The Jockey Club on Thursday reported that 1,630 stallions covered 32,508 mares in North America during 2018, according to statistics compiled through Sept. 26, 2019. These breedings have resulted in 20,363 live foals of 2019 being reported to The Jockey Club on Live Foal Reports.
The Jockey Club estimates that the number of live foals reported so far is approximately 90 percent complete. The reporting of live foals of 2019 is down 3.6 percent from last year at this time when The Jockey Club had received reports for 21,130 live foals of 2018.
In addition to the 20,363 live foals of 2019 reported through Sept. 26, The Jockey Club also received 2,405 No Foal Reports for the 2019 foaling season. Ultimately, the 2019 registered foal crop is projected to reach 20,800.
The number of stallions declined 8.3 percent from the 1,778 reported for 2017 at this time last year, while the number of mares bred declined 5.2 percent from the 34,288 reported for 2017.
Earlier this year, The Jockey Club put forth a proposal for a rule to limit the annual breeding of individual stallions starting with the 2021 breeding season.
According to The Jockey Club, 37 stallions reported in excess of 140 mares bred in 2007, each from a total of 3,865 stallions. By 2010, that number had declined to 24. Since then, the number has nearly doubled to 43 stallions reporting 140 or more mares bred from a population of stallions that now stands at less than one-half that of 2007.
Kentucky annually leads all states and provinces in terms of Thoroughbred breeding activity. Kentucky-based stallions accounted for 53.7 percent of the mares reported bred in North America in 2018 and 59.9 percent of the live foals reported for 2019.
The 17,446 mares reported bred to 241 Kentucky stallions in 2018 have produced 12,200 live foals, a 1.4 percent decrease on the 12,370 Kentucky-sired live foals of 2018 reported at this time last year. The number of mares reported bred to Kentucky stallions in 2018 increased 0.3 percent compared to the 17,401 reported for 2017 at this time last year.
Among the 10 states and provinces with the most mares covered in 2018, three produced more live foals in 2019 than in 2018 as reported at this time last year: California, Louisiana, and Maryland. The following table shows the top 10 states and provinces ranked by number of state/province-sired live foals of 2019 reported through Sept. 26, 2019.
| 2018 Mares Bred | 2018 Live Foals | 2019 Live Foals | Percent Change in Live Foals | |
| Kentucky | 17,446 | 12,370 | 12,200 | -1.4% |
| California | 2,546 | 1,577 | 1,612 | 2.2% |
| Florida | 2,057 | 1,217 | 1,164 | -4.4% |
| Louisiana | 1,207 | 713 | 728 | 2.1% |
| New York | 1,122 | 777 | 703 | -9.5% |
| Maryland | 877 | 483 | 537 | 11.2% |
| Ontario | 730 | 495 | 377 | -23.8% |
| Pennsylvania | 680 | 373 | 339 | -9.1% |
| New Mexico | 678 | 372 | 307 | -17.5% |
| Oklahoma | 646 | 329 | 289 | -12.2% |
