Horses and Other Equine Production (NAICS 112920): An Investor's Primer

1. Overview

NAICS 112920 covers the farms and ranches whose main business is breeding and raising horses, ponies, mules, donkeys, burros, and other equines [1]. (NAICS is the North American Industry Classification System, the standard code set U.S. statistical agencies use to sort businesses.) This is the production end of the horse economy — foaling mares, standing stallions, raising young stock, and selling animals — not the racetracks, boarding barns, riding academies, or veterinary clinics that surround it.

Why it matters to a capital allocator: horses sit at the intersection of agriculture and luxury discretionary spending. The animal is a farm product, but the buyer is usually spending disposable income on sport, recreation, or prestige — so the sector behaves less like commodity livestock (beef, pork, poultry) and more like a long-cycle, high-variance luxury-asset market where a handful of elite animals carry most of the value.

The two audiences reach this industry from opposite directions:

• Private investors can own the production layer directly — a broodmare, a stallion share, a racing partnership, farmland, or private operating credit to a farm.
• Public-market investors get only indirect exposure — through the racing-and-wagering operators, animal-health and diagnostics companies, and rural retailers that monetize the horse population rather than the breeding itself. There is no listed pure-play horse producer.

Both routes are covered in Sections 4 and 10.

2. What it is, and how it's structured

In scope (112920): establishments primarily engaged in raising equines — Thoroughbred and Standardbred breeding farms, Quarter Horse and sport-horse breeders, pony, mule, and donkey breeders, and mixed operations that breed, foal, pasture, and prepare young stock for private sale or auction [1]. Many farms are vertically integrated — they also consign, board, train, or race — but a business is classified by its primary activity, so a farm can touch several parts of the value chain while sitting in only one industry code.

Explicitly excluded — and this matters, because most horse-related money sits outside 112920:

So 112920 is a narrow slice — the breeding and rearing core — of a much larger equine ecosystem.

Ownership mix. The sector is overwhelmingly small, private, and non-corporate. It splits into three very different tiers:

1. A tiny commercial top tier — the Kentucky Thoroughbred breeding complex plus elite sport-horse and Quarter Horse operations. This is where seven-figure animals and six-figure stud fees live. Almost all privately or foreign-owned (family offices, sovereign-backed racing organizations, syndicates).
2. A broad middle of family farms raising a few horses for sale or use.
3. A vast hobby/lifestyle base — owners who keep horses at a net cost for pleasure, showing, or ranch work, and occasionally breed a foal. Most of these are not commercial businesses at all.

No authoritative national ownership split (corporate vs. family vs. hobby) exists in the federal data; the tiering above is descriptive.

3. How big it is

Because most federal business-statistics programs exclude farm production, the usual Census Bureau series don't measure this industry. The Economic Census generally covers employer businesses (and excludes government-run establishments), and the Nonemployer Statistics program explicitly excludes crop and animal production, including all of NAICS 112 [5]. The authoritative size data therefore comes from the USDA's Census of Agriculture, not the Census Bureau business series. (USDA is the U.S. Department of Agriculture; its statistical arm is the National Agricultural Statistics Service, NASS.)

From the 2022 Census of Agriculture, Table 18, "Equine — Inventory and Sales" [2]:

Two things stand out. First, animal counts and farm counts fell sharply from 2017 to 2022 — roughly 15% fewer head of horses and ponies and nearly 90,000 fewer farms reporting them — even as the dollar value of sales rose (fewer, more expensive animals changing hands) [2]. Second, only about one farm in six that keeps horses actually sells any [2]: the sector is dominated by keeping, not selling. Average inventory works out to roughly six or seven head per farm — a hobby-scale distribution with a small commercial spike.

Our authoritative federal extract for this NAICS reports one additional figure: the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) small-business size standard for 112920 is $2.75 million in average annual receipts [3]. That is a federal contracting-eligibility threshold — not industry revenue, average farm revenue, or a valuation benchmark — but the fact that nearly every operator falls under it tells you how few large firms exist.

The undercount caveat (important). The Census of Agriculture counts equines on farms and defines a farm as a place that sold, or normally would sell, at least $1,000 of agricultural product. It therefore misses the millions of horses kept on residential and recreational properties that don't meet that definition, and it can't see the large service and spending economy horses generate off the farm. The industry's own tally, the American Horse Council (AHC) 2023 National Equine Economic Impact Study, estimates about 6.65 million horses in the U.S. and a total economic contribution of roughly $177 billion in value added, supporting about 2.2 million jobs and $122 billion in wages, salaries, and benefits, across roughly 12.5 million acres [4]. That figure is far broader than 112920: it counts indirect and induced ("ripple") spending across racing, showing, recreation, and services, using industry-survey methods rather than the Census's farm-gate approach. Treat the AHC number as the ecosystem size and the ~$2.24 billion Census sales figure as the production layer's direct output [2][4].

The AHC study also shows how the horse population is used — the real demand drivers behind breeding [4]:

Racing draws the headlines, but recreation and competition together are the larger demand base [4]. Texas, California, and Florida are the top states by activity; Kentucky is the value center of Thoroughbred breeding [4].

4. The investable universe

There is no public pure-play horse-breeding company. The production layer is essentially all private. Public-market investors reach the industry only through adjacent businesses that monetize the horse population rather than breeding itself. (Share prices, dividend yields, and valuation multiples for these names should be assessed at the company level — horses drive only a fraction of each one's results.)

Public companies (indirect exposure):

None of these is a bet on horse production. They are bets on wagering, animal health/diagnostics, or rural spending that happen to be correlated with the horse population.

Major private and other owners (where the production value actually sits):

• Thoroughbred breeding farms: Coolmore America at Ashford Stud (Magnier family), Godolphin / Darley America at Jonabell Farm (Sheikh Mohammed's operation), WinStar Farm, Lane's End (Farish family), Stonestreet Farms (founded by Jess Jackson), Spendthrift Farm, Three Chimneys — private, often family- or sovereign-backed [28].
• Sales companies (bloodstock auctions): Keeneland (a non-profit that also runs a racetrack) and Fasig-Tipton (Dubai-owned) are the price-discovery venues for young horses — important liquidity hubs, but not themselves 112920 producers [28].
• Racing operators: The Stronach Group / 1/ST (Santa Anita, Pimlico, Gulfstream) and the New York Racing Association (a state-chartered non-profit running Belmont, Saratoga, Aqueduct) are private / quasi-public, not listed.
• Ownership syndicates and partnerships: the main vehicle through which individual private investors buy fractional stakes in racehorses or stallion seasons.

5. How the money works

The economics of equine production don't look like feedlot livestock. They look like a long-cycle, high-variance luxury-asset business where a few animals carry the returns, costs run continuously, and revenue arrives in lumps. The main profit engines:

• Stud fees. A stallion owner sells "seasons" (the right to breed one mare). Top Thoroughbred stallions command enormous fees — Into Mischief stood for $250,000 per mare in 2024–25, among the highest in North America, and generates tens of millions in annual progeny earnings [9]. A single elite stallion covering ~150–200 mares a year is the industry's most concentrated cash flow, and stallions are frequently syndicated into 40+ shares, so ownership itself is a traded asset.
• Weanling / yearling sales. Commercial breeders raise foals and sell them at auction. Prices are set at a handful of sales: the 2025 Keeneland September yearling sale set a record, moving 3,070 horses for $531.5 million with 56 seven-figure yearlings — topping the prior 2024 record of ~$427.8 million (average $150,548, median $70,000, 36 seven-figure yearlings) [6][7]. Fasig-Tipton's 2024 Saratoga select sale averaged $533,506 across 154 yearlings [8]. Note the wide gap between average and median: a few blockbusters pull the average far above the typical horse.
• "Pinhooking" — buying a weanling and reselling it as a yearling (or a yearling as a two-year-old) for appreciation. A pure trading strategy on bloodstock.
• Racing purses and prize money — the demand pull. Owners recover costs when horses win. But purses are increasingly subsidized by casino and machine gaming rather than by betting on racing (see Section 6).
• Sport-horse and working-horse sales — trained show, ranch, and recreation horses sold on performance and pedigree.

Cost structure. Raising a foal to yearling stacks up a stud fee, ~18–24 months of mare and foal upkeep, foaling, veterinary and farrier care, and sales prep. The biggest variable costs are hay and feed, land, and skilled labor (grooms, trainers); insurance (mortality and fertility), transport, fencing, water, and manure management add more. Against that, the sale price is bimodal: most breeders lose money, and profit concentrates at the commercial top where a strong pedigree meets a hot sales market.

Operating metrics that actually matter (for underwriting a farm or partnership): broodmare and stallion-book utilization; live-foaling and reproductive-success rates; sale clearance rate and median price; the price dispersion between elite and ordinary animals; feed/labor/vet/insurance cost per horse; mortality, injury, and disease losses; and working capital, debt, and land value relative to horse inventory.

Why it's cyclical and lagged. Demand tracks discretionary income and wealthy-owner sentiment. Supply can't respond quickly: an 11-month gestation plus two to three years before a racehorse earns means the industry is always breeding to a market it can't yet see. That lag, plus multi-year build-ups and busts in the foal crop, makes equine production structurally cyclical.

Read-through for public investors. For the listed proxies, the metrics to watch aren't the horses at all: for Churchill Downs it's wagering handle, HHR-machine revenue, and gaming EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization); for Zoetis and peers it's equine product volumes and pricing within animal health; for Tractor Supply it's same-store sales to rural households. HHR machines — slot-like terminals whose outcomes are tied to the results of past horse races — have become the single biggest growth driver: Churchill Downs runs roughly 5,000 HHR machines across Virginia and Kentucky, and its live-and-HHR segment has grown at double-digit rates on their back [14].

6. What drives demand

• Discretionary income and wealth. Horses are a want, not a need. Ownership and breeding rise and fall with the fortunes of affluent buyers and the broader economy.
• Racing purses and the casino subsidy. Bigger purses justify breeding better horses. But U.S. pari-mutuel handle (the total amount bet on races) has fallen every year since 2018, reaching about $11.26 billion in 2024, down ~3.35% year-over-year [12]. Purses have held up (~$1.28 billion in 2025) [13] only because HHR machines, slots, and sports-betting revenue at racinos are funneled into them. This is the industry's central dependency: breeding economics now rest on gaming revenue, not on betting-on-racing.
• Premium bloodstock demand. Record 2024–25 yearling sales signal strong top-end and international appetite; auctions are the clearest real-time demand gauge for the commercial breeding tier [6][7].
• Recreation and sport participation. The larger demand base — trail riding, showing, dressage, jumping, eventing, rodeo, polo, therapeutic riding — is tied to rural lifestyles, an aging owner demographic, and the time and money for a costly hobby [4].
• Animal health and longevity. Preventive medicine, diagnostics, reproductive care, injury treatment, and rehabilitation are recurring needs across the whole population. The USDA launched a 2026 National Equine Study focused on health management, disease occurrence, and veterinary-service use — a signal of institutional attention to the sector's health economics [26].
• Equine-assisted services. A small but growing segment (therapy, veterans and disability programs) with fresh institutional funding [4].
• International trade. Cross-border breeding, competition, and sales broaden the buyer base — notably buyers from the Gulf, Ireland, and Japan at U.S. auctions — but add testing, quarantine, and logistics costs [6][25].

7. Regulation

The USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) administers the core federal animal-care statutes touching this industry:

• Horse Protection Act (HPA). Bans "soring" (deliberately injuring a horse's legs to exaggerate its gait) and bars sored horses from shows, exhibitions, sales, and auctions; aimed mainly at Tennessee Walking Horse events, with a tightened rule finalized in 2024 [22].
• Animal Welfare Act (AWA). Can require licensing or registration for covered dealers, exhibitors, and similar regulated businesses — but it does not subject every horse farm to identical federal licensing [23].
• Interstate and import movement. Moving horses across state lines commonly requires individual identification and a Certificate of Veterinary Inspection (CVI, a health certificate signed by a veterinarian), with equine infectious anemia (EIA) and other disease testing that varies by destination state [24]. Importing live equines generally requires a USDA permit, a veterinary health certificate, port inspection, and quarantine [25].

On the racing side:

• Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act of 2020 (HISA). Created a federal, Federal Trade Commission (FTC)–overseen framework for uniform racetrack safety and anti-doping in Thoroughbred racing, enforced through the private HISA Authority and its Horseracing Integrity and Welfare Unit (HIWU) [20]. Its constitutionality has been litigated hard: appellate courts split (the Fifth Circuit found the enforcement structure unconstitutional while the Sixth and Eighth Circuits upheld it), and in June 2025 the Supreme Court vacated and remanded the cases for reconsideration in light of FCC v. Consumers' Research, leaving HISA operative for now [21]. A live regulatory-risk item for the racing side of demand.

Other federal and state layers:

• Horse slaughter and export. Domestic horse slaughter for human consumption has been effectively banned since 2007 (Congress declines to fund federal inspection, renewed annually), but exporting live horses to Mexico and Canada for slaughter is not banned — roughly 17,600 U.S. horses were exported for slaughter in the first 11 months of 2024 [27]. The SAFE Act (Save America's Forgotten Equines) would permanently ban both; it had a House cosponsor majority but has not reached a floor vote [27]. This shapes the industry's end-of-life economics and welfare reputation.
• Bureau of Land Management (BLM) wild horses and burros. A separate federal program manages free-roaming herds on public land — adjacent to, but not part of, commercial production.
• Tax. Horses are treated as livestock/business assets, opening depreciation (Section 179, bonus depreciation) and capital-gains treatment on breeding stock — but the IRS's hobby-loss rule (Internal Revenue Code §183) routinely challenges owners trying to deduct losses on operations it deems recreational. Tax policy has historically been a major swing factor in breeding activity.
• State and local rules govern racing licenses, zoning, water, waste, labor, land use, and animal welfare. Compliance failures can bring fines, exclusion from competition, insurance losses, and lasting reputational damage.

8. Competitive dynamics and consolidation

• A shrinking, consolidating Thoroughbred base. The registered North American foal crop was about 18,000 in 2024 — the smallest since 1964 and less than half the ~38,000 peak in 2005 — and has fallen in 18 of the last 19 years [10]. The Jockey Club then estimated roughly 17,300 for 2025 and projected about 17,000 for 2026, extending the decline [11]. Fewer, better-bred horses are being produced by fewer, larger commercial breeders. (These are Thoroughbred figures, not total-equine counts.)
• Concentration at the top of the stallion market. A small number of elite stallions (and the farms that stand them) capture a disproportionate share of breeding revenue, reinforced by "shuttle" stallions that breed in both hemispheres [9].
• Consolidation of racing and gaming. On the demand side, Churchill Downs and 1/ST have consolidated marquee tracks, and the growth of HHR and sports betting favors well-capitalized operators [14]. Auction volume concentrates at Keeneland and Fasig-Tipton [6][8].
• Fragmentation everywhere else. Sport-horse, Quarter Horse, and recreational breeding remain highly fragmented across hundreds of thousands of small farms [2]. A nationwide roll-up of the farm base is unlikely: it would face local land constraints, biological risk, dispersed ownership, and heavy dependence on specialist operators. Consolidation is far more likely in premium genetics, animal health/diagnostics, racetracks, and specialized services than across the whole industry.

9. Risks

• Structural demand erosion in racing. Falling wagering handle and a shrinking foal crop point to a maturing-to-declining core market [10][11][12]. If gaming subsidies to purses ever weaken (regulatory or competitive shifts), breeding economics deteriorate quickly.
• Dependence on gaming revenue. The proxy investable names lean heavily on HHR and casino cash flows, which face their own regulatory and competitive risks — state-by-state legality and sports-betting cannibalization [14].
• Price and cycle risk. Horse values, stud fees, purses, and auction demand can fall sharply when discretionary spending weakens; the long production cycle guarantees periodic oversupply and price busts.
• Biological risk. Infertility, foaling complications, injury, disease, and mortality can destroy the value of an individual animal overnight.
• Input-cost and land pressure. Hay/feed, veterinary, labor, insurance, and land costs squeeze already-thin margins; drought and feed-price spikes hit hardest.
• Liquidity and concentration risk. Private horses and farms lack continuous market prices — exits may need auctions, negotiated sales, or long holds — and a farm can depend on a single stallion, broodmare family, trainer, buyer group, or auction channel.
• Welfare, reputation, and regulation. Racing fatalities, doping scandals, soring, and the slaughter-export issue drive legislation (HISA, SAFE Act) and can dent public acceptance of the whole activity [20][21][27].
• Climate and resource risk. Drought, heat, storms, wildfire, and water/hay shortages affect both land and animal health.
• Measurement risk. Federal business statistics materially understate this industry because of nonemployer, government, nonprofit, and tiny-operator exclusions — size and trend judgments should lean on the USDA Census of Agriculture, not Census Bureau business series [2][5].

10. How to invest, and the outlook

Public-market routes (indirect only). There is no listed horse-breeding company. Exposure comes through:

• Racing / gaming operators — Churchill Downs (CHDN) is the closest thing to a horse-industry equity, though it is now primarily a gaming and HHR business; Flutter (FLUT), Penn (PENN), and Boyd (BYD) add wagering/racino exposure [14].
• Animal health and diagnostics — Zoetis (ZTS), Merck (MRK), Elanco (ELAN), and IDEXX (IDXX), where equine is a small, recurring line within a broader companion/livestock portfolio [16][17][18].
• Rural retail — Tractor Supply (TSCO) as a diffuse bet on rural and horse-owning households [19].

These are proxies, not pure plays. Review filings for actual equine revenue, product concentration, leverage, regulation, and capital intensity — don't assume a horse-related brand represents material company revenue.

Private routes (direct ownership). This is how you actually own the production layer:

• Racehorse partnerships and syndicates — fractional ownership of a horse or stallion season; the accessible on-ramp, but historically a money-losing proposition for most participants.
• Broodmares and breeding stock — buy a mare, breed to a stallion, sell the foal; returns depend on pedigree, the sales market, and cost control.
• Stallion shares / seasons — the highest-cash-flow, highest-concentration asset if you back the right horse.
• Land and farm operations, or private credit to operators — closer to a real-estate-plus-agribusiness play than a pure horse bet.

Enter these expecting concentrated risk, illiquidity, high carrying costs, and the IRS hobby-loss test. Due diligence should cover title and pedigree, veterinary and breeding records, insurance, buyer concentration, audited financials, land-use restrictions, governance, and exit rights. Fractional or pooled ownership vehicles can also raise securities-law questions and warrant professional advice.

Near-term drivers to watch (forward-looking):

• The foal-crop trajectory — continued shrinkage would tighten future racing supply, supporting top-end prices while thinning the middle [10][11].
• Wagering handle vs. gaming subsidies — whether purses stay elevated as handle keeps falling depends entirely on HHR and casino revenue holding up [12][13][14].
• HISA's final legal resolution and its cost/compliance impact on racing participation [20][21].
• The SAFE Act and welfare legislation, which could reshape end-of-life economics and industry reputation [27].
• Auction-market strength — record 2025 bloodstock sales signal healthy top-end and international demand; a reversal would be an early warning for the commercial breeding tier [6][8].

The likely shape of things: a smaller, more concentrated, more premium production industry — fewer horses and farms, higher-value animals, value pooling at the commercial top and in Kentucky, with the broad recreational base slowly eroding on cost and demographics. For public investors, the practical takeaway is that "investing in horses" almost always means investing in the wagering, health, and retail businesses around them; owning the animals themselves remains a private, passion-driven, high-variance pursuit best reserved for those who can tolerate illiquidity, operational complexity, and substantial loss risk.

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Sources

1. U.S. Census Bureau, "2022 NAICS — 112920 Horses and Other Equine Production" (definition and cross-references to 115210, 711219, 711212). https://www.census.gov/naics/?details=112920&input=112920&year=2022
2. USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service, "2022 Census of Agriculture, Volume 1, Chapter 2 — Table 18: Equine — Inventory and Sales: 2022 and 2017 (United States)," 2024. https://www.nass.usda.gov/Publications/AgCensus/2022/Full_Report/Volume_1,_Chapter_2_US_State_Level/st99_2_018_018.pdf
3. U.S. Small Business Administration, "Table of Small Business Size Standards Matched to NAICS Codes," 2023. https://data.sba.gov/dataset/small-business-size-standards
4. American Horse Council Foundation, "2023 National Equine Economic Impact Study," 2024. https://horsecouncil.org/economic-impact-study/
5. U.S. Census Bureau, "Nonemployer Statistics FAQ" (program excludes crop and animal production, NAICS 112) and "Economic Census — General Information and Coverage," 2024–2026. https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/nonemployer-statistics/about/faq.html; https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/economic-census.html
6. Keeneland, "Keeneland September Concludes with Record $531.5 Million in Sales" (2025 September Yearling Sale; 3,070 sold; 56 seven-figure yearlings). https://www.keeneland.com/sales/news/keeneland-september-concludes-with-record-5315-million-in-sales/
7. Keeneland, "Record Keeneland September Yearling Sale Reflects Global Confidence in U.S. Thoroughbred Industry" (2024; ~$427.8M gross, $150,548 average, $70,000 median, 36 seven-figure yearlings). https://www.keeneland.com/media/news/record-keeneland-september-yearling-sale-reflects-global-confidence-us-thoroughbred
8. Paulick Report / Fasig-Tipton, "Fasig-Tipton 2024 Saratoga Select Yearling Sale" (average $533,506 across 154 yearlings). https://paulickreport.com/news/bloodstock/
9. Spendthrift Farm / BloodHorse, "Into Mischief Again Tops Spendthrift Stud Fees at $250K," 2024. https://www.bloodhorse.com/horse-racing/articles/280445/into-mischief-again-tops-spendthrift-stud-fees-at-250k
10. The Jockey Club / BloodHorse, "2024 Live Foal Statistics" (~18,000 foals; smallest crop since 1964), 2024–2025. https://www.bloodhorse.com/horse-racing/articles/280496/the-jockey-club-releases-2024-live-foal-statistics
11. The Jockey Club, "2026 Foal Crop Estimate and 2025 Report of Mares Bred Statistics" (~17,000 projected for 2026; ~17,300 estimate for 2025), 2025. https://www.jockeyclub.com/default.asp?area=10&section=resources&story=1550
12. Equibase / BloodHorse, "Horse Racing Handle in 2024" (all-sources pari-mutuel handle ~$11.26 billion, down ~3.35%), 2025. https://www.bloodhorse.com/horse-racing/articles/292956/purses-edge-up-despite-continued-handle-decline
13. BloodHorse / Equibase, "Purses Edge Up Despite Continued Handle Decline" (2025 U.S. purses ~$1.28 billion), 2025. https://www.bloodhorse.com/horse-racing/articles/292956/purses-edge-up-despite-continued-handle-decline
14. BloodHorse, "CDI Reports Sharp Increase in 2024 Revenue, Income" (~$2.7B revenue; ~5,000 HHR machines), 2025. https://www.bloodhorse.com/horse-racing/articles/282794/cdi-reports-sharp-increase-in-2024-revenue-income
15. Paulick Report, "Churchill Downs Reports Profits of $383 Million in 2025," 2026. https://paulickreport.com/news/the-biz/churchill-downs-reports-profits-of-383-million-in-2025
16. Zoetis Inc., "Form 10-K for Fiscal Year 2024" (equine/horse revenue ~$285 million), U.S. SEC, 2025. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1555280/000155528025000102/zts-20241231.htm
17. Elanco Animal Health, "Products and Resources for Horse Health and Care," 2026. https://farmanimal.elanco.com/us/horses
18. IDEXX Laboratories, "Equine Reference Laboratories — Test Menu," 2026. https://www.idexx.com/en/equine/equine-reference-laboratories/test-menu/
19. Tractor Supply Company, "Annual Report (Form 10-K)," U.S. SEC. https://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/browse-edgar?action=getcompany&CIK=0000916365&type=10-K
20. Federal Trade Commission, "Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority Rules" (HISA / HIWU framework under FTC oversight), 2026. https://www.ftc.gov/enforcement/hisa/hisa-rules
21. American Veterinary Medical Association / BloodHorse, "Supreme Court sends horseracing authority's constitutionality cases back to lower courts," 2025. https://www.avma.org/news/supreme-court-sends-horseracing-authoritys-constitutionality-cases-back-lower-courts
22. USDA APHIS, "Horse Protection Act" (soring ban; 2024 final rule). https://www.aphis.usda.gov/hpa
23. USDA APHIS, "Apply for an Animal Welfare License or Registration" (Animal Welfare Act). https://www.aphis.usda.gov/awa/apply
24. USDA APHIS, "Interstate Movement of Cattle, Horses, Swine, Sheep & Goats" (CVI, equine infectious anemia testing). https://www.aphis.usda.gov/nvap/reference-guide/animal-movement/interstate
25. USDA APHIS, "Importing Live Equines and Equine Germplasm into the United States." https://www.aphis.usda.gov/live-animal-import/equine
26. USDA APHIS, National Animal Health Monitoring System, "National Equine Study 2026." https://www.aphis.usda.gov/news/program-update/usdas-national-animal-health-monitoring-system-launches-national-equine
27. Return to Freedom / Animal Welfare Institute, "2024 Slaughter Exports" (~17,600 U.S. horses exported Jan–Nov 2024) and "SAFE Act," 2024–2026. https://returntofreedom.org/2024-slaughter-exports-reach-17637-through-november/; https://awionline.org/content/horse-slaughter-facts-faqs
28. Company profiles for named private operators and sales venues: Coolmore America / Ashford Stud, Darley America / Godolphin at Jonabell Farm, WinStar Farm, Lane's End, Stonestreet Farms, Spendthrift Farm, Three Chimneys, Keeneland, Fasig-Tipton. https://coolmore.com/en/america/; https://www.darleyamerica.com/; https://www.winstarfarm.com/the-farm/; https://lanesend.com/about.html; https://stonestreetfarms.com/about-us/; https://www.keeneland.com/about