Korean Horse Association completes breeding support for 387 seed mares of private farms using the seed mares
Jul 11, 2024
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Both domestically and around the world, racehorses are only allowed to compete in the race, and horses produced through artificial insemination are not recognized as racehorses. For this reason, in order to produce racehorses in Korea, breeding and production are possible only when seed horses are owned in Korea. However, since the price of an internationally competitive luxury seed horse ranges from several to tens of billions of won, it is quite burdensome for the private sector to introduce it. Until the 1980s, there was no production base as well as a stable seed horse in Korea, and most of the supply and demand of racehorses used for horse racing relied on imports.
It was about 30 years ago that the foundation for domestic racehorse production began to be established. In 1995, the Korean Horse Association established a racehorse production ranch in Jeju, the hometown of horses, and imported expensive seed horses and excellent seed horses from advanced horse racing countries to support breeding to private producers for free. As a result, the share of domestic racehorses, which was only 9% in 1993, exceeded 75% in 2002. Contrary to concerns that the level will fall compared to imported products, domestic racehorses have also continued to win in major competition such as the Grand Prix (G1), proving the improvement of quality.
Currently, the Korean Horse Association is providing crossbreeding support to the private sector by using a total of five seed horses. The most prominent interbreeding performance this year was 'Hanssen' and 'classic empires' which is the first interbreeding of this year.
This year marks the 10th anniversary of domestic breeding, introduced by the Korean Racing Authority in 2014. Considered one of the most expensive seed horses in the world, 'Hansen', the Jamain of 'Tapit', has distributed the blood of gold spoon to Korea over the past decade and is considered the number one contributor to improving the level of domestic horses. Thanks to the performance of Jamaas, 'Hansen', which ranked first in the domestic seed money rankings last year, is nothing short of a box office guarantee check for production farmers. Hansen once again distributed its luxury lineage to the private sector this year by mating with 116 seed mares of production farms.
The seed horse 'Classic Empire', which was introduced by the Korean Horse Association last year and put into domestic breeding for the first time this year, has also crossed with 116 seed horses like Hansen. 'Classic Empire' is a three-time winner of the U.S. Race G1 Grand Prix. Domestic production farmers' high expectations for the classic empires', which has already produced the G1 race winner 'Angel of Empire' (born in 2020) in the United States and proved its potential as a seed horse, were comparable to 'Hansen'.
In addition, Jangsu Ranch's 'Shackleford' and Jeju Ranch's 'Uncaptured' and 'Vix' also served as seed horses, and the Korean Horse Association has crossed with a total of 387 private seed horses this year. This is an increase of about 100 heads from 266 heads in the previous year.
Chairman Chung Ki-hwan of the Korea Racing Authority said, "The Korea Racing Authority will continue to implement policies to support domestic horse production by providing excellent pedigree to production farmers"At the same time, we will expand the opportunity to play an active role in the world, such as overseas expeditions and expansion of exports of race live so that our racehorses can receive attention from overseas." he said.
wman@sportschosun.com
