On Import/Export of Bloodstock

It's Time for Another ... And Another (begins on page 12, Op/Ed by Rob Whiteley)

It's a good read and I recommend it highly.

His best point is that there are few true American power players in the international bloodstock community. Many of the major operations in Lexington are foreign owned: Ashford (Coolmore: Ireland); Darley (Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum: Dubai); Shadwell (Hamdan bin Rashid Al Maktoum: Dubai); etc. It's not necessarily a bad thing that they are foreign owned, but the fact that there are other interests internationally mean that stallion movement is more likely. Just look at Henrythenavigator: shows some success here and is immediately moved to the Coolmore Ireland operation.

None of this is bad, necessarily. But with the 2yo/sprint/dirt foci here in the states, you're more likely to see stallions whose get is turf/10f+ oriented be shipped overseas by these interests or purchased by other stallion operations overseas. It can become a vicious cycle over a number of years.

The other thing is that this is not a zero sum game. The development of the breed is not to the benefit of Europe, Australia, and Japan and automatically to the detriment of North America.