AN interesting document distributed at the racing conference on Monday in Paris was an up-to-date statistical information booklet compiled by the Secretariat to the International Stud Book Committee. The 12-page publication contains some fascinating details about the relative sizes of the breeding population in some 70 countries around the world where racehorses were bred.
The leading nations, as we would recognise them, are obvious but there are some fascinating names lurking among the top 10s, and one that caught my eye was the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. While just missing out on a top 10 slot in the stallion listing – but ranking higher than Britain – they make the top tier for broodmare numbers and the size of their foal crop.
Having been overtaken a few years ago by Argentina, Ireland has in the last two years risen again to third place in the world in terms of both the foal and broodmare crop sizes, while we sit seventh on the stallion list, leading to an average of 52 mares covered per stallion numbers at stud – the highest in the world.
Some countries not making the list but worth mentioning in terms of their broodmare crop sizes are Germany with 1,078 mares, India with 1,940, Italy with just 765 and South Africa with 1,308.
The overall foal crop size worldwide has fallen steadily since 2008 and is the lowest in nine years. Asia and Oceania produces 33% of the global foal numbers (includes Australia, India, Japan, Saudi Arabia, New Zealand and Turkey), Europe and Africa wade in with 27%, North America and the Caribbean have 24%, while South America mops up with 16%.
Last year 1.023 AQPS foals were born and all but two were in France – the remainder were foaled in Britain. Finally, just three countries on the list had a single thoroughbred foal registered in 2016 and they were Lebanon, Syria and the UAE.
Breeders, stallion masters and readers are invited to contact Leo Powell at leopowell@theirishfield.ie with news and updates for the column, and to visit our website www.theirishfield.ie for daily breeding news