Quote:
Originally Posted by Riot
Yes. When they changed the extant American Thoroughbred bloodstock, by massive European importations. After the Depression. Maybe a little earlier. But starting with the big farms of the 1930's - 1940's, with their Euro imported stallions.
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It's kind of tricky to put an exact date or year to something like that.
The foal crop in 1904 -- right before things started to get bad for racing purse money - was 3,990... and a lot of bloodstock had been imported.
40 years later -- the foal crop was just 5,650 in 1944.
It wasn't really until the 1960's when you started to see a massive production of foals.
I read a few interesting columns a while ago written by Vosburgh about the stock farms in Kentucky during the early 1920's.
He wrote in great detail about the big ones of the day such as Elmendorf Stud, Xalapa, Claibourne, Faraway, Hinata, The Nursery Stud, The Whitney and Idle Hour, Woodburn and Hartland.