Will The Jockey Club ever stop requiring live cover?

[Sunny_Sam]

Absolutely correct! TPTB are trying to force things to stay in the dark ages. That’s like trying to force people to not purchase things on-line but go to brick and mortar stores just to prop up those stores.

The live cover requirement is completely inefficient and unhealthy. For instance, a mare foals 1700 miles away from Kentucky. The foal and mare have antibodies to the environment where they originated. Then at 5-6 days post foaling they are loaded onto a van with other horses from who knows where and who knows the health status of those traveling companions and hauled across the country. Now the foal with it’s immature immune system and no antibodies to the Kentucky environment gets sick. It’s not only unethical, it’s just plain STUPID to do that to an animal especially a baby when alternatives (Shipped semen and AI) are available.

Equine parasites have become very resistant to common de-wormers, Pyrantel pamoate and ivermectin. Boarding your mare and immune naive/immature foal at a farm with hundreds of other horses is a great way to get your horse infected with a resistant strain of worms, make it sick and then bring that parasite home to your barn and other horses.

Those Jockey Club nincompoops will eventually be shown to be the idiots that they are.

Meanwhile, I will not breed my mares to any stallion if live cover is required for registration. My mares and my babies are staying at home and I am breeding them to quarter horses using shipped semen.

[Sunny_Sam]

Thank you!

[Janet]

@Sunny_Sam

The use of frozen semen can be limited to the lifespan of the stallion. When the stallion dies, he frozen semen can no longer be used.

I do not understand what you are trying to say.

For TBs, frozen semen can’t be used (except, in some cases, to supplement a live cover).

For other breeds, frozen semen CAN be used after the stallions death. For instance, the Connemara stallion ArdCeltic Art died in 2013, but his frozen semen is still being used to produce registered Connemara offspring.

[MHM]

@Janet

For TBs, frozen semen can’t be used (except, in some cases, to supplement a live cover).

It can? How so? In what sort of cases?

To your other point, I think there is still semen available from Abdullah, and he’s been gone for a long time by now.

[LaurieB]

@Sunny_Sam

The live cover requirement is completely inefficient and unhealthy. For instance, a mare foals 1700 miles away from Kentucky. The foal and mare have antibodies to the environment where they originated. Then at 5-6 days post foaling they are loaded onto a van with other horses from who knows where and who knows the health status of those traveling companions and hauled across the country. Now the foal with it’s immature immune system and no antibodies to the Kentucky environment gets sick. It’s not only unethical, it’s just plain STUPID to do that to an animal especially a baby when alternatives (Shipped semen and AI) are available.

The scenario you’ve described probably happens in fewer than 5% of the TB crop. I’d actually be surprised if the number is as high as 1%. The vast majority of TB mares are bred to stallions in the state in which they reside (to keep them eligible for state-bred bonuses.) Mares who have to travel long distances to be bred, are usually shipped to their destination pre-foaling, so that the young foal won’t have to travel at all. The visiting mares will then remain at their boarding farm through either the 45 or 60 day foal check before shipping home again. I only know how things are done in Kentucky because that’s where we breed, but I’ve never seen a mare with a foal at her side transported in a van with random other horses “from who knows where”.

These “stupid” things you’re describing not only aren’t the norm, they happen so rarely as to be considered truly unusual, if for no other reason that because with stud fees up to 250K, who would risk the health and well-being of a very young foal, after having already paid $XX,XXX to produce it?

I’d be curious to know where your information comes from because, to me, it just doesn’t make sense.

[Janet]

@MHM

It can? How so? In what sort of cases?

It seems I mis-remembered slightly.
See "Live Cover" as defined by the Jockey Club? from 2007, particularly posts 2 and 4. It needs to be fresh (VERY fresh), so NOT frozen. Here is the precise wording:

D. To be eligible for registration, a foal must be the result of a stallion’s Breeding with a broodmare (which is the physical mounting of a broodmare by a stallion with intromission of the penis and ejaculation of semen into the reproductive tract). As an aid to the Breeding, a portion of the ejaculate produced by the stallion during such mating may immediately be placed in the uterus of the broodmare being bred.

[MHM]

Thanks. That was more the impression I had.

Which would make more sense, because why would they even have anything frozen on hand for the thoroughbreds? Or the containers or any of the other equipment?

[Arzny]

This is exactly correct. We are considered very long shippers - to the point of stress to the stud farms, and we are only 215 miles from Lexington. And we definitely use a private van when shipping.

[Aussie_2020]

I’ve only seen what Sunny-Sam describes twice and that happened with Quarterhorse mares. Another woman in the barn had leased a mare to get a foal and she refused to allow the mare and her new foal to be shipped to a stallion that was about 8 hours away.

[LaurieB]

@MHM

Which would make more sense, because why would they even have anything frozen on hand for the thoroughbreds? Or the containers or any of the other equipment?

This may be TMI, but when a stallion dismounts, he is almost always “dripping”. Sometimes a handler will lean down and grab a dismount sample. (I could swear I once saw someone use a dixie cup. ) Depending on the farm, and the stallion, the sample may be used to check for motility, etc. or it’s inserted in the mare to reinforce the breeding.

[ASB_Stars]

I’ve always gotten a kick out of the idea of “reinforcing” the cover. You’re inseminating. People might not like that reality, bit it is what it is.

On another note, the Jockey Club has done a brilliant job of keeping the KY breeding farms (in particular) in business. Boarding mares, weanlings and yearlings is a strong source of income for them, and it makes sense to board your mares in the area that they are being bred in.

[Simkie]

This also isn’t just the US Jockey Club being dumb and stubborn and antiquated (or whatever else)…the Thoroughbred registries across the world have reciprocity with each other. A US registered horse is considered a “Registered Thoroughbred” in Japan, or Australia, or Turkey. The rules that define a “Registered Thoroughbred” in all registries are the same, or at least very similar, and one of those rules is live cover.

One registry making a unilateral decision to change what they allow in their book risks other registries withdrawing reciprocity. US Thoroughbreds not being considered Registered Thoroughbreds on a worldwide stage would be a disastrous hit to the breed here.

Getting an entire world of registries to change a significant rule is, not unexpectedly, challenging.

It’s easy to look at this as a US only thing, but it’s not. It’s a lot more complicated.

[MHM]

Good point.

[LaurieB]

@ASB_Stars

I’ve always gotten a kick out of the idea of “reinforcing” the cover. You’re inseminating. People might not like that reality, bit it is what it is.

I think it’s silly to argue about semantics, but the process is called reinforcing because by actual definition, that’s what it is.

I doubt that anyone in the TB industry has ever given a thought to whether or not they like the word. Because, again, that would be silly.

[ASB_Stars]

@LaurieB

I doubt that anyone in the TB industry has ever given a thought to whether or not they like the word. Because, again, that would be silly.

Putting semen into a mare, by any other means than a stallion’s penis, is inseminating. Clearly, that word is NOT one that the TB world wants associated with their practices, but it is what it is.

[JB]

Not exactly. “Inseminating” is simply introducing sperm into the reproductive system of a female (or hermaphrodite). It doesn’t indicate how it’s done. So, normal sex is insemination.

What matters then is WHO did the insemination as to whether it was natural, or artificial (by whatever means)

[ASB_Stars]

Agree to disagree

[Simkie]

But that is literally the definition of the word.

[JB]

@ASB_Stars

Agree to disagree

There’s a reason “artificial” is added - “artificial insemination” - because it means it’s done by means other than a penis directly depositing semen.

There’s a reason “natural” is added - “natural insemination” - because it means it’s done by the penis directly

It’s not an “agree to disagree” deal

[LaurieB]

@ASB_Stars

Putting semen into a mare, by any other means than a stallion’s penis, is inseminating. Clearly, that word is NOT one that the TB world wants associated with their practices, but it is what it is.

It sounds as though you think you’ve discovered something sneaky and underhanded that needs to be shouted out as a “Gotcha!” moment. Except…everyone is already well aware. The reinforcement of live cover breedings is well known and commonly practiced in the TB industry, and has been for decades. As Janet pointed out above, it’s even mentioned in the JC Rulebook.

Nobody is hiding anything. No one needs to be informed, or lectured about terminology that offends you. In the real world, the TB industry isn’t at all worried about the semantics. No matter what you may think.