Australia’s thoroughbred foal crop in 2025 could be the smallest since the mid-1970s, but studmasters believe the probable outcome is much better than they initially feared heading into the breeding season.
The Straight has spoken to stallion operations across the eastern seaboard which indicate that the majority of studs have found it more difficult to attract mares to their stallions, particularly to those sires deemed to be in the commercially higher risk categories, compared to previous years.
Despite the likely continuation of the long-term trend of a contraction of the national foal crop, and the fact the breeders are coming off a more difficult yearling sales season, owners have by and large chosen to still have their mares mated this year.
Widden’s nominations and sales manager Matt Comerford says mare coverings to the Antony Thompson-run farm’s two-state stallion roster, led by Zoustar, will end up being down by about 10 to 12 per cent compared to 2023, but the numbers are far better than what the stud initially forecast.
“I did feel going into the first week of August, we were probably struggling more than what we might have anticipated in previous years, but our bookings from the middle of August all the way through to September and even early October were really, really strong,” Comerford said.
“That's probably due to the breeders sitting there with a mare and a foal with no mating plans and deciding to mate her as there is more upside in having a mare and foal rather than leaving her sitting there empty.”
Newgate Farm was Australia’s busiest stallion operation in 2023 by market share - Tassort was the country’s most used sire last year, covering 232 mares - and stud principal Henry Field indicated that the Hunter Valley nursery was likely to maintain its pole position again this year.
That is despite Newgate being dealt a blow early in the breeding season when first-season sire Militarize was withdrawn from service after being found to be infertile, reducing its roster of stallions which includes the statistically brilliant but fertility limited Extreme Choice and his popular Golden Slipper-winning son Stay Inside as well as first-season Coolmore Stud Stakes-winning stallion Ozzmosis.
Field agreed 2024 had been a challenging year for the majority of stallion farms and that Newgate was no exception.
Warwick Barr
“The horses that are popular, they are uber popular and the horses that aren't are pretty tough (to attract mare bookings for),” Field said.
“But I'd say that’s the market in general.”
Another leading farm surveyed by The Straight revealed its mare coverings were down by about 8 per cent year-on-year but counteracting that is Vinery reporting that its stallion roster of seven will collectively end up covering more mares this year than in 2023.
That is due to the popularity of Exceedance, whose first crop two-year-olds showed promise last season, and Ole Kirk’s early season two-year-olds such as King Kirk winning the Group 3 Breeders’ Plate.
“I was only just saying to someone that it's been a bit of a different year for us, to be honest. We've probably gone the other way,” Vinery’s Adam White says of the Hunter Valley stud’s mare bookings.
“Our mare number has probably increased from last year, but that’s probably because of the circumstances of having a new horse, Hawaii Five-O, who was very well received, and Exceedance did really well with his first crop on the track, so he's going to cover 180 to 190 mares.”
Third and fourth-year stallions have always been more difficult to attract mares given by the time the foals are presented to the market, the sires’ progeny will be well exposed, so there has been greater emphasis on supporting first-season sires or the genuinely proven commodities.
Matt Stewart
“I say it many times, but stallion rosters are like footy teams. You've just got to wait for your young boys in your list to start playing well, and that's what's happened with a few of our young stallions,” White said.
The Australian Stud Book has not released the number of mares served last year, but data from mare returns show there were 16,757 mares covered in 2022, producing 12,533 live foals born in 2023.
Using that figure with a baseline prediction of a 10 per cent decline in 2024 on 16,757 mares covered, it would be expected that no more than 11,000 live foals will be born next year and that doesn’t account for the expectation that there were fewer mares served in 2023 compared to the previous season.
If that hypothesis holds true then in 12 months, the 2024 matings will produce the smallest Australian thoroughbred foal crop since the mid-1970s.
Fifty years ago, just 40 per cent of mares served each year ended up producing a live foal, but that percentage has risen in the ensuing five decades to a relatively consistent 65 per cent.
Swettenham Stud general manager Sam Matthews says 2024 has proven the most difficult season he has encountered, suggesting breeders were looking to minimise their financial exposure as much as possible.
That meant of the five stallions on Swettenham’s Victorian roster, the proven Toronado was fully booked while first-season sire Lofty Strike received strong support and has served about 120 mares, but Rubick, I Am Immortal and Wooded suffered, with their mare coverings falling by about 40 per cent compared to 2023.
“Some farms have dealt really, really heavily and we're not a farm that deals all that heavily. We sort of try to protect the value of the horse rather than just getting the numbers and doing them really cheap,” Matthews says.
“Everyone smelt blood in the water and you either have to drop the prices (of service fees in line) with everyone else and get the numbers or you hold firm as true as you can and you don't get quite as many numbers.
Bren O’Brien
“I think there's been more deals done this year across the board than what they have been done in previous years and I'd be surprised if there's not a lot more foal shares done with some of those sort of $30,000 to $50,000 horses.”
Arrowfield Stud encountered its own challenges, aside from the prevailing market sentiment, with The Autumn Sun ruled out for the season due to injury and Castelvecchio sidelined for the later period after undergoing colic surgery.
“The horses that are popular, they are uber popular and the horses that aren't are pretty tough (to attract mare bookings for). But I'd say that's the market in general” - Newgate's Henry Field
Snitzel, the four-time champion sire, is also being kept on restricted duties by covering a smaller book of mares at the age of 22 and in his 19th season at stud.
Arrowfield bloodstock manager Jon Freyer suggests the pool of small-time breeders, some who often race their mares’ progeny, was contracting.
“But there's others who are breeding more mares, so the slack's getting taken up elsewhere,” Freyer says.
“The number of individual breeders seems to be less and the industry's becoming more polarised, probably in terms of the mare owners and the stallion owners as well. There's fewer commercial stallions standing and fewer stallion farms than there ever was, I think.”
One Victorian studmaster said late-season coverings had dropped off significantly, with breeders unwilling to have their mares covered in December, most likely due to the perceived punishment placed on the foals in the yearling sales due to their later birth date.
Other studmasters have backed up that assessment, pointing further to the increasingly commercial nature of Australia’s breeding industry.
As for the exact figures, the Australian Stud Book will reveal all about this time next year.
