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CEOF Equine Fund Gains Momentum in Central Kentucky

English may be his second language, but it certainly would have been difficult to guess when 2^nd grader Markus won his school's spelling bee and went on to compete against kids several years his elder in a district-wide spelling tournament.

Markus moved with his family to the U.S. several years ago when his parents started jobs working on a horse farm in Paris, Kentucky. His family valued education and after receiving a partial scholarship, Markus was able to attend St. Mary School in his new hometown, where his principal Miranda Chaplin said he and his preschool-aged younger brother are model students.

“They are bright, respectful and incredibly hardworking,” she shared. “They are thriving at our school.”

Markus is one of the first young students to benefit from a newly formed fund dedicated to providing tuition assistance for children in Kindergarten through eighth grade whose parents or legal guardian work in the equine industry in Central Kentucky.

The Catholic Education Opportunities Foundation (CEOF)'s Equine Fund began as an idea years ago from Father Chris Clay and the Clay family of Runnymede Farm. The fund officially launched this year and in its inaugural academic season, 10 children applied for funding and each one received tuition assistance of some kind.

CEOF is a non-profit that has been in existence since 2018, serving the 12 Catholic schools based in Lexington and the surrounding areas of Woodford and Bourbon counties, Frankfort, Richmond, Georgetown, Winchester and on into Eastern Kentucky, but the fund dedicated specifically for equine industry participants and their elementary-aged children is the first and only one of its kind.

Taylor Made Farm's Mark Taylor and his wife Julia have been members of CEOF's leadership council from the very beginning. Julia later became a member of its official Board and also now serves on its financial committee.

Taylor spoke of the impact she has witnessed over the years with families receiving tuition assistance.

“The families and the kids are so grateful,” she said. “We've seen firsthand the difference that it makes. There are a lot of hardworking, great people that would like to send their kids to Catholic schools but can't quite afford it. We want to help these families bridge their financial gap and attend our wonderful schools.”

CEOF's Executive Director Kim Thompson said that scholarships provided by their organization are partially-funded–aimed to make Catholic education more affordable for families–and that the amount given to each family is determined by a third-party agency called FACTS.

She also explained that the funding is for children of any faith background and that the advantages of Catholic education can impact a child spiritually, but in other ways as well.

“We feel that this type of education gives children a leg up academically and offers families different opportunities,” she said. “There's a focus on values and service in their communities, so it's more than just the tradition of strong academics.”

St. Mary School is in the heart of horse country in Paris and Chaplin confirmed that the students reflect its agrarian setting. The principal noted that a quarter of their attendees have parents connected to the equine industry in some way, including a range of socioeconomic representation from farm owners and farm managers to farm workers.

Chaplin said the equine fund has the potential to benefit a large number of families in their community.

“The goal of the equine fund is to create more accessibility so that families have the opportunity to provide their children with the best education choice for their family,” she explained. “For some of our families–thinking specifically about folks who are farm labor–they might not otherwise have access to a Catholic education if it was not for the help of scholarships and financial assistance.”

In recent years, Chaplin said, their numbers have increased thanks in part to the funding provided by the CEOF that has made education options more affordable.

“Since the start of the pandemic, our school has doubled in enrollment,” she said. “Because families are looking for more education opportunities for their families, the need for financial assistance has also grown.”

Godolphin's Gerry Duffy is a member of the CEOF's leadership council and is also on the Equine Fund's committee. He said that funding from this project could have a lasting impact on the industry and its participants.

“If you want to change your environment or change your community, give people an education,” he said. “I think a lot of people realize that and are happy to give those opportunities to kids within the horse industry. It's another way to add value to our employees. Helping their kids with their education is one of the best things you can do for someone. If we can make a difference and help out some of those families and give some of those kids an opportunity, we should.”

CEOF is now working to get the word out on their fledgling fund for the next academic year–both to families that may apply for funding and industry members that might be interested in getting involved. In addition to Runnymede, Taylor Made and Godolphin, the project has already gained early support from the likes of Hallway Feeds, Fasig-Tipton and Old Colony Insurance.

“We're still in the infancy stage of the CEOF Equine Fund and we're really focusing on getting the word out to people in the horse industry,” Taylor said. “The ultimate goal is to build this fund up so that it will produce income every year that we will then distribute to families for tuition assistance to keep it going. We're still in the building phase and we have big hopes for the future.”

Thompson shared that they have big goals for the coming years. They hope to double the number of children granted funding for the 2024-2025 school year and then continue to double that number for the next five years.

As the program's notoriety continues to grow within the industry, they could be well on their way to achieving just that.

“It's an exciting time for us,” Thompson said. “We really feel that this not only benefits the area's parochial schools with additional enrollment, but it also gives opportunities to families that otherwise may not be afforded them. Central Kentucky is the hub of the equine industry, so creating the CEOF Equine Fund just makes sense and now we're rapidly gaining momentum within the industry.”

To learn more about the Catholic Education Opportunities Foundation, click here.

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KTFMC Meeting: Equine Veterinary Changes, Implications for Farm Managers

by Sara Gordon and Katie Petrunyak

LEXINGTON, KY-The Kentucky Thoroughbred Farm Managers Club (KTFMC) held its first meeting of the year on Tuesday at Keeneland. The event was conducted jointly with the Kentucky Association of Equine Practitioners (KAEP) and the over 200 in attendance represented both organizations. Members of the Godolphin Flying Start and Kentucky Equine Management Internship programs were also on hand.

Recent changes and trends in the equine veterinary field were a focal point of the evening, along with topics including equine litigation and liability, navigating equine veterinary practice changes and the equine veterinarian shortage.

KTFMC President Gerry Duffy said their board brought up the issue of the equine veterinary shortage as a potential topic for their monthly meeting and from there, they partnered with the KAEP knowing that the subject would be relevant to both organizations.

“We know that the vet-farm manager relationship is so important and we have been hearing statistics about how they're struggling to get equine practitioners and of the ones they get, there's a high degree of partition,” Duffy explained. “We thought it would be a good topic to discuss at the meeting and when we got talking to the KAEP, they were having a meeting focused on equine veterinary litigation and liability so we thought, why not bring the two together?”

A 'Q and A' session on the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act (HISA) was also conducted with HISA's Director of Equine Safety and Welfare Dr. Jennifer Durenberger and HISA Representative Marc Guilfoil, bringing forth a host of questions on the new responsibilities that those overseeing horses outside of the racetrack would take on if and when HISA comes into authority.

Evolving Landscape of Equine Insurance Coverage

Equine attorney Mike Casey of Casey Bailey & Maines, PLLC, based in Lexington, was the first speaker to the podium, leading a discussion on the evolving landscape of equine insurance coverage and the particulars of filing a claim under those policies.

Casey emphasized the importance of the relationship between vets and farm managers, particularly when it comes to how the vets document interactions with their patients and handle subsequent care when called out to the farms. This is all information that is not only necessary for those directly connected to the horse, but also required when it comes to instances of filing a claim, such as equine mortality, with an insurance agency.

Common issues that arise involve how often the vet visits the patient, varying whether the visits are routine or for a specific health issue, which correlates with the problematic pressure to prescribe medication without examining the patient first.

“It is critically important to make sure when you're administering medications that you have that temporal visit with the horse,” said Casey.

He also touched on the growing issue of using medication on a horse that it was not originally prescribed to.

“I probably see that more today, in the last two or three years, than the last 10 years before.”

All of these issues were weighed against what the insurance company would be looking for when handling a claim, which always leads back to the importance of maintaining precise, updated documentation. Medical records must include enough detail that anyone checking on the horse should be able to know exactly what their health status is, what treatments they have received in the past and how things should be handled for that particular patient going forward.

“Farm managers need to call the vet and make sure they see the horse the next day. It'll hopefully avoid a catastrophic outcome and it is in compliance with regulations that we know will have heightened scrutiny as we go to HISA, or as KAEP redrafts regulations,” said Casey.

When dealing with mortality insurance claims, farm managers should take the time to read through the entire policy in order to understand what is expected of them when dealing with the insurance company. In that same vein, all communication with the designated representative of the insurance company should also be documented, to avoid any issues when filing a claim down the road.

Casey explained why understanding any negating factors, such as instances of failure to provide improper care, is crucial. His example touched on use of a medication on a horse that it was not prescribed to, which could fall under the realm of an “intentional act” of improper care. In most cases, “proper care” is defined after the fact.

“We want to be able to connect the prescription to the horse, to the vet's visit, to prevent application of the unauthorized medication claim,” he said.

Communication and proper documentation are the key points when it comes to vets and farm managers abiding by regulations, maintaining the proper care for the horses in their charge, and ensuring that in the case of any insurance claims filed, everything is presented properly to guarantee a seamless process.

According to Casey, there is no such thing as too much communication, using the example of emailing the insurance agency a summary of the vet's visit for annual vaccinations to prove his point. Farm managers must also understand that a vet isn't going to report directly to the insurance agency in the case of a claim, so they must maintain their own day-to-day records as well.

“We've got to establish a dialogue for this industry, [when it comes to] what is reasonable, proper and the routine method of doing business. It is important that insurers play a role in this,” said Casey. “It's too easy to use the sins of others in the industry to say, 'That's why we have a heightened medication claim.'”

As he concluded his presentation, Casey reiterated the importance of ensuring all treatment decisions and medications are being administered based on the physical examination of that horse.

KTFMC President Gerry Duffy with former president John Williams | KTFMC

Equine Practitioners Discuss Vet Shortage

While most meeting attendees were aware of the equine veterinary shortage, the statistics shared by Hagyard's Dr. Luke Fallon were staggering.

Fallon said that according to a recent survey conducted by the American Association of Equine Practitioners, by 2030, equine medicine will need over 5,000 veterinarians to meet the growth in demand. Currently there are approximately 3,650 practicing equine veterinarians in America.

Additionally, of the 3,300 veterinary graduates each year from U.S. schools, only 1.3% will enter the equine profession directly. While 4.5% will enter an internship program, 50% will leave the equine profession within five years.

“If you do the math, the shortage of equine veterinarians is already here,” Fallon said. “Why are equine vets leaving the profession? Burnout is one of the key factors. It is a demanding job with long hours and low starting salaries compared to small animal jobs, which often include a signing bonus as high as $200,000 for new graduates.”

Fallon explained that many young students enter veterinary school with the dream of becoming an equine practitioner, but turn to small animal medicine because it is a more logical step financially. He said that equine veterinarians usually start at between a third and half of the initial salary of a small animal veterinarian.

Fellow Hagyard veterinarian Rhonda Rathgeber joined the conversation to discuss a few of the new initiatives Hagyard is working on to encourage veterinary students to consider a career in the equine industry.

Hagyard has enhanced their recruitment efforts by hosting student weekends to show how their facility operates and share details about their externship program. Although the initiative has been hurt in recent years due to the pandemic, it has led to increased numbers in their externship program.

“We are up to 150 externs this season, so if your veterinarian has an extern or a student with them, please be patient,” Rathgeber advised. “We've done a lot of work to get them to come and see what it's really like.”

Hagyard has also increased their outreach through college visits. Last year, they visited a third of the veterinary colleges in the country. Additional recruitment efforts include a podcast, their participation in the annual Opportunities in Equine Practice Seminar hosted by Rood & Riddle Equine Hospital and also hosting their own undergraduate seminars for pre-vet students.

Jim Heird, PhD, rounded out the session to discuss one promising step toward overcoming the shortage. Heird is a member of the advisory council for Lincoln Memorial University's Equine Veterinary Education Program (EVEP), which provides an accelerated, six-and-a-half year path to a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine degree. Students go through the undergraduate program at LMU and as long as they maintain a 3.35 GPA, they are automatically accepted into the school's veterinary program.

The EVEP places an emphasis on their students developing hands-on horsemanship skills. Students will work on-farm summer internships during their undergraduate years and then will intern at clinics during their summers in the veterinary program.

Heird said that LMU produces more equine veterinarians than any other school in the country.

“When I think about my career, I don't know of anything that I've done that has as much impact on the future of this industry than this program could have,” he said. “That's why I'm so passionate about it.”

HISA's Director of Equine Safety and Welfare Dr. Jennifer Durenberger and HISA Representative Marc Guilfoil

Concerns for Consignors and Managers Brought to Light During HISA Q and A

The evening concluded with a focus on HISA, where attendees were given the opportunity to ask Durenberger and Guilfoil questions. Pertinent to those in attendance, many questions focused on the regulations for those dealing with horses covered under HISA, outside of the track, such as consignors at the sales or farm managers handling lay-ups at the farm.

Though HISA has already released handbooks for racetracks, racetrack maintenance, regulatory veterinarians, attending veterinarians and trainers, Durenberger did say that handbooks for groups such as farm managers, consignors and off-track vets were in the works.

In the meantime, she emphasized that it would be the responsible party's job to update any records related to a “covered horse” in the HISA online portal, as those records would not be required until the horse returned to the racetrack. In those cases, the responsible party would more than likely be the trainer.

Further concern was expressed for clarifying who the responsible party would be, depending on different situations when the horse is not at the track, and specifying the time requirements for submitting any updates to a horse's medical record. Durenberger assured those asking these questions that further details would be provided, in hopes of clearing up any misunderstanding.

For almost 100 years, the KTFMC has helped build community and camaraderie among farm managers while also working to find solutions for challenges that these managers face. Their current officers are President Gerry Duffy (Godolphin), Vice President Adrian Wallace (Coolmore), Treasurer Charles Hynes (Coolmore), Secretary Molly Harris (Shawhan Place) and Sergeant-At-Arms B.G. “Scooter” Hughes (Hughes Racing Stable). The club boasts over 500 members and hosts a number of annual charitable fundraisers including a golf scramble, a trail ride, a 5k run, and more. For more information on the KTFMC or to apply for membership, visit www.ktfmc.org or email info@ktfmc.org

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Timm, Grovendale Debut New Partnership at Keeneland

Last month, James Keogh announced that Chance Timm would be joining him at his Grovendale Sales in a new partnership designed to expand their footprint in the sales consignment arena. Most industry people have dealt professionally with Timm at one time or another over his 15 years in the business, but while he has had some high-profile jobs, by and large, he has kept his head down and flown pretty much under the radar. He has preferred, as he says, to deflect the attention to the people he worked for and the success they had built.

As a principle at Grovendale, he now `is' the people he works for, and he sat down for a long-overdue talk to discuss the four horses they will offer at the Keeneland April Sale on Friday and provide some background about his life and history in the sport.

The Grovendale consignment features Hip 10, Suppressor (Munnings) a racing prospect; and three racing or broodmare prospects: Hip 82, First Sip (Ghostzapper), Hip 86, Lady Love Me (Star Guitar), and Hip 91, Winedown (Kantharos).

It's fairly certain that Timm himself will be the only Utah native consigning horses at the sale. He hails from the town of Murray, a suburb of Salt Lake City, and Utah's fourteenth-largest town. Timm's grandfather bred and raised Quarter Horses and trained racehorses, and his father and uncle rode races for their father. “My first experience in the horse world was those guys riding on the weekends in bush tracks,” he said. “There was no parimutuel wagering out there, so it was fairly limited. It was more a hobby than a real profession.”

Timm with clients Here We Go Stable | Alyssa Cumming photo

When his father died when Timm was just 11, he said he drifted away from the sport, before finding his way back a half-dozen years later.
“A big thing in the inter-mountain West in Utah, Idaho, Wyoming, is chariot racing,” he said. “They hook Quarter Horse racehorses to a chariot, kind of Ben-Hur style, and they race them for 440 yards in the wintertime. It's a big family event down there, and while it's dying now, it was really popular when I was in high school. And so my family always had chariot horses, too.”

Timm started helping out an uncle with his horses, driving them, getting them fit, and accompanying him to the races on weekends. “It was a great time for me, because I needed a really positive male influence in my life at that time, after my father had passed away, and he was it and the horses became a pathway to that.”

He started his college career at the University of Utah where he was offered a Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC) scholarship, but decided to pursue horse racing at the University of Arizona on a Race for Education scholarship instead. But upon his graduation, he found that horse racing opportunities out West were few and far between. He worked as an assistant starter, galloped horses, and took a the job as the assistant racing secretary and clerk of scales at Arapahoe Park, which he described as “a miserable time.”

“I remember one day, late in the summer of the meet, they were racing Arabians and I was in the paddock watching them give a leg up on these Arabians, and I thought to myself, `I've got to get the heck out of here.'”

Two former U of A classmates had a suggestion that proved to be the answer when Jordyn Egan and Ian Tapp suggested he apply for the Darley (now Godolphin) Flying Start program. The experience was life-changing.

“It was huge for me,” he recalled. “I had never been out of the country when I applied to Flying Start. I didn't even have a passport.”
Timm is a soft-spoken, reflective person with a quick laugh who loves nothing more than a good intellectual debate. He is also someone who has put a lot of thought into what sort of job would make for a fulfilling life for him, his wife and two children.

Timm lives in Lexington, and is married to the former AbiGail Spalding, the daughter of Summer Wind farm manager Bobby Spalding, whom Timm credits with an important role in shaping his life and career. They have two young daughters.

“When I was on the course, I always thought I wanted to get involved in bloodstock,” said Timm. “When I was getting going, it wasn't uncommon at all for yearlings to bring $6, $7, $8 million. And funny enough, what I knew I didn't want to do was get into stallions, and I ended up loving it. When I was at WinStar doing seasons with Gerry Duffy and syndicating all those horses, that's when I really understood how it all worked, the syndication process and scouting the horses and trying to figure out what they're worth and what you can buy them for. And then I got to do even more of it at Lane's End. It's a great part of the industry, where you put a big bet on the line and then you go on and sell it. There's a lot of excitement behind it. It's great calling people up and saying, `Hey, we got the breeding rights to this horse and this is what we're going to stand him for, and we'd like you to partner with us.'”

In the end, what he learned was that he wanted to be in the relationships business.

“Luckily, during my time at Lane's End, I was pretty involved with the sales consignment. And apart from my responsibility to the stallion roster and all that came with that, they were gracious enough to let me be actively involved in recruiting and placement of horses in the sales consignment, and I really enjoyed that. One of the things I enjoy the most in this industry is meeting new people and talking to these people, finding out their story and where they're from, and then helping them along and watching their program succeed.”

At Grovendale, he'll get to build on that resume.

“I've come to realize that the sales process is something that I really, really enjoy, for all those same reasons. I like working closely with people and playing the long game and advising them on making sound decisions that pay off long-term, instead of taking shortcuts, or maybe just trying to get a nice horse for them, sell and move on. That's not really what I'm about or what James Keogh is about. We want to develop long-lasting relationships with people that trust us, and we have strong ties with them and watch their programs do well. I've come to realize how much I enjoy that part of it, placing horses in the sale, figuring out what's the best spot to sell them. Who's on the horse? How much is it going to bring? And going through that whole process.”

Timm at Keeneland with daughters Hallie and Vivian | courtesy Chance Timm

Grovendale will continue to feature its traditional services, including sales consignments, matings, investments and consultation. They will also continue to trade their own horses. Timm said having that kind of personal stake in the game is something that is critical to understanding your clients' business.

“James told me early on when I first got to know him that tuition in this game is not cheap, and the only way to learn it is to put your money up. And he's right. You learn all the time what works and what doesn't work. And I think if you've never lost money on a horse, it's hard to tell people-to look them in the face-and say that they are going to have to take a loss.”

Their expansion plans will focus on yearlings and horses of racing age.

“We'll be at all the major Kentucky sales,” he said. “We'll go to Saratoga with the right horse, but we'll stick mainly to Central Kentucky. The plan is to build the yearling and horses-of-racing-age areas of the consignment year-round. The breeding stock segment is always something that James has had a strong presence in, and obviously we'll continue to be involved there. But the primary focus is to further emphasize the quality of the breeding stock sales and build our presence in the yearling sales.”

The growing presence of digital and pop-up sales should further fuel business.

“Like most of the people in Central Kentucky, we trade horses. The market has become so concentrated at this point that there are very few of us that don't actively invest and trade horses. So for all of us that are advisors or industry professionals, digital sales provide a great opportunity to trade. But even beyond industry professionals, for participants that are looking to capitalize on something at the right time, it's an opportunity. And the reality is that this kind of stuff happens all the time. Horses trade privately at peak opportunities all the time. But the public marketplace gives buyers a lot of confidence, obviously. It gives people confidence and transparency. Boyd Browning has always said that the best place for sellers to maximize the value of a horse is at public auction, and he's right. There's no better way to value a horse than the open market.”

In the end, says Timm, he's just happy to work with someone for whom he has so much respect.

“There are very few people that have done more for me in the horse business than James Keogh,” he said. “I'm obviously biased and I've built this relationship with him over a long time, but James is one of the most generous people I've ever been around. He's a very kind, trustworthy person that gives his time and opportunities and just a hand to anybody and everybody that needs it–whether they're facing some kind of health ailment or they need help with fixing a fence or whatever it is.”

The important thing, he said, is that he and Keogh are on the same page when it comes to their goals for their clients.

“I think this is all based on relationships and building a relationship with somebody that you can trust and you have confidence in. That's really what I want to stand behind. I want the people that I work with and on whose behalf I work to have the trust and confidence that I'm looking out for their best interest. And that's always going to be the preemptive motivation for what we're trying to do.”

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Global Views: Foaling Outside A New Norm?

Foaling inside has been the go-to method across many equine industries around the world. For decades this practice has been the norm, while the natural act of foaling outside is often something farms work to avoid; often the weather doesn't make foaling outside practical, and as managers we try to do what's best for these new foals by aiding in delivery and getting them a good start in life. However, when a new strain of Rotavirus ravaged farms across central Kentucky in the spring of 2021, foaling outside became a tool that a few farms used with great success.

In early 2021, several farms found their hands full with foals experiencing extreme bouts of diarrhea. Foals became lethargic and suffered from dehydration due to the severe diarrhea. What made this new strain so dangerous was that the vaccine for Rotavirus A didn't protect against the new Rotavirus B strain,

which prior to March 2021 was undiscovered. This viral disease had the contagiousness of Rotavirus A, which made biosecurity protocols very difficult to implement at farms due to labor shortages and the ease of carrying viral particles from place to place. Due to this, standard foaling protocols, including disinfecting stalls, isolating horses, and even moving barns, were sometimes not enough to stop the virus. Thus, the virus spread quickly, and infected foals failed to respond to treatments other than intravenously administered fluids and electrolytes. Veterinary clinics became overwhelmed by the number of foals and lacked the space to safely quarantine them within their facilities. Farms found their workforce spread thin as they tried to manage the rising number of sick foals.

Gerry Duffy, the Stud Manager at Godolphin's Stonerside Farm in Paris, KY explained how dire the situation became at his farm.

“The foals were getting diarrhea within 36 hours of birth,” he explained.

As more foals fell ill, horses were quarantined and fluids were run into sick foals, but the numbers kept increasing. As with many farms, staff became weary and disheartened. After trying new barns, using PPE, and increasing biosecurity, the only thing left to try was foaling outside. The idea came from the advisement of veterinarians and from conversations with other farms that were having similar experiences.

“We found that going outside broke the chain,” Duffy said. “It all comes down to biosecurity. You don't get the concentration of bacteria and viruses outside like you do inside a stall.”

When Stonerside made the switch to foaling outside, the spread of the virus stopped almost overnight. If it was dry and the temperature was greater than 35 degrees, every foal would be born outside. Ultimately, about 70% of foals born at Stonerside in 2021 were foaled in this manner.

Ben Henley, Airdrie Farm's general manager, went on to highlight some of the unforeseen consequences of the change.

Henley said they saw a difference in foals regarding mental and physical health. “You're often keeping the foal inside for a few days for up to a week due to leg issues, including stuff like contracted tendons or relaxed tendons,” he said. “We found that having them out the whole time that those things kind of rectified themselves a bit quicker.

“Additionally, there was an improvement in mares. The mares were a lot more relaxed being out the entire time. There wasn't that anxious moment of letting the mares and foals go and

watching them run around.”

But perhaps the most notable improvement was that of their health and recovery. When they were allowed to move freely about a paddock after foaling, the mare's uterus cleaned out more quickly, resulting in less management of the mare and veterinary intervention.

Given Henley's background in working on studs in Australia and Europe, the transition to foaling outside was not foreign to him. Furthermore, it's something Airdrie was already accustomed to.

“We have foaled outside in the past on several occasions, whenever we had an outbreak and you needed that separation,”

he added.

Ultraviolet light may kill the virus, so foaling in a natural environment seemed to be the logical next step.

Infrastructure is critical for safe mare monitoring and foaling. Airdrie boldly invested in infrastructure to make the transition to outdoor foaling more permanent. Flood lights were installed to illuminate the outside space, paddocks were put up, and an even larger paddock was split to provide a space for foals less than a week old. Beyond UV light, the elements of nature helped break down and clean foaling sites. As an added precaution, paddocks are rested for several days to prevent viral and bacterial loading of the foaling paddocks.

Duffy commented on the cleanliness of nature, and said, “There's less clean up required. In about two days there's no trace of where the foaling occurred in the paddock. The foals also seem to stand better, they can get traction on the ground and they're not swimming or tripping up in the straw.”

Duffy stressed biosecurity, saying that paddocks are rested and sparingly used to ensure the sites are clean and the mares are foaling on fresh ground to prevent a buildup of bacteria and viruses. In addition, foals are checked by a veterinarian on day one; and the handling is kept to a minimum during the first seven days while the foals' immune systems are the most naive.

Foaling and rearing outside has already resulted in a few positive outcomes, including a lighter workload on staff, improved health in mares, and some farms have even noted better attitudes in their horses. I challenge you to open your mind to what may happen in years to come with these young horses and future foals born and raised outside. Research has suggested that concussive forces play a critical role in developing bone thickness and density, so it could be theorized that something similar may happen when foals are kept outside for longer periods of time. Going forward, more research will be required to assess bone density and thickness in foals and their different stages of life.

Foaling inside will likely remain part of the way farms do things. It allows us to closely monitor mares and foals, intervene quickly as necessary, but most importantly, provide adequate shelter for those mares foaling early in the year when the weather is typically inclement. The shift to foaling outside was a reaction in response to a critical situation that many farms in central Kentucky faced. For some, this was the only way they were able to stop and eliminate Rotavirus B at their farm. However, given the many benefits this change has brought about, it would appear the positive outcome and its consequences are the new norm for some farms in Kentucky. Perhaps one day, foaling outside may become the go-to method for equine industries-racing and non-racing-across the world.

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