But overseas blood has influenced American Thoroughbred racing for time out of mind. Right off the bat I’m thinking of Mahmoud, but he’s just one. And where would it be without Diomed?
Am I right in guessing “American MOs” means American owners of broodmares?
Yes, sorry - MO = Mare Owner 
You’re right, of course. My fingers were moving faster than my brain. I should have listed him as one who stayed in his regional market.
Without any actual data, my observation is that European WB breeding is becoming more homogenous as the top competition stallions are approved into multiple stud books, broadening the market for that stallion and all made possible by AI. Breeding horses for sport in Europe is a post-WW2 phenomenon, so about seven decades of experience compared to the five centuries of Thoroughbred breeding, tested on the race track. Today a registered Dutch WB maybe the same breeding as a Selle Francis as an Irish Sport Horse. Good or bad?
I feel pretty dumb reading all these comments. I had always thought the live cover requirement was to prevent fraud in such a high money sport. You know, get some semen from some unknown stallion and pass it off as Secretariat’s.
Thanks for the education about the industry.
DNA to match parentage is required by most registries when registering the offspring, regardless of how the foal is produced.
Of course. The thoroughbred was not founded in the United States.
Like most horse sports, racing has become very specialized and niche based on location. USA dirt racing has greatly departed from something like European routes. That doesn’t mean international horses are never successful elsewhere. But globally, the entire TB industry worldwide is very good at identifying when that will happen and has no problem procuring the blood.
Honestly, if you look at international pedigrees anymore, they are more American than not most places. For example, Dubawi is one of the leading sires in Great Britain. We could have 100 Dubawi sons standing here if we wanted. Most do not prove successful on dirt. And why would we ship semen across the ocean for lines we already have extensively?
IMO, the problem with AI is seen plainly in Arabian and QH and WB breeding. Inbreeding leads to genetic flaws. I saw an Arabian pedigree page last year. “Bask” was on the page… like 19 times. It was scary to look at. QH the same too. WB fragile foal syndrome. As the lineage gets tighter, more duplication of a “popular” stallion or family, the more issues crop up. Bad issues. Seen in cats and dogs too. This is not something that is going to benefit the TB breed. What is just as important as superstar individuals in a pedigree is the VARIATION in the pedigree… those individuals who may not have been superstars, but provide strength and DIFFERENT ancestors. Which is why crossbreeding works so well in non-racing pursuits. Genetic VARIATION. Geographic limitations insist on genetic variation. You may be able to breed to a son of Tapit rather than Tapit himself due to your location, but that gives you half a pedigree on the dam’s side that keeps your genetic variation strong. Don’t let the same thing happen to TBs as has happened and is happening to breeds and species that allow AI. So destructive to quality breeding practices. JMHO.
Could you imagine the cluster thoroughbreds would become if they allowed ET? You think 200+ mare stallion books are bonkers, wait until they flush a dozen embryos a pop out of the mare of the year. The entire top of the 3 year old crop will be full siblings. 
And then we have the stallion whose semen is sturdy, and ships well, with luck and timing he could impregnate several mares from one shipment. Of course the stallion owner will supply only one breeding certificate, leaving the MO to figure out which foal is the most promising.
How soon does the JC want the foal registered?
That existed before AI though. Look at Impressive in pedigrees before AI.
And no, inbreeding does not lead to genetic flaws. Genetic flaws are gene mutations. Sometimes the disease only requires a heterozygous state.
You can double up on,or perpetuate those with LC just as easily as AI, when the line of that mutation is popular, and local or you’re willing to ship to the popular stallion, ie Impressive and Poco Bueno.
HYPP and HERDA are both mutations that began in the early 70s, and the diseases themselves (homozygous required) were real problems long before AI was allowed (late 80s?)
PSSM is a very old mutation, long before AI became popular in any registry, causing disease state in the heterozygous form,
Arabians are probably one breed that does line breed a LOT.
That doesn’t really work in racing like it does with sport horses.
You aren’t on any stringent timeline to register your foal but it’s traditionally done in the summer of their first year before weaning. The cost goes up after the first year.
The problem is an unregistered TB is worthless for its intended purpose. An unregistered warmblood can whoops lose its papers and still go on to be a jumper or dressage horse or eventer or hunter with breeding unknown.
Edited umpteen million times because I hit reply too early.
There’s definitely no denying that AI would change things. You don’t think those regional sires would now have access to a broader mare base because they are no longer geographically ‘landlocked’?
We don’t really have certainties here since it hasn’t happened yet - but I’m thinking of how AI has benefitted the WB market. Genetic diversity has not suffered from AI with WBs.
There will always be people breeding to the cream of the crop and sending their best mares to best stallions, but from a regional/lower end market, there’s going to be people limited by their finances. I can’t see those people suddenly changing their behavior just because AI is around. If anything, I imagine if AI was allowed the regional market would still exist, because AI is sometimes much more expensive than live cover especially in the market where stallions are standing for lower four figures. In most events it would still be more economically viable for the financially limited to stick to regional market and live cover. AI is not cheap.
The negative side of me wants to point out the TB breed is already at risk of poor genetic diversity. I can’t see AI making this worse.
Nope.
Sure, there are horses like Not for Love or Unusual Heat who built regional legacies but could hold their own in most any market.
But the average breeder trying to stay in the black is not going to breed to say, Central Banker, if for the same price they can get semen for the hot new kid who there’s a good chance all the buyers will want. Nor is anyone going to say, “thank goodness I can ship Star Guitar semen to Arizona!” when they can access much more desirable sires for the same price.
Regional breeding programs build niches because they are working with what they have and what they can afford.
Adding to the comment above, the market is much more biased now in favor of “flavor of the moment” stallions which are Kentucky-based than it was even a few years ago. Many of the regional breeders who can afford the fees send their top mares to Kentucky because the potential return on investment is so much greater selling the offspring, even in state-bred sales.
You can look at sales results for NY, Maryland, and Ontario yearling sales and see the Kentucky sires top the list, and look at comments in BH or TDN dailies during the sales from breeders and buyers on the subject.
And let’s not forget Deputy Minister, although he moved to Kentucky because Windfields Maryland closed down, or his son Silver Deputy, who started at Windfields Ontario for $2,500 CDN and moved to Kentucky after he was second-leading freshman sire in North America.
Do you think that they will be charging comparable straw/dose fees? In my mind, I’m thinking that there would be a market shift in dosage fees just how there was for the WB world. You’ll still have your bottom market fees and you’ll still have your six figure ones, too. I can’t think of any six figure WBs, but that’s just because the market is very different. You still have your $4,000 Darco and your $850 Belafonte d’Avalon - both serving very different markets.
I admit that when AI was first floated, my knee jerk reaction was this would be the death of the smaller studs and regional industries. After seeing how AI has changed RIDs, WBs, and other registries, I don’t know if it would be as devastating as people project. RIDs are a great example since they still have a predominate regional market while still being able to sell AI overseas.
In any event this is a very interesting discussion. There are so many factors at play that make racing a truly unique industry. Thank you for humoring me.
Again, you have to compare apples to apples. Nothing about the warmblood breeding world is directly comparable.
Sure, there will be price corrections. But AI is not going to change what buyers want.
People knock the “commercial” TB breeding model all the time. Everyone just breeds to the same elite sires or the hot new freshman sires, sires never get a chance to prove themselves unless they immediately light the world on fire, blah blah blah.
But the problem is, racing is EXPENSIVE. You literally cannot afford to play the game unless you are royalty or you make money at it. Most people fall into the latter category, so they have to make money. In breeding, that means offering what buyers want.
Right now, a horse like Central Banker can garner a $7500 fee and a book of over 100 mares. But they don’t bring in that much money when you sell them; the money is in racing them in NY and earning kickbacks.
For $7500 in 2023, you could also breed to Greatest Honour. Who? The Fountain of Youth winner son of Tapit who covered more mares last year in his first year. His foals haven’t even hit the ground yet, but already he brings more money in as a covering sire.
Why? Because everyone wants to get in on the next big thing. At the end of the day, buyers don’t want a maiden claimer picking up small checks at Fingerlakes. They want a freaking Fountain of Youth winner. And so far, Greatest Honour hasn’t proven he can’t get one. He ticks all the other boxes, though, so that is somehow less risky that spending the same amount of money on a sire who is proven to get mostly average quality runners.
It goes the other way, too. Want to race in NY and pick up breeders incentives? Well wouldn’t it be advantageous to ship in semen from KY’s next big thing for your NY-bred rather than spend the money on ol’ reliable average quality sire down the road?
I think your post does highlight a very unique problem racing faces, which is where horses are bred for buyers versus racing. The two don’t necessarily correlate, and there has been a big incentive the last decade or so to breed to what’s hot and presentable at 2 y/o at the sales versus what’s a dependable regional option.
Regarding your breeder’s incentives concern, which I think is a very important point to raise – there could easily be new requirements (*IE both parents NY bred for NY breeders incentives) written into the incentives to discourage out-of-state studs being used.
It certainly highlights the growing divide between mom & pop breeding operations and Sheik funded superstuds. Racing has always been a rich person’s game but in today’s economy it’s entirely supported and subsidized by the uberwealthy.
I have a soft spot for the regional sires. It would break my heart to learn the Freuds, Say Florida Sandy, Hookandladder, and Louis Quatorzes of the world no longer have a market. They are important, and I’m in full agreement with you there that they provide value to the gene pool. I’m not confident that their impact would be diminished by allowing AI, but I can agree that there would need to be a major overhaul of how regional/incentive driven rewards work if AI was introduced. Maybe there are AI discounts if it’s an in-state breeding? I think comparing potential AI fees to stud fees currently might be unfair, because I think the first thing that would happen if AI was allowed is regional sires would not have comparable fees out-of-state. The market would self-correct this so Central Banker would continue to appeal to his regional mare-base / racing market while Greatest Honour would continue to appeal to people breeding for the sales market.
Racing in its current market is unsustainable long term. There are a lot of corrections coming to the industry that are going to be forced there by the economy and social climate. You either embrace the future, which can sometimes mean toppling longstanding cultural norms like live cover, or you lose your broader market and die in the past. While we’re not at that point yet, the scales already tipped a long time ago. It’s why 2008 has twice the amount of horses produced than 2022.
This is certainly a very interesting topic, and you’ve raised a lot of valid points. I appreciate we have a place to have these conversations, since I feel there are very few platforms in which to do this in person.
This already exists.
But like @ejm pointed out above, a KY-sired horse will almost always bring more than a state-sired horse at regional sales, even when everything is equivalent.
So most state incentive programs allow you to use outside blood, within limits. The way NY does it is you earn more for NY-sired horses versus outside NY-sired horses. Some other states have rules like you have to use an in-state sired horse every other year, but can use other sires in the off years. Some states just have foaling and residency requirements.
But hopefully you can see— already we have to make concessions in state-bred programs so breeders can survive. Shifting to AI would just further homogenize what we breed.
By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. You may also receive promotional emails from The Chronicle of the Horse. You can opt out at any time.
For Customers
Company
Terms of Use
