The Commonwealth Stud: Can Virginia follow European lead to restore its breeding business?

Virginia's thoroughbred breeding business is in sharp decline.

I've noticed. The Washington Post has noticed. Certainly Glenn Petty, executive director of the Virginia Thoroughbred Association, has noticed.

I have an idea for spurring the industry with a stallion stakes series, similar to Maryland Million Day or any number of other states' efforts to promote breeding in their state via premium restricted races. Petty has a different idea.

He thinks Virginia should follow the well-established lead of England and Ireland and establish a "national" stud.

Petty is of the mind that Virginia is so handicapped by Colonial Downs' relatively short meeting, lack of sufficient off-track betting locations, and better incentive programs in nearby states (namely West Virginia and Pennsylvania) that maintaining any significant private commercial breeding interest is impossible.

"Enter the government," Petty told me in an e-mail last August.

Petty said he has "developed a plan for a National Stud" that would couple a commercial stallion operation with "an educational component" at Virginia Tech University, which long has operated the Middleburg Agriculture and Research Center, first for cattle research, but rededicating the facility to equine study in 1992.

Virginia's "national stud" (or "commonwealth stud," perhaps more appropriately) would be "modeled after the national studs in England and Ireland," Petty said. That would suggest that the facility would maintain a respectable roster of stallions, provide boarding and foaling facilities for private mare-owners, and perhaps perform other services such as sales-prep or boarding horses on layup.

"There is no private funding for such an endeavor" due to the aforementioned issues facing Virginia, which limit the profitability of a large stallion operation, Petty said. "But people agree it could work over time if subsidized."

Petty explains that the state of Virginia receives 1.7 percent of every traditional wager on horse racing in the state, and 0.5 percent of each advance-deposit wager. Out of those funds, the Commonwealth of Virginia Racing Commission must operate its "shop," Petty says -- that's pay for its entire staff, licensing process, drug-testing, stewards and so forth. Then the VRC must return a "surplus" $800,000 to the Virginia General Fund.

"Surplus" is an interesting word the commonwealth's General Assembly has co-opted in this case. Truth be told, the government wants $800,000 from the VRC's budget before anything else is paid and regardless how much the VRC collects from the 1.7/0.5 percent shares on wagers.

"Actually, the (General Assembly) requires them to pay the $800,000 up front," said Petty about the VRC, "so they'd better get their budget right!"

Since wagering began in Virginia, Petty said, the industry has returned more than $7 million to the commonwealth's General Fund.

Trouble is, over the course of more than a decade, that really isn't a lot of money for running the entire commonwealth. Petty believes -- rightfully, I would add -- that the funds would be better-spent in the hands of the racing industry, to promote its own growth and development, generating tax revenues for the commonwealth through sales, higher property values and job creation.

"I've got kids in public school, so I'm a fan of the General Fund and the school buses it buys and the roads it paves," Petty wrote. "But imagine what the $7 million could have done if applied to programs like the one you suggest or to a Virginia National Stud?"

Indeed, the $800,000 the Virginia General Assembly siphons-off from wagering each year is a drop in the state's budget bucket, but would more than fully fund the stallion stakes series I recommended or could greatly subsidize Petty's plan for a commonwealth-run stud.

Petty says that support for his ideas has been voiced.

"Everybody sees the logic of my request and the merit of the projects this money could support," he says.

But the roadblocks to reclaiming those funds for industry use have proven impossible, thus far, to clear.

"Nobody is willing to advocate giving this money back," Petty said.

"I have asked the General Assembly for years to give us back all or some of this money. I spent all last summer visiting members in their homes and I have had two high-level meetings with the governor's office about this, plus one with the secretary of commerce and trade (he oversees the VRC) and one with the secretary of agriculture.

"Nothing. Zip."

I just hope Virginia's General Assembly is pleased with its work when those two words are all that's left of the commonwealth's thoroughbred breeding business.

Virginia's breeding business: Chickens and goose eggs

Virginia might be for lovers, but these days it's hardly for thoroughbred breeders.

That sad state of affairs -- particularly appalling to those who appreciate the Old Dominion's equine history -- is readily discernible in the numbers. I've harped on it before, but it bears at least summarizing again: Since 1991, the oldest records available online from The Jockey Club, Virginia's stallion numbers have declined from 154 resident sires serving 837 mares to a mere 41 stallions covering 123 mares in 2008.

In 1991, Virginia's number of registered thoroughbred foals totaled 747. By 1997, the number of foals registered in Virginia had plummeted to 517, and a decade later had fallen another 22 percent to 401.

It's abundantly clear where the business has gone; it's close by in neighboring states. From 1997 to 2007, West Virginia's foal crop ballooned 237 percent, from a paltry 194 registered foals to 654. Pennsylvania's crop swelled by 38.5 percent, from a solid 898 all the way to 1,244. (In the same period, Maryland, which is in the process of fouling up its own breeding and racing industry, has slipped 32 percent, from 1,186 foals to 837.)

I've recommended trying to spur a Virginia recovery by establishing a slate of stakes events -- a Virginia Stallion Champions Day, as it were -- open only to Virginia-sired horses, regardless of their state of foaling.

My post was in response to a post by Glenn Petty, executive director of the Virginia Thoroughbred Association, on the VTA's blog. Petty mused that perhaps it's time to abolish the Grand Slam of Grass and direct the money that Jeff Jacobs, owner of Colonial Downs, has been spending on that four-race turf series for 3-year-olds on a major turf stakes race for older horses. Petty responded at length to my post right here at the Fugue, and also wrote to me at even greater length via e-mail, sharing not only his personal thoughts but considerable background information and insights on the state of breeding and racing in Virginia.

Petty says the problem has become a chicken-and-egg dilemma: How can Virginia rebuild its stallion industry with such a greatly diminished broodmare band; yet with such a short meeting at Colonial each summer and a comparatively small annual Breeders' Fund of $1 million, how can the incentives for stallion owners be increased without depleting the kitty that rewards the mare owners?

"If you talk to folks like Debbie Easter, Larry Johnson or Donna Hayes who have recently stood stallions in VA, they will tell you there isn't a sufficient mare population to support Virginia stallions. That's the chicken," Petty writes.

"The egg is that our Breeders' Fund is so small and our race meet so short, we can't create enough financial incentives to motivate breeders to breed here or to support local stallions. If we put 50 percent of the Breeders' Fund into stallion awards and a program like the one you advocate, more folks would be motivated to stand a stallion. But how will they fill their books with a declining population of mares, a third of which are owned by commercial breeders looking to KY for big-name stallions?

"That would leave $500,000 for Breeders' Awards to motivate the folks who own the mares. Heck, if we put the whole $1 million in a stallion program, I don't know if it would move the ball."

The good news is, the suggestion I made wouldn't require an extra nickel from the $1 million Breeders' Awards fund.

And to start the ball rolling on rebuilding Virginia's stallion and breeding industry, the key isn't to find some gimmick that moves the ball the whole length of the field in one play. It's to stop the ball's inexorable tumble downhill long enough that we can even start moving it back in a positive direction.

The stallion series idea I floated was spurred by Petty's call for Jacobs to funnel $200,000 to $250,000 away from the Grand Slam of Grass and into the Kitten's Joy Stakes, an open race for older horses, making that race a $250,000 to $300,000 purse. (And, I would presume, likely earning it at least Grade 3 status eventually.)

I say that if Jacobs and Colonial Downs drop the Grand Slam and are willing to toss up to a quarter-million bucks at some other project, it's money better-spent on Virginia horses -- specifically, Virginia-sired horses. Plus, this season, a day's race-card at Colonial carried at least a total purse of $125,000 to $150,000. Put one day's purse money with the hypothetical extra quarter-million from the defunct Grand Slam and you have $400,000 in purse money for an eight-race, all-stakes Virginia Stallion Champions Day without ever touching the $1 million Breeders' Fund.

But what of the mare situation?

Petty is right (how could he miss it?) that the numbers are slim and still on a diet; 401 registered foals of 2007 and reportedly around 350 VA foalings in 2008. And he's most likely correct that at least third of those mares are owned by "commercial" interests who are looking to Kentucky instead of Virginia regardless what kind of quality regional sires the Old Dominion might boast. After all, Edward P. Evans alone keeps a reported 90 mares at his sprawling Spring Hill Farm near Casanova, Va., and owns an interest in several KY-based stallions.

If I'm a Virginia stallion owner -- and I am, just one -- Mr. Evans won't be using my horse's services. But that's O.K.; I don't really need for him to.

With around 123 mares being covered in Virginia in 2008 but around 350 foaling there, some roundabout math suggests that around 225 mares are being covered outside Virginia and are returning home to foal. "Ned" Evans and those with the money to go wherever they wish are probably accounting for about half of those "nomadic" mares.

Job 1 for Virginia is to take back the other half.

I know it doesn't sound like much. It isn't, if you're trying to stand four or five stallions, advertising them heavily, carrying any significant staff on the property and needing to pull in 12 to 20 (or more) mares per stud just to stay in business. But there's pretty much nobody like that in Virginia anymore.

There are some beautiful properties and some dedicated horsemen and horsewomen in Virginia; people working very hard every day to keep the Old Dominion's equine business alive -- Mortgage Hall Farm (where racehorses also are broken and trained), Mid-Atlantic Stallion Station at Ravenwood Plantation (where there are also Arabians and Percherons), Moon Star Farm near Emporia, Griffinsburg Equine (which also runs a transport service), and Hilltop Farm VA, where my stallion and mares reside, among others. But few are trying to make it by standing thoroughbred racing stallions alone.

That's bad news in a way. But it can also be taken on the bright side. It won't require much positive change to be noticed and appreciated, and probably to raise the quality of in-state stallions, which has predictably declined with the mare population.

The average Virginia stallion's book in 2008 was just 2.9 mares. In 1991, when there were 837 mares covered in Virginia, the job was done by 154 stallions -- still an average book of only 5.4 per sire. With just 40 or 50 stallions still in the state, simply reclaiming half of Virginia's small, "nomadic" mare population (around 100 to 125 more VA-covered mares annually) could increase the average Virginia stallion's book to 4.9 or 5.9 mares.

Those figures aren't the dozen or more mares that a farm would like to see as the least any of its stallions serve. But essentially doubling the market almost overnight could hardly be a negative.

Petty noted in an e-mail to me that Virginia-bred and Virginia-sired foals share most of the same racing incentives at Colonial Downs. I'm not sure whether he meant that as a plus, but it's actually a drawback -- if you own a stallion. It allows Virginia mare owners to breed anywhere so long as they foal at home and it provides no real race-earnings incentive either for VA-based mares to stay at home nor for outside mares to use a Virginia stallion and retreat to their own state to foal. Yes, a VA-sired West Virginia-bred can run in a VA-restricted stakes race at Colonial, but so can one of Ned Evans' uber-bluebloods, if he decides to aim so "low."

This year's mixed-gender Jamestown Stakes for 2-year-old VA-breds at Colonial saw as its top three finishers horses sired in Kentucky (first and third) and West Virginia. The 2008 running was a sweep by KY-sired fillies, by Mr. Greeley (presently $75,000 fee), Marquetry and Smoke Glacken. In the inaugural Jamestown of 2007, the winner was by Posse ($20K for 2009 in Kentucky) while the place- and show-horses were by Housebuster (now deceased) and Black Tie Affair (just pensioned) in their Old Dominion swan song seasons of 2004, before relocating to West Virginia.

Petty says the problem is that the competition is just too well-financed.

"Simply put, people make much more money breeding horses in MD, WV or PA than they can make in VA. That's why the mare, stallion and foal numbers have shrunk so dramatically," Petty writes. "Horse racing and breeding used to be a sport, now it's a business, and no sensible business-minded person would participate in a $1 million program when there are two $4 million programs right next door."

Again, Petty's absolutely right -- from a major stud farm standpoint. There's just not enough economic incentive right now to stand a whole slate of stallions on a big stud farm in Virginia. And with a short season at Colonial and a comparatively small Breeders' Fund (which would be augmented considerably if the legislature ever allowed slots in Northern Virginia) there's not a lot that can be done right away for big-ticket businesses and breeders.

So if Virginia's breeding business is ever again going to see the light of day and be even moderately viable -- let's say, half a shadow of what it once was, rather than stuck in total darkness -- then the state will have to start small.

I know the breeder of one of those Kentucky-sired Jamestown Stakes-placed fillies. She owns a smaller farm and I believe she'd like to stay in Virginia more often with her mares, were the stallion options and racing incentives even a little bit more attractive.

Another small Virginia farm with which I'm familiar might have sent two mares to our stallion this year, but was lured away to Kentucky by recession-provoked discounts. Her pair returned with only one of the mares in foal, and toting a stack of transport and vet bills that by themselves would've paid a decent Virginia stallion's stud fee several seasons over. ... A serious financial setback that ranks high among the perils of shipping to Kentucky for a small Virginia breeder, many of whom have decided they have almost no other choice if they want to raise a viable racehorse on their farm at all.

Virginia needs to give these breeders, the mom and pop farms that make up roughly half of the "nomadic" mare population, something for their babies to run at: A Virginia Stallion Champions Day. I think many of them would keep their mares at home, most of the time. And because West Virginia statebred rules are perhaps the most generous in America, I think you might attract a few of that state's mares, too, from owners who realize they can take a shot at the new slate of Virginia stakes races without losing any of their rights to race among restricted company at Charles Town and Mountaineer.

And while I appreciate the Grand Slam of Grass, if Jeff Jacobs decided to take Petty's thought-provoking advice and spike that series (and act generously toward the state's stallion owners), there might be money to start a Virginia Stallion Champions Day without raiding the Breeders' Fund at all.

Coming soon: Glenn Petty has an idea for improving Virginia's stallion offerings, too, and nobody can say he's thinking small.

Glenn & Glenn, Part 1: Or, 'How Take the Points winning the Secretariat boosts Grand Slam of Grass'

It seems that Glenn Petty and myself have more things in common than just knowing the right way to spell our first names.

Petty, executive director of the Virginia Thoroughbred Association, was the man who posted on the VTA's blog that perhaps it's time to end the Grand Slam of Grass. He has a point that nobody seems all that interested in the series -- particularly trainers, and they're the ones who would need to care about it the most. And Petty wrote that he'd like to see the money that has been devoted to the Slam by Colonial Downs owner Jeff Jacobs instead be passed along to a race for older horses, such as the track's Kitten's Joy Stakes.

I took issue on both counts. Through the power of the Interwebs, Mr. Petty subsequently read my thoughts, then posted responses for all to see right here on Fugue for Tinhorns. And he wrote to me at even greater length privately.

"In short," Mr. Petty told me, "I was running my mouth for the sake of debate. ... So mission accomplished on that one."

And that's the other something we have in common, the desire at least to have a good discussion or debate on subjects important to horse racing. Not that any of the comments I post here are anything other than what I really believe or happen to be thinking at the time. But those thoughts could be subject to change considering I'm not privy to every piece of information when I form an initial opinion -- like, what Jeff Jacobs himself might be thinking, or what discussions are carried on behind closed doors at the VTA.

No, I'm not changing my mind about whether the Grand Slam of Grass is under-appreciated, nor about how the VTA (and the Virginia Horseman's Benevolent and Protective Association and other interested parties) need to take steps toward reviving the Old Dominion's breeding business. But it was very interesting to read Mr. Petty's responses and to understand the thought processes of himself and others, a thought process he also suggested I should feel free to share with readers here.

"Yes, a very good horse like English Channel or Kitten's Joy has a shot at the Slam, but my opinion was shaped by conversations or comments from trainers who have actually won one or both of the races (the Colonial Turf Cup-G2 and the Virginia Derby-G2)," Mr. Petty wrote to me privately. "They don't think the schedule works and most aren't looking to run a 3-year-old 12 furlongs against the best turf horses in the world (in the Breeders' Cup Turf-G1, the series' final leg)."

But crushing the training community's aversion to the series' early schedule is (or should be) Take the Points' win on Saturday in the Secretariat S.-G1 at Arlington Park. The gray colt was fourth in the Colonial Turf Cup and third in the Virginia Derby -- both won by Battle of Hastings, each time narrowly over Straight Story.

Battle of Hastings' connections, including trainer Jeff Mullins, apparently decided that 21 days just wasn't enough turnaround time for their Cal-based gelding to make the Secretariat; that the race came up "probably too soon." They waved away the chance their horse had earned at the Grand Slam's reward ($5 million in total purse winnings and bonus cash) like a calorie-conscious diner shooing a waiter who is trying to sell him on dessert. And then a horse that theirs beat twice in a row heads to Chicago in their stead, on the same schedule, and wins the Grade 1 race on which they took a pass.

Regrets, I wonder?

As for the aversion to running a 3-year-old against older horses in the Breeders' Cup Turf, I understand that isn't the simplest of tasks. Still, as I noted prior, nearly three in 10 winners of the B.C. Turf have come from the 3-year-old ranks so -- historically speaking, anyway -- had Battle of Hastings run and won in the Secretariat, Mullins and Co. would've positioned themselves for a roughly 30 percent chance of cashing that Grand Slam bonus.

Of course, it's possible that the Battle of Hastings camp doesn't believe their horse can even get the 12 furlongs of the B.C. Turf, considering the horse is sired by devout sprinter Royal Applause.

But stranger things have happened in horse racing. And taking the first two legs of a four-race bonus series then not even trying in the third (provided the horse is healthy) either because you don't really like the three-week window between races or you doubt the horse's worth in the fourth is defeatism.

Drawing wisdom from the world of golf, 100 percent of putts that are left short will never go in the hole.

Coming soon: Follow-up on Virginia's breeding industry from Glenn Petty's perspective from within and mine from, more or less, without.

A Colonial question answered, indirectly

I'm not sure whether the questions I posed in my last blog post of May were the spur for a new post over at the Virginia Thoroughbred Association blog: Coulda, Woulda Shoulda, The Outside Turf Course. But it seems to answer my questions, to some degree at least, about why the turf course is beautiful, wide, but various-distance-limited at Colonial Downs.

It seems that when the track was being constructed, there were proponents of an outer turf course, with the dirt track on the inside. For various reasons -- "nobody here does it that way" being the underlying sentiment -- the idea was spiked.

"GP," I presume VTA Executive Director Glenn Petty, who posted the blog entry, apparently was discussing the matter with Gil Short (Colonial GM upon its opening) and trainer Ferris Allen on Saturday. They considered how the idea was floated of a course that would host a full card of grass races, which was "eyebrow raising" at the time (around 20 years ago, I guess), and yet the card taking place as the trio watched last weekend was just that -- 12 races, all on the lawn.

The outside track idea was panned in part by Allen, who told Maryland Jockey Club Vice President of Racing Lenny Hale to consider how many turf races Colonial really expected to run in a day: "Three, maybe four?" (Remember, the Maryland Jockey Club was deeply involved in helping launch and manage Colonial for many years.)

Short and Arnold Stansley were harness-trackers and they didn't want the trotters and pacers who run at Colonial in the fall to be 180 feet from the track apron and its spectators. ... I can't really argue with them on it, other than that I don't watch the harness races much, myself. ... But eventually that argument wasn't the killer.

Ultimately, planners couldn't find a suitable way to get the dirt-track horses across the turf course from the saddling enclosure. Seriously.

A tunnel was one idea, but Stansley apparently had "two million reasons" why he didn't want to do that. Each, I presume, was green and had George Washington's picture on it.

The alternate idea was simply to have a dirt crossover. After all, the famed "downhill" course at Santa Anita crosses the dirt track. And numerous racecourses in Britain and elsewhere in Europe have such crossovers.

"Some Virginia and Maryland horsemen" were not interested in a dirt crossover, the post states, despite the fact that they're common in other parts of the world.

And so Colonial ended up with a more traditional (for the U.S.) inner turf course, wide and wonderful in its beauty and resilience, and sadly quite limited in the variety of race-distances it can offer up for the horses.

There's a lot more to read on the subject over at the VTA Blog; I only summarized the post to sort of conclude the topic I started in May. The story over there includes more specifics and concludes with the retelling of a visit to Ireland and a unique course configuration there that certainly didn't scare off the wealthy connections.

Made for very entertaining and informative reading on a Tuesday night. Thanks, Mr. Petty, I presume.