Jockey Club projects drop to 17,000 in ’26 foal harvest

The Jockey Club projects a North American registered Thoroughbred foal crop of 17,000 in 2026. This represents 300 foals fewer than the estimate of 17,300 foals in 2025.

The foal crop projection is calculated based on reports received to date from Mares Bred for the 2025 breeding season. RMBs must be submitted by August 1 of each breeding season.

This year, The Jockey Club published preliminary statistics on mares bred by state/province through the current date for 2024, 2023 and 2022. These reports are updated daily and can be found here.

For RMBs received through September 30, The Jockey Club reports that 740 stallions have covered 24,681 mares in North America in 2025.

The Jockey Club estimates that an additional 2,000 to 3,000 mares will be reported as bred during the 2025 breeding season.

Of the RMB reports received, 201 mares were part of the Mare Incentive Program, which waives registration fees for certain 2026 foals from mares that meet The Jockey Club’s criteria. This initiative was announced in December 2024 to stimulate interest in mares that appear to have left production. The Mare Incentive Program mares report is available to anyone with an interactive registration account and can be filtered by 12 data elements, including sire, dam sire, age, money earned and breed class achieved.

The following table shows the number of stud stallions and number of mares bred in North America over the past ten years, as reported to The Jockey Club through September 30 of the breeding year.

RMB statistics, sorted by stallion, mares bred or condition, for all reported stallions in 2025 are available from The Jockey Club’s Fact Book section website.

Kentucky has traditionally led North America in thoroughbred breeding activities. In 2025, Kentucky’s 189 reported stallions included 16,373 mares, or 66% of all mares reported to have been bred in North America. Data based on stallion location is available at bit.ly/narmb.

The following table shows a segmentation of the number of mares bred per stallion for 2025, as reported to The Jockey Club through September 30.

The following table shows the number of stallions that included 200 or more mares and the number of mares bred by these stallions in North America, as reported to The Jockey Club through September 30 of the breeding year.

Tiz the law had the highest number of mares bred in 2025 with 274 followed by Arabian Knight (273), Practical joke (263), To justify (244), Charge it (235), Domestic product (224), Rifle runner (218), Not this time (214), Vekoma (211), National treasure (202).

In addition, Report of Mares Bred information on stallions that have bred mares in North America is available through Report 36P or through a subscription service at equineline.com/ReportOfMaresBred.

Stallion owners who have not yet surrendered their RMBs for the 2025 breeding season are encouraged to do so as soon as possible. Interactive Registration, which allows registered users to conduct virtually all registration-related activities via the Internet, is the most efficient way to submit RMBs and is available at register.jockeyclub.com.

The 2024 breeding statistics, including live foal report data for the 2025 foaling season, will be released later this month.

This press release has been edited for content and style by BloodHorse Staff.