"The four positive dressage stallions are Fürsten-Look (by Furstenball), Fürst Toto (by Furstenball), Top Gear (by Totilas) and Bluetooth (by Bon Coeur x Bordeaux).
It came as no surprise that Schockemohle’s top jumper stallion Balou de Rouet (by Baloubet de Rouet) is also positive, after a large amount of breeders posted the positive status of their Balou offspring on Facebook. Also positive are jumpers Action Blue (by Action Breaker) and Chacgrano (by Chacco-Blue).
So seven of the 52 stallions Schockemohle stands at stud are positive."
Interesting line or two in the EuroDressage article:
Schockemöhle amongst others irritated breeders by refusing to reveal the results last year. However now Schockemöhle’s American distributor Judy Yancey has blown the whistle and posted the list on the WBG - WFFS Awareness Group group on Facebook on 7 January 2019.
It’s been reported on the WFFS facebook page that Totilas is N/N.
If you are interested in knowing the facts of who is/isn’t a carrier, that’s a great Facebook group to join. They have a spreadsheet that collects verified data about WFFS. Very competently administered.
Judy Yancey is a wonderful part of the North American breeding community, and I feel fortunate we have her.
That said I would hesitate to implicate her as “the reason” this has come out: Paul Schockemohle & assorted others standing stallions were legally obligated to test and release the results of those tests starting in 2019 as mandated by the law referenced in the article. This is also why we have finally seen the Hannoveraner Verband compiling a list of stallions and disclosing their status. The caveat is that as far as I am aware, there’s no real progress being made on testing stallions who are retired or those who are deceased but whose frozen is still saved/sold on the market. It seems like the law is being interpreted as “only stallions active in the current season” must be tested/disclosed, which is a shame. (Although some NA brokers - Superior Equine Sires - has a few deceased stallions’ status included in their WFFS file, which I appreciate tremendously!)
I just wanted to share this so as to prevent someone from assuming Judy received information and went rogue with it and made it public before it was meant to go public (or that PS had not planned on making it public and Judy went and posted it anyway). I would hate for people to misunderstand and think that of her!
Is there any reason why a semen distributor would not be held liable under this scenario? Mare owner wants to breed mare who has tested n/wffs. She goes to semen distributor, discloses this, and orders semen from a deceased stallion who hasn’t been tested. Distributor sells semen from said stallion. Affected foal is born.
Is there any reason why a semen distributor can’t test semen from no longer standing studs?
I notice that in the Holsteiner Verband stallion listing, WFFS status is not mentioned.
I guess my question is why should the distributor be held liable if they’re 100% honest about the information at their disposal, @vineyridge? If distributors share known information (carrier, noncarrier) and then are equally clear if they do not know (“status of this stallion is unknown”) then I don’t think they should be held responsible for a FFS/FFS foal. Transparency and honesty should go a long way, imo. Although I also wouldn’t be surprised if there were verbiage in semen contracts for these horses that absolves them of liability (and I think that’s fair).
That said, I don’t think there’s a current legal argument that prohibits brokers from testing on their own. I believe this is similar to how De Niro’s non-carrier status was first released: someone who had semen (and wanted to use it, but didn’t know his status) sent it to be tested. They shared that information publicly, IIRC. I would like it if brokers did this but on the other hand I’m generally of the belief that if there’s an older stallion no longer on the market whose status is unknown (especially if there’s very limited quantities of semen left - Argentinus or Bolero are good examples) I wouldn’t expect a broker to sacrifice part of a dose (even if it doesn’t require much to test, you still would end up compromising the straw enough that it shouldn’t be sold to a client - there is an article by Jos Mottershead, of Equine Reproduction, in the WFFS group that details how to cut a frozen straw. While it’s not necessarily ineffectual afterwards, there are risks associated with it that I assume a responsible broker wouldn’t pass onto clients by selling the straw that was cut/tested).
It’s an interesting situation. I do hope we continue to get more information about these older stallions whose semen is still around! It can only serve to benefit all of us as transparency hopefully continues to win out…
The link above by Where’sMyWhite is one of my favorite summations, but it is a little technical. The “broken down from scientific verbiage” language:
WFFS is a recessive condition. One copy of the gene (carrier) to date has been found to have no health implications for horses whatsoever (though of course, I hope further study is conducted). Two copies is 100% lethal. It affects connective tissues. Statistically it is believed that most foals with two copies of the WFFS gene are aborted in utero. (This is a conclusion brokered by numbers. A few foals are known to have been born with two copies of the gene. They die shortly after birth. However, the numbers of those born are lower than it is assumed how many horses would actually be conceived and in possession of two copies of the gene - therefore, if they aren’t getting born but they are conceived, it’s believed they’re aborted during pregnancy.)
The few foals that are carried to term & born with it pass away quickly. The connective tissues are compromised. Skin will slough off, joints are lax and can be separated easily.
This year an American warmblood breeder had an afflicted foal born and pursued the issue. Many of the well established European breeding communities (state studs, large privately owned studs) tried to pooh-pooh the issue and say it’s an american thing/american hysteria. However at the end of 2018 the Germans passed a law mandating that the WFFS status of active stallions be published, after many months of tire-kicking from some (others were more proactive and transparent, much to their credit).
A very brief summary, but hopefully helpful for you. (Side note: it is called WFFS - warmblood fragile foal syndrome - but the mutation of this gene is believed to have originated some 150-200 years ago, and thoroughbreds and any horses that have had warmblood outcrosses in that timeframe are at-risk for having this in their population. I believe a few thoroughbreds have been found to be carriers, but no one has made the pedigree of those horses accessible.)
It seems that the damage to breeders presents itself more in the unsuccessful breedings between carriers, that are more common, than the horrific result of foals that actually come to term and are born with the condition.
Are “Foal stands and nurses” contracts common in WB breeding? Because the number of repeat breedings for mares that do not bring foals to term would certainly be a hit on the stallion owners as well.
Frozen semen is usually purchased by the dose(s) with no contract. Cash up front, no guarantees.
Cooled semen contracts vary. Usually you have to pay most, if not all, of the fee before semen is even shipped, in addition to booking/shipping/container fees. Normally there is some sort of “breed back” clause if the mare fails to produce a live foal.
With TBs, LFSN is basically standard operating procedure at any major stallion center. Normally you don’t owe anyone a dime until you have a foal on the ground (or you need the certificate released for sale of the mare). But with TBs, it’s easier to enforce payment, as your foal is pretty much worthless until the stallion certificate is released. WBs can compete without papers, and can sometimes even find a loophole to get papers through another registry.
While 7 sounds like a lot, remember it is less then 15% of the PS stallion population. It sounds about right based on what we know of the overall breeding population? I am happy to hear the required testing and disclosure requirements
