0% | 12% | 42% |
| Source: The Jockey Club Information Systems | |||||
