Shakespeare Club hears about breeding horses
One of this year’s foals, Perfect Storm AMS, at two weeks old.
submitted by Joan Gaughan, Shakespeare Club
When Allison McKenzie told her trainer that she wanted to breed warmblood horses, her trainer told her to (1) buy a very expensive horse, (2) marry someone who could buy her a very expensive horse, or (3) breed a very expensive horse herself. She chose the last option because, as she pointed out, if you don’t have a spectacular mare, then you don’t have any business breeding her.
In her presentation to the Club on April 8, she explained why she chose to breed warmblood horses, specifically Oldenburgs. A warmblood, historically speaking, is a combination of a hot-blooded horse (Arabians, for example) and a draft horse breed. Allison uses thoroughbred broodmares to add athleticism to the warmbloods that she breeds partly because they are considered a “purifying” breed but also because they add diversity into their breeding. Also, thoroughbreds add a further degree of athleticism into the warmblood breeds. You can think of a warmblood as an SUV whereas a thoroughbred is a sports car.
The mare has always been regarded as a “vessel” for the stallion to create outstanding progeny. When you listen to any horse racing broadcast or coverage of any equestrian competition, the focus still remains on the sire of the horse rather than the dam. A stud fee for an Oldenburg stallion can range anywhere from $1,000 to $3,500. And if that price tag doesn’t make you shriek, the stud fee for Justify, who won horse racing’s Triple Crown, is $250,000.
Most breeders use artificial insemination instead of letting the mare and stallion handle things au naturale. There are four reasons for this: First, it is more cost-effective to have what one needs from the stallion shipped to the mare owner, rather than ship an entire mare to the stallion. Secondly, artificial insemination is far safer for the stallion and the mare. Stallions and mares can be aggressive when breeding, and kicking and biting are commonplace during natural breeding. Third, breeding artificially is more sterile and there is less chance of infection for both the mare and stallion. And finally, there are a great number of breeders in the United States who choose stallions from overseas and in those cases, the semen must be frozen and shipped internationally where breeding can be performed by a veterinarian skilled in handling frozen semen.
She explained how the semen is collected from the stallion and how it is then inseminated into the mare. Mares gestate for 320–360 days — or around 11 months. In rare cases, at birth, a foal can present as a “red bag” foal — meaning that the placenta gets delivered before the foaling sac. In this situation, most foals die due to the fact that they aren’t recognized. Sometimes when foals are born they can be what are called “dummy foals” — essentially, they don’t nurse within a two-hour window. It’s important that they nurse in order to get colostrum from their dam, without which they don’t receive the important nutrients and antibodies to survive. In the event of a dummy foal, veterinary intervention is crucial.
The sad reality is that even if you do everything right — sometimes it all goes wrong. Foals will die and sometimes mares will die. If a mare dies or rejects her foal, a nurse mare needs to be found, which can take some time. Breeding is expensive and heartbreaking. Yet, when she was asked why she does it, Allison’s answer was that she enjoys working with God to bring something beautiful into the world.
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