The Jockey Club files motion to dismiss mare-cap lawsuit

The Jockey Club has filed a motion to dismiss a lawsuit that challenges the organization’s decision to impose a cap on the number of mares a stallion can cover, calling the suit a “hodgepodge of speculative claims.”

The response to the suit cites more than 50 decisions by courts to dismiss lawsuits under similar grounds, including cases in which the plaintiffs did not have plausible grounds to argue for an injury, the main thrust of the response. The initial lawsuit was filed last month by three high-profile Central Kentucky breeding farms.

“Plaintiffs complaint is pure conjecture, alleging speculative and hypothetical theories as facts and conjuring injuries that may never come to be,” the response, filed on March 29 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky, says. “Plaintiffs have not alleged a single actual or certainly impending injury.”

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The initial suit, which also named the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission as a defendant, was filed by Ashford Stud, the U.S. arm of the international breeding operation Coolmore; Spendthrift Farm; and Three Chimneys Farm. That suit alleged that The Jockey Club’s mare cap, which is set to go into effect with any stallion that was born in 2020, violates the due-process and equal-protection rights of the farms under the Kentucky Constitution, and that the rule suppresses competition.

The suit also alleged that the KHRC unlawfully delegated power to The Jockey Club.

The response by The Jockey Club pushes back resolutely against the contention that the KHRC violated the law by recognizing the organization as the Thoroughbred industry’s breed registry.

“Plaintiffs’ hodgepodge of speculative claims lacks plausibility and suffers from Plaintiffs’ fundamental misunderstanding of the facts, law, and relevant statutory regime,” the response states. “First, the KHRC did not delegate power, constitutionally or otherwise, to TJC. The Kentucky General Assembly, not by the KHRC, decided in 1960 to statutorily reference TJC’s Thoroughbred registry. And the statutory scheme delegates no power.”

The Jockey Club approved the mare-cap rule last year, contending that the rule was necessary in order to maintain genetic diversity of the Thoroughbred breed. In 2020, according to The Jockey Club’s records, 42 stallions covered more than 140 mares. Seven of the top 10 stallions by mares bred stand at the three farms that filed the suit.

In 2009, the Standardbred breed registry passed a nearly identical mare cap, and that rule survived legal challenges from breeding farms.

On Wednesday night, Michael Tabor, a principal in the Coolmore group, reiterated that the plaintiffs in the suit believe that the book cap will drive down the values of colts and thus impact the commercial sales marketplace.

“The Jockey Club stallion cap will reduce the value of these horses from next year,” Tabor said, speaking from the Fasig-Tipton Gulfstream sale, where Coolmore purchased a pair of 2-year-old colts for $2.6 million and $1.3 million. “So it’s hard to imagine prices like this being repeated unless it is to go abroad.”

- additional reporting by Nicole Russo