Dear Breeders,
There’s some big news about the New York Stallion Stakes Series that will benefit your pocketbook and create larger fields for the Series’ races.
Next spring, when you breed to a New York stallion that is nominated to the Series for the 2014 breeding season, your 2015 foal will automatically be eligible to run in any races of the NY Stallion Stakes Series of 2017 (foals of 2015). Free, as in no nomination fees. Free, as in no need to make follow-up payments. Free!
So when you are making your breeding decisions early next year, be sure to email Stallion Stakes Series Coordinator Carmine Shirlaw at [email protected] or visit NYRA.com and check the list of nominated stallions that will be available on the New York Stallion Stakes Series page. Right now, the page only lists eligible stallions up through foals of 2014 (stallions nominated for Series 2016), which you can see here.
Because stallion owners can nominate through mid-February, you would be wise to check with the farm that stands your stallion selection and confirm through the NY Stallion Stakes Series webpage that the stallion is indeed nominated.
Stallion owners will still have to pay the equivalent of one advertised stud fee (a minimum of $2,500) to nominate their stallion to the Series. However, beginning with foals of 2013 (2017 Stallion Stakes Series), any foal by a nominated New York stallion will automatically be eligible to run in the Series at no charge.
How does this affect your foals of 2012, 2013 and 2014? Sorry, but you will still need to pay to make those horses eligible. For your weanlings, you can pay a one-time nomination fee of just $200 through the Thoroughbred Breeding Fund at the same time you pay to register your weanling through our website at https://www.nybreds.com/online-forms/.
We only handle weanling payments, but you can nominate your older horses through the New York Stallion Stakes Series page at NYRA.com. The Fund began to help process the weanling payments for the Series beginning in 2012, in order to encourage more people to make their foals eligible for just $200. (Many of you will remember that you used to have to make a one-time payment of $600 or pay a total of $800 if you stretched out the payments over time. Needless to say, when your foals or yearlings changed hands, very often the new connections failed to keep up the eligibility payments.)
Foal Payment Options*
*Each payment option provides full nomination to the Series.
| Option 1 (Weanling Year) | $200 | |
| Option 2 (Yearling Year) | $1000 | |
| Option 3 (Two-Year-Old Year) | $5000 |
Quoted September 16th in a Blood-Horse article, the NYTB’s Executive Director Jeff Cannizzo said, “This is a terrific way to increase participation in the New York Stallion Stakes Series races and everybody wins ‒ stallion owners, breeders, owners and the racetrack operator. Nobody falls through the cracks because a breeder or buyer forgot to nominate a foal, and there will be a bigger pool of horses to draw from when the races come up, which will make for a better Series.”
And remember, runners in the New York Stallion Stakes Series races can come from anywhere ‒ any state, any country ‒ as long as they are sired by a nominated stud and are themselves nominated to the Series.
Kudos to NYRA, its Stallion Stakes Series Coordinator and the NYTB for working together for the benefit of all stakeholders.
– NYTBDF Executive Director Tracy Egan
