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Thoroughbred Sex-Rules Opponents Told to Set Up Rival Horse-Racing Circuit
Bruce McHugh, the former Sydney Turf Club chairman who sued to abolish rules requiring thoroughbreds to physically mate to produce offspring eligible for racing, can start a rival circuit open to horses bred through artificial insemination, supporters of current regulations say.
“Anyone has the ability to set up an AI book,” James Emmett, lawyer for Thoroughbred Breeders Australia, said in his closing statement in Sydney Federal Court, urging Justice Alan Robertson, who will rule on the case, to dismiss the suit. Robertson reserved his decision at the end of the trial today.
McHugh is challenging the multi-billion dollar industry, claiming rules prohibiting thoroughbreds bred through artificial insemination illegally curb competition, benefiting owners of the world’s most-prized horses, including Dubai’s ruler Sheik Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, who can afford to send so-called shuttle stallions around the globe to breed with mares.
A court victory for McHugh could make Australia a trend- setter, tempting stud book operators around the world to follow its lead in allowing the registration of offspring from artificially inseminated mares and saving money in the process, breeders have said.
McHugh can put A$1 million ($992,000) into a prize pool for a race and open it to horses bred through artificial insemination, Emmett said, arguing there’s nothing to forbid him from doing that.
‘Very Attractive’
“That would be very attractive,” the lawyer said, noting most thoroughbred races in Australia have prize pools in the “very low six-figure range.”
There are 374 race clubs in Australia and 360 race tracks, Emmett said. Some of the tracks are already open to quarter horses, which can be bred through artificial insemination, he said.
Allowing artificial insemination also threatens to reduce the diversity of sire lines, as brood mare owners will flock to the same group of stallions, Emmett said.
“AI would decimate the thoroughbred population,” Carrie Brogden, who with her Australian husband Craig runs a thoroughbred farm in Lexington, Kentucky, wrote in an e-mail. “The ramifications of this are staggering.”
Should Australia allow artificial insemination, the race rankings, which determine a thoroughbred’s rankings internationally, would be downgraded or eliminated, Emmett said.
“You can’t sensibly assess a horse’s ranking in races involving thoroughbreds” and horses bred through AI, the lawyer said. It would be like comparing thoroughbreds and camels, he said.
Mating Fees
Fees for a mating episode have reached as much as $330,000, according to breednet.com, a website on the breeding industry in Australia, the world’s second-biggest thoroughbred racing jurisdiction behind the U.S.
The vast majority of breeders in Australia are small operators, who have an average of three mares and whose voice is being ignored, Ian Tonking, lawyer for McHugh, said during the trial. They would benefit from not having to ship their mares to stud farms and gaining access to the sperm of top-rated horses worldwide, he said.
To be eligible to race, thoroughbreds must be registered in a recognized stud book. The Australian Stud Book dates back to 1878, when the first one was compiled by William C. Yuille, sporting editor of the Melbourne Weekly Times newspaper, according to the organization’s website. The book preserves an official record and ensures the integrity of the thoroughbred breeding industry, the organization said.
Racing associations in other countries also keep stud books. More than 70 stud book authorities are members of the International Stud Book Committee.
Electronic Tags
The prohibition of any form of artificial insemination for thoroughbreds has been in place in Australia since at least 1949, to prevent fraud and reduce errors in the registration of thoroughbreds, Tonking said. Since horses are now electronically tagged and identified by their DNA, that argument no longer has any justification, he said.
The International Stud Book Committee has always recognized that a challenge to the ban on artificial insemination may occur, it said. Lifting the ban wouldn’t be in the interest of the industry, the group said on its website.
The case is Between Bruce McHugh and the Australian Jockey Club Ltd. NSD1187/2009. Federal Court of Australia (Sydney).
To contact the reporter on this story: Joe Schneider in Sydney at jschneider5@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Douglas Wong at dwong19@bloomberg.net
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