Breeding Statistics

Based on the statistics on the Standardbred Canada site there is a disturbing and growing trend in the breeding business and it is not all good.

In Canada the number of active stallions has dropped from 412 in 2006 to 259 in 2009. That is a 37% drop with most of that (25%) happening from 2008 to 2009. Based on the active stallions this year the trend has continued to accelerate especially due to the Quebec situation. In North America the overall drop has been 30% with 17% of the drop occuring from 2008 to 2009.

The number of broodmares in North America has shown a similar but not as severe a decline down from 21780 in 2006 to 17388 in 2009, a drop of 21% - 25% in Canada.

If anything the stats for 2010 will be even worse. I know when we held our mixed sale last fall you could not give a broodmare away.

I just finished adding in the yearlings, foals of 2009 to our database and they totalled just over 8500 for North America, that is a little less than 50% foaling rate based on the active broodmares for 2009. Not a very good statistic either. That is a 2000 plus drop from the yearlings in 2008 which matches the drop in broodmares from 2008 to 2009.

There will likely be just as many for sale this year as last year given the state of the economy but what does the future hold ?