Jockey Club applies to have US stallion cap legal challenge thrown out

The Jockey Club contends it has the power to limit the number of mares a stallion can cover in a season and has asked that litigation filed by three top Kentucky-based horse farms to prevent implementation of that stallion cap rule be dismissed.

On Monday The Jockey Club and defendants tied to the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission asked the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky to dismiss litigation filed last month by Spendthrift Stallions, Ashford Stud and Three Chimneys, on the grounds that the farms' complaint is speculative.

In a 31-page memorandum, the defendants argue that "any injury to plaintiffs' alleged future lost stud fees as a result of the stallion cap is entirely speculative and not 'certainly impending.' The farms have not and cannot point to a single yearling, weanling, or foal that they own or intend to purchase and predict with any accuracy that that horse will become such a popular stallion that, absent the stallion cap, it could have drawn upwards of 140 covers."

In the memorandum, The Jockey Club contends that it has the proper legal standing to limit a stallion's foal crop and the power to enforce that rule by not registering each resulting foal in excess of 140. It states that, "plaintiffs cannot maintain any claim that TJC violated their constitutional rights because TJC is not a state actor. A private entity acting on its own cannot deprive another of its constitutional rights."

A filing on behalf of KHRC chairman Jonathan Rabinowitz and executive director Marc Guilfoil, who are named as defendants in their official capacities with the regulator, argues that the commission has sovereign and/or governmental immunity from any and all claims set forth in the complaint and fails to state claims against the commission upon which relief can be properly granted.

The Jockey Club announced its new Rule 14c amendment of the American Stud Book rules and requirements on May 7, 2020 to address "a declining and concerning degree of diversity within the thoroughbred gene pool."

Declining genetic diversity has been linked by one study to a trend since 1996 of stallions breeding books of well over 100 mares. In 2007, 5,894 mares (9.5 per cent of the total) were bred by stallions who covered more than 140 mares. By 2019, 7,415 mares (27 per cent of the total) were covered by stallions with books of more than 140, a threefold increase, according to The Jockey Club's report of mares bred statistics.

The cap at 140 would begin with stallions foaled last year. For stallions born in 2019 and earlier, there continues to be no limit to the number of mares reported bred in the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico.

Note: BloodHorse is jointly owned by The Jockey Club Information Systems and TOBA Media Properties.

Some recent bloodstock reads

All you need to know about new online sales house Auctav

£ How the point-to-point scene fuels Ireland's jumping dominance

Meet Goffs' new signing stateside

Balko Des Flos tops Goffs sale at £110,000

The breeding legacy of the great Sheikh Hamdan

'It gives us great pleasure' - meet the keen young couple behind Ashbrooke Stud