Proposed amendment would ban Kentucky stallion cap

An amendment that has been added to a bill seeking to legalize fixed-odds wagering in Kentucky would practically prevent a cap on the number of mares a Kentucky stallion can be bred to every year.

Under the proposed rule, the Kentucky Horse Racing and Gaming Corp. would be given the right to choose a registrar of Thoroughbreds. The proposed rule mandates that the registrar "shall not restrict the number of mares that can be bred to a stallion or otherwise refuse to register any foal based on the number of mares bred to the stallion."

The floor amendment, authored by Republican House speaker David Osborne, was published on the website of the Kentucky legislature and previously reported by Dan Ross at Thoroughbred Daily News. The amendment could be voted on as soon as Friday.

This is not the first time the Kentucky legislature and The Jockey Club have butted heads about stallion caps. In 2022, The Jockey Club rescinded a rule that would have limited stallions born in 2020 or later to 140 mares per calendar year in the U.S., Canada and Puerto Rico. It did so after the Kentucky legislature filed a bill substantially similar to this floor amendment, allowing the Kentucky Racing Commission to choose a registrar and prohibiting the chosen registrar from having a stallion cap.

The amendment was added to HB 904, a bill that contains a broad range of provisions to legalize fixed-odds wagering, update tote and gambling infrastructure, including shortening the betting cycle times, and separate Kentucky wagering providers from predictions markets.