Page 27 - January 6 2012
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HOW MANY MULTIPLES?
An in-depth look at multiple embryos and the yearling sale industry.
by Stacy Pigott
Several years ago, the American Quarter Horse Association was embroiled in a bitter battle with
a group of breeders from the cutting horse industry over the Association’s registration rules. They sued the AQHA over the right to register more than one foal per mare each year, and, ultimately, they won.
Most people in the racing indus- try were against changing the rule, and hoped the AQHA would prevail. When they didn’t, savvy breeders saw the writing on the wall. Agree with it or not, breeders were going to have to embrace the change in order to remain
competitive in the yearling sale market. Since then, a common cry is that
multiple embryos are killing our industry. Multiple foals, some say,
go against the laws of supply and demand. By flooding the market with what should be a unique product, the price of that product falls. Further, if you subscribe to the theory that only the best mares are producing multiple foals, you can make the logical con- clusion that an influx of foals from the industry’s “great” mares natu- rally lessens the value of foals from the “good” mares. Supply goes up, demand goes down, and prices fall.
But do they really? Speedhorse took
a look at the most recent yearling sale season. We looked at the dams that produced more than one registered foal in 2010.
Then we looked at which of those multiple foals were consigned to one of the six major yearling sales—Ruidoso Select Yearling Sale, Heritage Place Yearling Sale, Los Alamitos Equine Sale, Ruidoso New Mexico-Bred Sale, TQHA Yearling Sale and LQHBA Yearling Sale.
We hope you find the resulting statistics and numbers informative and interesting!
Glossary:
For clarity, the following terms will be used throughout this article:
Dam, or Dam of Multiples—A mare that produced more than one registered foal in 2010.
Multiple—A registered foal of 2010 out of a mare that produced more than one registered foal that year.
SPEEDHORSE, January 6, 2012 25
