Important news!! WFFS is finally recognized

[vineyridge]

Suppose it turns out that Donnerhall was a carrier. He was as popular and successful a stallion as Impressive was. He’s close up in Sternlicht, and Marydell has said that Don Principe is a carrier. Of course it may not be Donnerhall at all and comes through some other source but he is a definite possibility at this time.

Marydell has stated in the other tread on this that she will require the mares to be tested but will continue to breed Don Principe even though carriers will be produced.

That means that every foal will have to be tested, and it will be up to their owners to decide whether to breed them. This is how the gene spreads quickly into the general population.

Lets suppose that a heterozygous horse has gained some benefit for UL dressage from the “bad” allele. Does that make it worth while to spread the allele far and wide?

[skydy]

I must say, the Warmblood registries, especially those that originate in countries that forbid trimming horses whiskers as a matter of law, for horse welfare reasons, better show up now if they want credibility.

When their horse population is in jeopardy of propagating a genetic defect that is fatal in its homozygous state and at this point in time has unknown effects in heterozygous horses? It will be quite the raging “horse welfare” hypocrisy otherwise.

This is quite the litmus test. If breeders and registries of any Warmblood horses, wherever the location, really do care they will act with restraint now and wait with patience until there is better understanding regarding the defect.

Not easy that. However most difficult decisions, especially those regarding the long term, are not “easy”. It really isn’t “easy” to do the right thing some times…

[Manni01]

@vineyridge

Suppose it turns out that Donnerhall was a carrier. He was as popular and successful a stallion as Impressive was. He’s close up in Sternlicht, and Marydell has said that Don Principe is a carrier. Of course it may not be Donnerhall at all and comes through some other source but he is a definite possibility at this time.

Marydell has stated in the other tread on this that she will require the mares to be tested but will continue to breed Don Principe even though carriers will be produced.

That means that every foal will have to be tested, and it will be up to their owners to decide whether to breed them. This is how the gene spreads quickly into the general population.

Lets suppose that a heterozygous horse has gained some benefit for UL dressage from the “bad” allele. Does that make it worth while to spread the allele far and wide?

So another rumor spread…as long as a horse is not tested, you don’t know for sure whether he is a carrier. The wording in this post is spreading a rumor. And IMO the owner of Don Principe is doing the right thing by going public and requiring mares to test… And whats bad about testing the foals. I bet everybody will do it because they are hoping for clears now…

[Marydell]

You likely saw Hilltop Farm’s announcement regarding the stallion Sternlicht as a carrier for Warmblood Fragile Foal Syndrome two weeks ago. Until this news, WFFS had not been commonly discussed amongst breeders and testing was not being utilized. We hadn’t even known there was a test for WFFS until just last month. Since this announcement, a number of breeders stepped up to test their breeding stock as well. Marydell Farm was one of those breeders who immediately saw the positive in testing as any affect of the disease can be avoided simply by not breeding two carriers of WFFS. The young stallions Debonair MF and David Bowie MF have been confirmed as clear of the gene mutation, however our foundation stallion Don Principe has been confirmed as a carrier of WFFS. Before we annouced these results, we wanted to contact breeders and owners of Don Principe offspring to give them an opportunity to process the information before they found out about it through social media.
Don Principe’s record as a sire is well established and the qualities he offers make him extremely valuable for sport horse breeders. Don Principe will remain available for breeding but all mares booked to him must be tested negative/clear of the WFFS gene mutation so that we eliminate the risk of a foal being born with WFFS. I know there will be many questions and we’re available to talk with you at your convenience.
Don Principe has been standing at stud for 16 years and to our knowledge, there have been no reported issues with foals. It is important to note that we don’t know if the allele was passed along to their horse or not, carrier status doesn’t have any health risks/limitations, but for those planning to breed their mare in the future we would recommend testing.

This information concerning Don Principe may answer some of the people concerned about long term effects on carriers. He is now 19 years old, competing at GP and now taking his 9th rider up the levels for her silver and gold medals- sound of mind and body.

Marydell Farm is testing all of our horses over the next few weeks. Since we have over 30, it needs to be done in batches. So far- all the test results are N/N, including direct sons and daughters of Don Principe. By requiring that mares be tested and N/N we will limit the possibility of Don Principe siring a WFFS/WFFS foal. With the knowledge of status, as breeders, we can limit also the numbers of carriers in the population. We are in the process of disscusing ways to help encourage mare owners to do the testing, and if a filly is born, hoping to have the registries negotiate the test as part of the registration process. It will take time- many years, but there is a responsible way to handle this without panic or hysteria

[mvp]

@Manni01

Oh yes Trubandloki did… because who else was talking about value??

To be clear-- so long as the phenotypic character associated with the heterozygous state is neutral, AND you never plan to breed that horse, the “carrier” status is immaterial. If, instead, either one is true-- the phenotype is an improvement or deleterious OR you plan to breed the horse, then the heterozygosity of that animal matters. Whether or not it has “value” or be a reason for disqualifying the horse as a breeding animal depends on how committed breed organizations are to stewarding the population and thinking in broad terms about maintaining its genetic health.

I don’t think it will be effective to leave this problem-- really, one of maintaining genetic health of the population-- up to individual horse owners, and certainly not to individual mare owners.

[mvp]

@ahf

I can tell you why THIS breeder was not convinced it was a thing 5 years ago. Though I was on that thread and you should know why. Winand had not published. All she had done was to do some research (not published) and develop a test. Who does that when there is nothing published???

Remember when I scoured the internet and could find nothing except ads for the test? Nothing in the vet journals, nothing in aaep, nothing on pubmed. Nothing, nothing nothing for someone that thinks critically. Now that this is something published and reviewed, I can read it and NOW I can say with certainty that I was wrong. But I am not going to beat myself up for not taking her initial efforts seriously when she had diddley to back up her claim.

I have known Nena Winand for a long time, both as a horsewoman, caring horse owner and as a geneticist. If you think she shoots off her mouth willy-nilly, you have really misjudged her. And really, I think the same is true of any research scientists. Those guys tend to be very, very conservative about making claims they can’t back up. Even in conversation, they will qualify statements they make if there is uncertainty or complexity in the situation that their models or our understanding hasn’t fully accounted for.

And you ought to know that the process from opening a research project involving identifying an allele and developing a commercial test for it is a question of a lot of time, money and effort. Not having “diddly” between talk and test is not a matter of being careless or a slacker. That’s not just true of Winand, rather, that’s true of all science.

When people speak in cavalier terms about stuff like this, I feel compelled to say something. Horse genetics— both gene expression and also population genetics is so, so complicated. This is a very simple and visible case. At present, the genetic causes of the commercially-valuable characteristics we want and knowing how to pick a nick guaranteed to produce that way outstrips our understanding. And we have been working on this in the terms provided by quantitative population genetics and physciological genetics since 1900 or so.

[Tigre_Horse]

@vineyridge

Suppose it turns out that Donnerhall was a carrier. He was as popular and successful a stallion as Impressive was. He’s close up in Sternlicht, and Marydell has said that Don Principe is a carrier. Of course it may not be Donnerhall at all and comes through some other source but he is a definite possibility at this time.

Marydell has stated in the other tread on this that she will require the mares to be tested but will continue to breed Don Principe even though carriers will be produced.

That means that every foal will have to be tested, and it will be up to their owners to decide whether to breed them. This is how the gene spreads quickly into the general population.

Lets suppose that a heterozygous horse has gained some benefit for UL dressage from the “bad” allele. Does that make it worth while to spread the allele far and wide?

In my humble opinion, no, it does not. At least not until we know more about the long term affects or lack thereof.

[mvp]

@Manni01

See I think different. I think at this moment it makes much more sense if mare owners test, and hopefully they will publish their results.
If a mare owner knows his mare is a carrier he has more power to ask a stallion owner for a result… So there will be some pressure on stallion owner.

Also by testing a lot of mares there will be information which lines might carry the gene.
The other way is not going to work IMO. The stallion owners will never test without pressure. They have not published any results so far maybe they tested, but nobody knows

So, even though the breed organizations would be the better, more effective “gate keeper” you’d have individual mare owners do the testing and culling of their animals? Or they’d put economic pressure on stallion owners… slowly?

Besides advocating for stallion owners (citing your sympathy for the large economic investment in campaigning them as breeding animals), what is the scientific basis for laying this problem at the doorstep of individual mare owners?

[vineyridge]

You’d be a idiot if you think the possibility of Donnerhall being a carrier is a “rumor”. There will never be a test of him since he is dead, and it is probable that all owners of horses with Donnerhall in the pedigree will not have their horses tested. It will take many, many tests to determine if he was a carrier per population genetics procedures. The current Animal Genetics test costs $55.

You ought to read this article with accompanying photographs. It’s quite chilling. And they refused to identify the stallion involved, who also produced carriers from other mares who tested clear.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4327794/

Estimates of carrier status in WBs range from over 6% to over 11%. With that many carriers, if the mutation is old, the disease would not be considered “novel”. If it is new, it’s spread quite quickly into a population where the first few generations of horses would produce either clears or carriers, not affected foals-- which would indicate to me that the source was a successful breeding line with very successful stallions.

The test was developed in 2012 or 2013 BEFORE the Swiss report on the affected foal, so it would seem probable that affected foals were showing up or the test would never have been developed.

I found an paper about a foal born in Switzerland in 2010 with the symptoms of the mutation who tested negative for HERDA and other types of Ehlers-Danlos syndrome. It seems that it was from that foal that the test was developed. by N. Winand who was described as “a Cornell professor.” Cornell has licensed it to Laboklin GmbH Co.KG
http://www.ctl.cornell.edu/news/prod…e-2015_WEB.pdf

I also found a abstract of an article on a Brazilian horse with similar symptoms who tested negative for both WFFS and HERDA.

[DownYonder]

Ok, so far, we know that Sternlicht and Don Principe are carriers. And although they both have Donnerhall in their pedigrees, it very possible they didn’t get the allele from him. They both also have Duerkheim in their dam’s pedigrees - 3rd generation for DP, and 4th generation for Sternlicht.

And now we are getting close to what Manni is concerned about - i.e., “rumors”. Is Donnerhall the culprit? Is Duerkheim the culprit? Or was it from some other ancestor(s)?

I still stand by my opinion that the only way to lessen the chance of WFFS continuing to spread throughout the warmblood population, is to test every mare and every stallion, and cull carriers from breeding. Breeding a carrier, even to a mate tested “clear”, gives the defect a chance to pass to another generation. And at some point, the carrier’s descendants will be bred, and if both parents are not tested “clear”, the cycle continues. In political parlance, that is called “kicking the can down the road.”

[vineyridge]

One difference is that Horse Telex has Duerkheim with 91 foals; Donnerhall is given 1153. Of course, it would help a lot if we knew the pedigrees of the foals who have been homogygous for the allele. Then we’d have some idea if they were jumper bred or dressage bred, or both. And common ancestors could be determined, because the mutation probably arose from a single source.

It would also help if there was a census of WBs worldwide. That way the number of carriers could be determined within a range. If you are talking about 6-10% of 1,000,000 horses, that’s from 60,000 to 100,000 carriers; if you are talking 100,000 horses, that’s only 6000-10,000 carriers. Then it ought to be possible to determine the number of foals descended from each common ancestor of the affected foals and divide by 50% to determine the number of potential carriers from each ancestor and correlate that with the whole population of carriers.

[Manni01]

@vineyridge

You’d be a idiot if you think the possibility of Donnerhall being a carrier is a “rumor”. There will never be a test of him since he is dead, and it is probable that all owners of horses with Donnerhall in the pedigree will not have their horses tested. It will take many, many tests to determine if he was a carrier per population genetics procedures. The current Animal Genetics test costs $55.

You ought to read this article with accompanying photographs. It’s quite chilling. And they refused to identify the stallion involved, who also produced carriers from other mares who tested clear.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4327794/

Estimates of carrier status in WBs range from over 6% to over 11%. With that many carriers, if the mutation is old, the disease would not be considered “novel”. If it is new, it’s spread quite quickly into a population where the first few generations of horses would produce either clears or carriers, not affected foals-- which would indicate to me that the source was a successful breeding line with very successful stallions.

The test was developed in 2012 or 2013 BEFORE the Swiss report on the affected foal, so it would seem probable that affected foals were showing up or the test would never have been developed.

I found an paper about a foal born in Switzerland in 2010 with the symptoms of the mutation who tested negative for HERDA and other types of Ehlers-Danlos syndrome. It seems that it was from that foal that the test was developed. by N. Winand who was described as “a Cornell professor.” Cornell has licensed it to Laboklin GmbH Co.KG
http://www.ctl.cornell.edu/news/prod…e-2015_WEB.pdf

I also found a abstract of an article on a Brazilian horse with similar symptoms who tested negative for both WFFS and HERDA.

You can write whatever you want to in order to create rumors… It is only gossiping and personal assumptions.

As you know there is a list on FB with stallions tested and exactly these stallions are carriers. Everything else is an assumption at this moment. Maybe Don Principe mother is still alive. If she would be clear we would know for sure that the sire was a carrier. Otherwise we don’t. And if you read that FB group with the list of the results you can also read that they recommend not to declare stallions as carriers if there is no test result.

[Manni01]

@DownYonder

Ok, so far, we know that Sternlicht and Don Principe are carriers. And although they both have Donnerhall in their pedigrees, it very possible they didn’t get the allele from him. They both also have Duerkheim in their dam’s pedigrees - 3rd generation for DP, and 4th generation for Sternlicht.

And now we are getting close to what Manni is concerned about - i.e., “rumors”. Is Donnerhall the culprit? Is Duerkheim the culprit? Or was it from some other ancestor(s)?

I still stand by my opinion that the only way to lessen the chance of WFFS continuing to spread throughout the warmblood population, is to test every mare and every stallion, and cull carriers from breeding. Breeding a carrier, even to a mate tested “clear”, gives the defect a chance to pass to another generation. And at some point, the carrier’s descendants will be bred, and if both parents are not tested “clear”, the cycle continues. In political parlance, that is called “kicking the can down the road.”

I agree with you that the only way to get any information about it is to test as many horses as possible, but additionally I believe (which is a personal assumption of me) that the numbers of carriers in the population are much higher then we think right now… I don’t think you can erase it by eliminating carriers… and I am not even sure if it would make sense. Diminishing quality for something which causes no harm if you control it is not how I understand breeding.
I think there are a lot of strategies which make sense after you know exactly how many carriers there are and where they are.

And I repeat it. Testing without any emotions and culling ideas is the only sensible thing to do right now. Everything else is overdoing it in the moment…

[Manni01]

@mvp

So, even though the breed organizations would be the better, more effective “gate keeper” you’d have individual mare owners do the testing and culling of their animals? Or they’d put economic pressure on stallion owners… slowly?

Besides advocating for stallion owners (citing your sympathy for the large economic investment in campaigning them as breeding animals), what is the scientific basis for laying this problem at the doorstep of individual mare owners?

It is a little bit frustrating to post in this thread because what ever I post with a lot of arguments which make sense, there is the next person posting " but IMO all the carriers need to be culled because this is such a terrible disease .
Great, they never give any arguments why they post this…

For your records I have no sympathies for any stallion owner. I try to analyze the current situation and find a strategy which is the best for everybody… Mareowners and Stallionowners.

Right now I believe (my personal assumption) the stallion owners ignore it because they think it seems to be a very rare condition. If you look at the number of foals born and the number of reported cases, it is minor in the eyes of Stallion owners… Its not worth to create a panic created by people with not enough information…

I believe (again, my personal assumption, no proof for it) that it has been around for quite a while and there are more carriers in the population then we think right now. But the only way to find out about it is with testing. And with every test result we will get more information about the numbers. And for me it doesn’t make a difference if you test a mare or a stallion. Its the absolute numbers… But in order to get people to test it does not make sense to scare them about it… I mean we are talking about something which has absolutely no consequences for the horses being carriers… So I would encourage everybody to test, and if the stallion owners refuse its really the interest of the mare owners to test, because they will end up with the dead foal in worst case scenario…

[vineyridge]

If there are a lot of carriers, 25% of their foals would be affected when carriers were bred to each other. Since the test was unknown before 2012, people would not have been been concerned about carrier status, and there would logically be quite a number of affected foals if there were many carriers. Has the Warmblood world been flooded with affected foals? It’s a pretty horrible disease, and if there were a flood of affected foals, surely the WB world would have taken notice before now.

[Manni01]

@vineyridge

If there are a lot of carriers, 25% of their foals would be affected when carriers were bred to each other. Since the test was unknown before 2012, people would not have been be concerned about carrier status, and there would logically be quite a number of affected foals if there were many carriers. Has the Warmblood world been flooded with affected foals? It’s a pretty horrible disease, and if there were a flood of affected foals, surely the WB world would have taken notice before now.

And thats another personal assumption of you in order to defend your idea to cull all carriers…

I only say, “We don’t know until a lot of horses are tested.”
And how do you know that the WB world has not taken notice before??? They did not publish anything but IMO that does not mean that they didn’t think about it. As I wrote before I believe they thought it was a minor problem… But I also believe that if you ignore a condition and breed without testing the numbers of carriers will increase. (didn’t somebody post an article about the increase of the numbers???)

And because breeding strategies in recent years changed and as a result I think the genetic variety was getting smaller because the popular stallions were used over and over again, problems like this show up more clearly and also the number of carriers will grow even more…

But I know thats only a personal assumption of me and I hope I am wrong and I hope that many breeders will test now and then we all will know more…

[snaffle1987]

the idea of culling all carriers is ridiculous. It will never happen. And the Society will never dictate such actions to occur. Why not? Because even though the breed society is the governing body; they are the minority. They are not the ones whos businesses and livelihoods may be at stake; the ones who have invested perhaps millions of dollars in breeding stock. When you start talking about forced culling mandated by a breed society for preservation purposes; you are setting yourself up for a giant lawsuit and breed societies do not have the bank to stand up against the investors in the industry

I will say that if I had some nice horses in my barn who tested as carriers; why should I have to send them to the meat man even if I have no plans to breed them?

Sensible breeders would not breed tested carriers but we know there are plenty of greedy people in this business who are willing to take the risk and allow it to happen.

the only thing a breed society is going to do is continue to help fund research to identify the animal in which the allele started and continue to identify known tested carriers.

It is up to the breeders to make a call on the stallions they stand and up to the mare owners to test their mares and require stallions they wish to use to be tested and identified.

[DownYonder]

@DownYonder

Ok, so far, we know that Sternlicht and Don Principe are carriers. And although they both have Donnerhall in their pedigrees, it very possible they didn’t get the allele from him. They both also have Duerkheim in their dam’s pedigrees - 3rd generation for DP, and 4th generation for Sternlicht.

And now we are getting close to what Manni is concerned about - i.e., “rumors”. Is Donnerhall the culprit? Is Duerkheim the culprit? Or was it from some other ancestor(s)?

I still stand by my opinion that the only way to lessen the chance of WFFS continuing to spread throughout the warmblood population, is to test every mare and every stallion, and cull carriers from breeding. Breeding a carrier, even to a mate tested “clear”, gives the defect a chance to pass to another generation. And at some point, the carrier’s descendants will be bred, and if both parents are not tested “clear”, the cycle continues. In political parlance, that is called “kicking the can down the road.”

Editing my own post to add more info:

There was something nagging at my brain about Donnerhall and Duerkheim being related, so I dug further back into their pedigrees. Sure enough - they share the same tail male line. For instance, they both have the 1922 Hanoverian stallion Detektiv (five generations back for Donnerhall, four generations back for Duerkheim).

But I want to emphasize that since it is quite possible (probable?) that Sternlicht and Don Principe have other common ancestors, it would be very irresponsible to put the blame on Donnerhall until more is known.

[Manni01]

@snaffle1987

the idea of culling all carriers is ridiculous. It will never happen. And the Society will never dictate such actions to occur. Why not? Because even though the breed society is the governing body; they are the minority. They are not the ones whos businesses and livelihoods may be at stake; the ones who have invested perhaps millions of dollars in breeding stock. When you start talking about forced culling mandated by a breed society for preservation purposes; you are setting yourself up for a giant lawsuit and breed societies do not have the bank to stand up against the investors in the industry

I will say that if I had some nice horses in my barn who tested as carriers; why should I have to send them to the meat man even if I have no plans to breed them?

Sensible breeders would not breed tested carriers but we know there are plenty of greedy people in this business who are willing to take the risk and allow it to happen.

I agree with some parts of your post, but I don’t think anybody talked about sending any horses to slaughter… I believe people talked about culling from breeding.

But I am really really curious about your last sentence… Sorry but now you are the one who i would like to ask some questions. You said sensible people would not breed carriers but there are greedy people who are willing to take the risk and allow it to happen…

Now I would like to ask you… What risk are those greedy people willing to take. And what is going to happen… I am really curious! Thanks in advance for the answer

[Manni01]

@DownYonder

Editing my own post to add more info:

There was something nagging at my brain about Donnerhall and Duerkheim being related, so I dug further back into their pedigrees. Sure enough - they share the same tail male line. For instance, they both have the 1922 Hanoverian stallion Detektiv (five generations back for Donnerhall, four generations back for Duerkheim).

But I want to emphasize that since it is quite possible (probable?) that Sternlicht and Don Principe have other common ancestors, it would be very irresponsible to put the blame on Donnerhall until more is known.

well you know what . Thanks to you I now think I know who was the bad stallion who introduced the mutation to the population Detektiv!!! He was the one and then either one Donnerhall or Duerkheim or both could be a carrier!!! (Hope it is clear that I am being ironic I apologize for that but your post inspired me…)