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Horowitz On OTTBs, Presented By Excel Equine: Thanks To Genetics, Thoroughbreds Are The Ultimate Shapeshifters

Let's talk about what a Thoroughbred truly is.

A Thoroughbred is an athlete. Through centuries of crafting a vision and meticulous breeding to bring that vision to life, the Thoroughbred has become the wonder of horse lovers and sports lovers and the source of big business and cultural richness around the world.

The vision for the Thoroughbred started about 350 years ago with the goal of producing the ultimate racehorse, but the selective breeding to create horses that could excel at racing has also produced horses that can be successful at many other equine sports. That's because of what has become intrinsic to the breed beyond just physical prowess.

“The Thoroughbred looks out into the far distance,” said Chris Ryan, who has worked with Thoroughbreds at the highest levels of horse racing and eventing for more than four decades. “His horizon is way out there and he feels he can get there whenever he wishes. This gives him tremendous forward thinking. A horse thinking forward is going forward. Watch his ears!”

After finishing his education in 1976, Ryan entered the horse racing world, working with Thoroughbreds in both flat and jump racing, first for trainer Thomson Jones in the United Kingdom. He would then become head lad for trainer Jim Bolger in his native Ireland, among other roles as jockey, trainer, breeder, and sales producer.

“A chestnut race mare, Stanerra, winner of two Group 1s, two Group 2s now upgraded to Group 1s, a Group 3, and European Champion Older Horse of her year, probably gave me the best insight into the Thoroughbred,” Ryan said. “I was on my own with her for long periods of time and got to know her so well and she me. What a privilege to be accepted by her to such a level you could tell what she was thinking while on her back and even at 200 yards distant.”

Ryan's understanding of what made Stanerra tick took the mare from winning just one of 13 starts as a 4-year-old in 1982 to winning two races in one week at Royal Ascot and then becoming the first European-trained winner of the Japan Cup in 1983.

Now, Ryan serves as a judge for the United States Eventing Association's Young Event Horse Series and Future Event Horse Series, where he evaluates the potential of horses to excel at the highest level of the equestrian sport of eventing that the website for the FEI, the international governing body for equestrian sports, dubs “the most complete combined competition discipline.”

“I love their intelligence, their beauty, their refinement, and their courage under fire,” Ryan said of the Thoroughbred. “Nature (100 percent genetics), and nurture (everything else) have given the Thoroughbred a most amazing anatomy and physique, a designer heart to lung ratio and a mind which can process data at speed which allows their engine to 'tick over' at an amazing 35 miles per hour — the Formula 1 of the equine species.”

Ryan's assessment of Thoroughbreds — now one that I'm embracing as I've gone from announcing horse races to eventing on OTTBs — is that the nature of the breed goes beyond its original intentions of racing. So, a Thoroughbred does not lose its nature once it finishes what those in horse racing perceive as its primary purpose. Nor does it take on a new identity if it goes from racing into a new sport like eventing or show jumping or barrel racing or any of the other disciplines that retired racehorses can now excel at as part of the Thoroughbred Makeover.

In fact, the qualities that the Thoroughbred possesses have inspired crossing other breeds with the Thoroughbred. For example, the Irish Sport Horse Stud Book that has excelled in eventing has developed through crossing with Thoroughbreds.

Horses with a high percentage of Thoroughbred blood were some of the highest sellers at the recent Monart Sale and Goresbridge Go For Gold Sale for event horse prospects in Ireland.

“The Thoroughbred is the most noted Studbook improver,” said Ryan, who was the pedigree announcer for the Goresbridge Go For Gold Sale.

From the sale of eventing prospects then to the highest level of the sport, the Thoroughbred has stood out.

“We saw in the recent excellent Maryland 5 Star cross country the ease of travel of the pure Thoroughbred and those with a high Thoroughbred influence,” Ryan said. “Those that lacked found it hard work.”

The author in his role as an announcer of OTTBs at Twin Rivers

The impact of the Thoroughbred goes beyond anything Captain Robert Byerly, Thomas Darley, and Lord Godolphin could have ever envisioned when they each imported a stallion from the Middle East that would bear their name and become the three foundation stallions for the modern Thoroughbred.

So, when you see a Thoroughbred leave the starting gate or the cross country start box or the barrel racing chute, it's an opportunity to appreciate how the breed has evolved over more than three centuries to be an elite sport horse, regardless of what that sport is.

Understanding and embracing the true nature of the Thoroughbred means that events like the Retired Racehorse Project Thoroughbred Makeover, programs like The Jockey Club Thoroughbred Incentive Program, and retired racehorses competing at horse shows can be appreciated as representations of the strengths of the breed, and not just something different that happens after a racing career ends.

My next column, a conversation with outgoing Retired Racehorse Project executive director Jen Roytz, who, like Ryan, also has both a racing and sport horse background, will explore how the nurture side of Thoroughbreds' evolution through the racetrack has also prepared the breed for success as sport horses.

Indeed, horse racing is the catalyst for the Thoroughbred's success across the entire equine world.

The post Horowitz On OTTBs, Presented By Excel Equine: Thanks To Genetics, Thoroughbreds Are The Ultimate Shapeshifters appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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Ask Your Veterinarian Presented By Kentucky Performance Products: When To Perform A C-Section On A Pregnant Mare

Veterinarians at Rood and Riddle Equine Hospital answer your questions about sales and healthcare of Thoroughbred auction yearlings, weanlings, 2-year-olds and breeding stock.

Question: Why and when might a veterinarian decide to perform a C-section on a pregnant mare?

Dr. Rolf Embertson, Rood and Riddle Equine Hospital: Most C-sections are performed as an emergency procedure in the horse. The procedure is usually performed when other methods to deliver a foal have failed. C-sections are infrequently performed during colic surgery on a term broodmare and infrequently performed as an elective procedure in the mare. Indications for the latter would include a compromised birth canal due to a previous pelvic fracture or soft tissue trauma, a compromised cervix, previous episodes of postpartum hemorrhage, and previous difficult dystocias.

Dr. Rolf Embertson

Before discussing success rates, a basic understanding of dystocia in the mare is warranted. Dystocia means difficult birth. In the mare, once the chorioallantoic membrane ruptures (the mare breaks water), a foal is usually delivered in about 20 minutes. If a foal is not delivered within about 45 minutes, the probability of foal survival starts to rapidly decrease. Thus, this can become a true emergency where minutes can make the difference in survival of the foal. Although less of an emergency for the mare, her reproductive future and even her life may also be at risk. The goal should be to deliver a live foal in a manner resulting in a live, reproductively sound mare.

There are essentially four procedures used to resolve dystocia in a mare. Assisted vaginal delivery (AVD) is when the mare is awake, possibly sedated, and is assisted in vaginal delivery of an intact foal. This is done primarily on the farm. Controlled vaginal delivery (CVD) is when the mare is anesthetized and the clinician is in complete control of delivering an intact foal vaginally. This is usually done in a hospital environment. Fetotomy is when a dead foal is reduced to more than one part to remove the foal vaginally from an awake or anesthetized mare. This can be done at the farm or in a hospital. C-section is when the foal is removed through an abdominal and uterine incision. This is best performed in a hospital. These procedures are used as needed to produce the most favorable result.

The success rate for live foals and live mares that go through a dystocia is significantly better when the farms are close to a hospital that can perform these procedures. This is primarily due to the duration of the dystocia prior to resolution, although this can be influenced by other factors. Realistic example: A mare breaks water and 15 to 20 minutes later, the foaling attendants realize they can't correct the head back posture of the foal. Within five to 10 minutes (now 20 to 30 minutes since the water broke) the mare is loaded on the trailer, the mare arrives at the hospital in 15 to 40 minutes (now 35 to 70 minutes into the foaling attempt). A brief exam, IV catheter placement, anesthetic induction within five to 10 minutes (now 40 to 80 minutes overall), attempt CVD for five to 15 minutes (now 45 to 95 minutes). If the attempt is not successful, the team will perform C-section, foal is delivered in 15 to 20 minutes from when the decision was made (now 60 to 115 minutes from when water broke).

Dystocia mares that are sent to our hospital go directly to a dedicated induction stall. The mare is anesthetized, her hind limbs hoisted so her pelvis is about three feet off the floor. The foal is examined, repositioned, the mare dropped to the floor, and the foal pulled out of the mare. This CVD procedure is successful in resolving about 75 percent of hospital dystocias. About 25 percent of the hospital dystocias are resolved by C-section.

Following CVD, about 39 percent of those foals survive to discharge from our hospital and about 94 percent of those mares survive to discharge from our hospital. Following C-section about 30 percent of those foals survive to discharge from our hospital and about 85 pecent of the mares survive to discharge from our hospital.

Elective C-sections have a better success rate. There is about a 95 percent survival to discharge rate for foals and about a 95 percent survival to discharge rate for mares.

Dr. Rolf Embertson graduated from Michigan State University with a Bachelor of Science in Zoology in 1976. He also attended Michigan State where he graduated from Veterinary School in 1979 followed by an internship at Illinois Equine Hospital. Dr. Embertson completed a Large Animal Surgery Residency at the University of Florida, followed by an Equine Surgery Residency at The Ohio State University. In 1986, he became a Diplomate of the American College of Veterinary Surgeons. Dr. Embertson is a surgeon and shareholder at Rood & Riddle.

The post Ask Your Veterinarian Presented By Kentucky Performance Products: When To Perform A C-Section On A Pregnant Mare appeared first on Horse Racing News | Paulick Report.

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Bloodlines: The Declining Foal Crop And The War On ‘Average’

The Jockey Club announced late last week that the projected foal crop for 2022 is 18,700, and most of the racing press reported this without commentary. That number of foals is the lowest figure in more than 60 years. The trendlines appear to be giving us both clear indications of what is happening and generally why it's happening too. Breeders are hearing what the marketplace is telling them and are responding in accordance.

For a generation, the commercial market has been pummeling breeders whose stock ranks below the median in auction sales. Typically, the prices for those foals and yearlings do not even cover the cost of on-farm production, without even considering ancillary expenses or the cost of money tied up in non-productive assets.

As a result, the number of foals that breeders are willing to produce has hit a noteworthy low point.

The last time the North American foal crop of Thoroughbreds came this low was 66 years ago in 1965 when the foal crop was 18,846, and only five years before that, in 1960, the foal crop was 12,901. So in the span of half a decade, the foal crop increased by nearly 50 percent, but the decades of the 1960s and 1970s featured exponential growth in Thoroughbred racing, and especially in breeding, with the expansion of breeding programs outside of Kentucky, Florida, and California.

Now, those regional programs are nearly dead. Many breeders are pensioning stallions, selling off mares, and not breeding for those specialty markets.

In contrast to the present trend, the foal-production boom peaked in 1986 with a foal crop of 51,296, just in time for the tax act that changed the rules for breeders and sent the market into a panic and decline. By 1995, the selloff had bottomed out with a foal crop of 34,983, more than 16,300 foals fewer than only nine years earlier.

Since then, the foal crops remained remarkably stable around the 35,000 level until 2010, when the foal crop dropped below 30,000 for the first time since the 1970s. Crop numbers have been drawing down, slowly but steadily to the present level, and one of the great factors for this direction is the continuing negative pressure from buyers.

Despite the tone of the foregoing information, there is a good market for Thoroughbreds, but it is a good market, consistent and profitable, only for premium foals and yearlings. Nobody wants an average one. Or what is perceived to be an average yearling, because every year there are graded stakes winners from every book and every session of the September sale. Perception of average-ness is not the same as being average (or below average).

At the same time that breeders are stuck with half or thereabouts of their annual foal crop in the “below-average” section of sales, the same breeders are consistently being prodded to spend more for stud fees and other services, then to accept less at the sales, because what other choice would they have.

The situation is sufficiently trying to make one wonder “what if”: what if breeders made different decisions; what if breeders formed cooperatives (or a single cooperative) to improve their economic and political impact; what if a group or several groups collectively hired trainers to train the horses that were not “sales types?” These and other choices are out there, apparently waiting for someone or a group of someones to latch onto them and bring them into operation.

By these and other avenues, there are ways out of the financial quandary breeders find themselves in, but it may not be the path that brought them here. We have, for more than 20 years, been breeding stallions to as many mares as breeders will present and as many as the horse can (hopefully) handle.

This approach, in hindsight, might be considered an overreaction to the concept of a free market, as in too much of a good thing can drown you.

Stallion syndicates, hard number syndicates that restrict access to premium stallions and control the supply of yearlings as a result, are one option. This is considerably different from the current free-for-all that seems to be sending more breeders to the poor house each year.

Instead, a syndicate with a contractual cap on seasons and members would be a return to the style of syndicates from the 1950s and '60s and '70s, when everyone made money in horses. And somehow the horses were even better and raced more and seemed more like fun, than what we have now.

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Soulcombe on The Market

Soulcombe, a 388-acre farm where Chris Budgett's Kirtlington Stud is based, has arrived on the market and will be offered through Windsor Clive International. Budgett has built up Kirtlington since the mid 1980s and has decided to offer Soulcombe for sale. On the acreage are Soulcombe House-which features seven bedrooms and two wings, as well as three different stable yard complexes and five cottages. The gently rolling limestone land has produced quality bloodstock including Harbinger (GB) (Dansili {GB}), champion and G1 Derby hero Sir Percy (GB) (Mark of Esteem {Ire}) and G1 Sydney Cup winner Selino (GB) (Champs Elysees {GB}). The stud is situated just over an hour from London and less than two hours from Newmarket. In addition, it is only four miles from the A34/M40. A total of 13 Classic winners have been bred or raised within a few miles of the property.

“The flexibility of Soulcombe is remarkable-breeding, competing or polo-it covers the whole spectrum” said Windsor Clive International's George Windsor Clive.

Added Kirtlington Stud's Chris Budgett, “The time has come to move on-we will continue trading as Kirtlington Stud with our own horses. It would be nice to find a buyer to continue with the success that we have had, but I accept that the property has much to offer for so many different uses.”

For more information, please visit www.windsorclive.co.uk.

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