“Any foal that is the product of either artificial insemination, embryo transfer, or transplant, cloning, or any other form of genetic manipulation is not eligible for registration.”

The foregoing is an extract from the 1977 Jamaica Racing Commission (JRC) Rule 93(5)(i). This is standard, globally accepted, and adopted, restrictive affirmative action to protect the investment of the traditional breeders of thoroughbreds for racing. Below are the specifics as applied in the United States.

Breeding Practices Not Approved by the US Jockey Club

Artificial Insemination: Any act of depositing semen into the reproductive tract of a broodmare in order to inseminate a broodmare without the physical mounting by a stallion and contemporaneous intromission of the stallion’s penis into the broodmare with ejaculation of semen into the broodmare’s reproductive tract.

Cloning: Any method by which the genetic material of an unfertilised egg or an embryo is (i) removed, (ii) replaced by genetic material taken from another organism, (iii) added to with genetic material from another organism, or (iv) otherwise modified by any means in order to produce a live foal.

Embryo Transfer (Transplants): The method whereby a developing embryo or unfertilised egg is removed from its natural dam and implanted into the reproductive tract of either the natural dam or a host dam for a portion of the gestation period in order to produce a live foal.

Be informed that all modern thoroughbred horses trace their ancestry to three foundation stallions imported to England from the Middle East in the late 17th and early 18th centuries: the Darley Arabian, Godolphin Arabian (or Barb), and Byerley Turk. These stallions were crossed with native English mares to develop the breed for speed and stamina. The rest of courseis history, with those bloodlines preserved indefinitely across the globe since then.

By the end of the 18th century, the breeding of thoroughbreds had become a business venture, driven by the growth in the popularity of wagering on horse racing with the establishment of a bookmaking industry in the United Kingdom. Ownership of racehorses became aprestigious pastime, in fact, a sport for the British aristocracy, symbolic of status, and the designation “the sport of kings” emerged in due course.

Two centuries and some later, the global breeding industry has been hit by a lack of adequate investment, especially in North, Central, and South America. This, the Pan American region, has a different dynamic from what entails elsewhere in the horse racing world. Here, for gaming purposes, the racing product is delivered in a complicated and counter-productive claiming system format.

On the other hand, with the product formatted in the British Horseracing Authority handicap system model, jurisdictions in Great Britain and continental Europe (France, Italy, Germany, etc), as well as in Africa, Australia, New Zealand, India, Japan, Hong Kong, South Korea, and the Emirates, horse racing is doing well enough. In fact, objectively, some may justifiably say it is flourishing everywhere except in the Pan American region.

However, a shortage of foals stymies efforts to expand the annual calendars in the jurisdictions cited above, despite the vibrancy of the existing market.The problem has also been exacerbated by the three-and-a-half-decade annual decline in the number of foals delivered by breeding sheds in North America (USA, Canada & Puerto Rico).

There were 44,143 North American foals registered in 1990, and the extent of the fallout in investment in the industry is epitomised by the 2025 return from the breeding sheds on the continent. There is a downturn of nearly 60 per cent in three-and-a-half decades, withthe 2025 foal registration numbering 17,300,which was 600 fewer than the 2024 crop.

For live horse racing to have a predictable future, the breeding protocols outlined by the JRC Rule, the US Jockey Club, and regulators elsewhere in the world will have to be rescinded to allow for the sophisticationof modern science to ramp up the production of foals.

Volumes of foals will have to be the order of the day. There is no doubt that quality will inevitably emergesince genetically, the breed will still produce the traditional seven classes or levels of ability. The signal benefit of artificial insemination is that the bloodlines of the stallionswill be expanded exponentially to add value across breeding establishments, with extracted semen available forthe taking tomares in different locations.

Naturally, broodmares, raced, and or unraced, will assume more importance and value, but the overall price of foals will decrease to more affordable levels. Thelikely outcome will bethe expansion of the ownership base,and investors in the breeding industry should achieve economic viability withthe expected significant increase in volume sales.

I would like to have a variety of views, with the rationale for or against, from all interested parties, but I hope the following persons will be among the expert respondents. Veterinarians Sophia Ramlal and St Aubyn Bartlett, Karen Parsard (champion breeder 2025), Howard Hamilton, Clovis Metcalfe, Richard Azan, Philip Feanny, Laurence Heffes, Henry W Jaghai, Alec Henderson, and Michael Bernard.

It cannot be business as usual in the local and global breeding industry, and the upgraded and approved intervention of scientific application, with the appropriate checks and balances, is the way forward.

Contact: wesmartinhorseracing@gmail.com.