Jockey Club releases foal crop projection

The Jockey Club is projecting a 2009 North American registered Thoroughbred foal

crop of 35,400, a decline of 3.3 percent from the revised estimate of 36,600 registered

foals for 2008.

The foal crop projection, traditionally announced the day before The Jockey Club

Round Table Conference, is computed by using Reports of Mares Bred (RMBs)

received to date for the 2008 breeding season. RMBs are to be filed by August 1 of

each breeding season.

"After mirroring historical trends during the first three weeks of August last

year, the pace of 2007 RMB submissions slowed noticeably thereafter and that

prompted us to reduce our previously announced forecast for 2008 by 900 foals,"

said Matt Iuliano, The Jockey Club's vice president of registration services. "Based on RMB

returns to date for the 2008 breeding season, the foal crop contraction is

likely to continue in 2009."

The Jockey Club encourages stallion owners and managers who have not yet

submitted their RMBs for the 2008 breeding season to do so as soon as possible

to avoid delays in receiving their Service Certificates. Submission of RMBs can

be accomplished quickly and easily through Interactive RegistrationTM (IR), the

online service that enables registered users to perform virtually all

registration-related activities over the Internet. IR is available at http://www.registry.jockeyclub.com.

Foal registration is to be completed within 12 months of the birth of the foal.

However, late registration is available for additional fees, making actual foal

crop counts problematic before December 31 of the crop's two-year-old year, the time

by which the vast majority of the foal crop has been registered.

Additional foal crop information is available in The Jockey Club's Online Fact

Book, accessible at http://www.jockeyclub.com/factbook.asp.