2016 Report of Mares Bred

[vineyridge]

I’ve just gone through it and looked at every single stallion who covered mares in 2016.

There were 4 stallions who covered more than 200 mares-- Kitten’s Joy at 201, American Pharoah at 208, Into Mischief at 218, and Uncle Mo at 253. Except for 1 or 2 horses in California and 1 or two horses in Florida, every single stallion who covered more than 100 mares stood in Kentucky, and that was almost every Kentucky stallion.

State bred programs don’t do a lot to encourage breeding if all the nice mares are covered in Kentucky and come home to drop their foals.

Tapit covered 125 mares, and War Front covered 111. I guess Uncle Mo’s connections are making up in volume what those two make in their stud fees.

So this year, how many mares will Uncle Mo likely cover? If you figure 120 days of breeding season, he covered just over two new mares every single day in 2016.

[ravenclaw]

I’m surprised Tapit didn’t cover more than 125. I guess some farms are a little more conservative with their stallions (which I think is a good thing).

[EventerAJ]

Tapit has a very, very high stud fee (earned from outstanding performance, breaking his own progeny earnings record yet again). Not many mares are worthy of that fee, so he’s not likely to see big numbers at that price.

Uncle Mo is at Ashford and a hot commodity right now. I’m sure they supported him with plenty of their own mares. Other farms, particularly Claiborne (War Front), do put a cap on their stallions’ books.

State bred program stallions are largely inferior to KY stallions (thus, why they aren’t in KY and have a lower stud fee). Breeders aren’t dumb…to have a more competitive horse, it makes sense to breed to a better KY stallion and foal the mare out in another state (and breed her back to a state stallion, or whatever it takes to make the foal State-Bred). Horses by KY stallions are simply more marketable, especially if they have the “State” tag vs other State breds.

That Uncle Mo bred 253 mares means he’s pretty fertile. Most sheds do 2 or 3 breedings a day during the season; some places (Ashford is one) will add in extra sessions during off-hours (usually for their own farm mares, but I’ve had to shuttle a mare for a late breeding before). If the stallion is getting his mares in foal on one cover, it allows more mares in the book since you won’t have to breed the same mare 2 or 3 times. The busy stallion staff most certainly want to know ASAP if your mare is pregnant or needs a return cover, so they can juggle his book accordingly.

As far as the number of Uncle Mo in 2017? Probably about the same. New stallions come every year, and new freshman/sophomore sires make their mark with successful progeny on the track, taking some luster off the existing stallions. But for now, Uncle Mo is a successful, fashionable choice and many will take advantage of the opportunity to breed to him.

[LaurieB]

Tapit’s book was capped at 125 mares last year. It’s probably about the same this year.

[snaffle1987]

I admire those who cap their books. 125 is still a lot but Tapit is 16 years old and I think their #1 priority is keeping him healthy, happy, and continuing on. Seems like these stallions who cover massive books tend to have drastically shortened life spans if you do the research.

At 300K per mare, that’s 37 million in stud fees earned by Tapit.

[omare]

I would imagine they would want to keep the number of settled mares respectable hence a relatively smaller book for fantastic older stallions? Though it is live foal i imagine an unsettled top mare at the end of the season is expensive loss of revenue for the next year…