I stood the sport horse stallion live cover. This was in the late 80’s, and it was what I knew. He was a grandson of Ribot. Nice horse who died young.
I stood a stud bred for the track to race mares. We also broke babies for the track during that time, as I had a friend who was a breeder, and wanted hers a little more broke.
The race stud was by Round Table and out of a Nasrullah mare. He was meaner than a Black Mamba. Good times!
Yes. Same as any other breed. Have a look at Stallion AI Services www.stallionai.co.uk for various TB available frozen. These guys even have a clone of Gem Twist called Murkas Gem. Also look at Future Sport Horses www.futuresporthorses.co.uk who have some excellent stallions including Future Prophecy, a full TB. Have a look at his gallery to see a TB being shown like a WB stallion.
Thanks.
Does anyone happen to know if the Gem Twist clones sired many winners? I think there were two clones, right?
Gemini has covered some 300 mares in Europe. Murka Gem has one licensed son but it is still fairly early to judge performance of his offspring.
As someone who has handled a stallion for live cover and a veterinarian who has collected stallions and AI’ed mares I can definitely see both sides of the AI in TB argument.
My life and pocketbook would be much happier if AI were allowed in TBs.
So I argue against my own interests to agree with the JC rules.
I think that it’s important that both stallion and mare can physically handle live cover. Think of the dog breeds (and some other domestic species like turkeys) that can only reproduce by artificial means.
And equally important— the spark, the transfer of ‘nervous energy’ per Tesio— that occurs with live cover. May sound esoteric but I think it’s a valid observation.
Nothing wrong with assisted reproduction in some species. But let’s keep our TBs as they have been for 100s of years. Doin’ it naturally!
Uh oh.
This is news to me. What is up with the turkeys? Is it because the domestic ones are so large and heavy?
Indeed. Poor turkeys can’t procreate naturally.
Very unfortunate for them. In addition to their ultimate destination.
I briefly worked for a trainer that also handled two breeding stallions for their owners. The TB stallion was live cover because they only wanted mare owners that would register the foal. The Quarterhorse was AI. It weirded me out the first few times I led him past the collection stall. He would get really excited and almost do a Fred Flintstone yabba dabba doo. 
The trainer had also handled a Connemara stallion. She said he didn’t like buckskin mares so when one came in they would have that mare standing by but bring him up to his favorite mare that lived there but wasn’t bred. He would get love on his brain and then the mares would be quickly switched so he bred the one he didn’t like. It seems strange that he didn’t care for that coloring because he was a golden color with black mane and tail and black points.
I think it will happen, especially if you can check parentage easily and relatively affordably with DNA
The problem will be verifying factual birthdays of offspring. Especially given that the sales and what sells well at sales is a massive influence as to what happens in the industry. Big, Mature youngstock is what sells and what sells well. The live cover thing makes it much easier to police what was born when and you’re not competing with other youngstock that could’ve been born two months sooner than yours, in the year prior.
Will it affect the big, affluent farms in kentucky? oh for sure. You lose the boarding base; you loose your business model. Especially when the large expansive farms of Kentucky are already under massive development threat in the immediate area of Lexington. In all honesty it would create massive changes in the Kentucky Blue Grass.
I do think if the industry went to AI, you might see more use of regional stallions. There are a few that have caught my eye in recent years but are far too far away to make it justifiable to use them. But I do believe that you would see further constriction of the gene pool. Live cover limits how many mares a stallion can cover in a year. Forcing everyone else to look at other options; they all can’t run to the likes of Into Mischief or Tapit. If you make AI available and with advancements always being made in the industry, a stallion could potentially cover many more mares
A limit can be set to how many foals can be registered from any one parent, so many for stallions, so many for mares, in a year.
The tricky part with limiting registrations of offspring of two duly registered parents is to get around the monopoly clause, as the AQHA ran into.
Insemination is merely a step in a long process, from selecting and preparing the mare, where the mare foals down, which nursery the babies end up at, in which prestigious book at which prestigious auction are the foals or yearlings or breeze-ups sold, right on to who first backs the baby race horse. As people are buying a dream rather than just a young plain bay gelding, the background, history, provence, prestige all contribute to the value. And it is an international market with serious players involved. At the other end an older plain bay gelding arrives with an uninspiring racing history and a sale tag of a couple of hundred bucks.
I’m baffled by everything said here.
How would the way a mare is bred have anything to do with verifying the birth date of a foal? Why do you think live cover “makes it easier to police what was born when”? The JC isn’t policing when TB foals are born now. What makes you think they would need to start? FWIW, we’ve had live TB foals that were born 3 weeks before their “due date” (a very relative term when it comes to mares) and also a month after. All were conceived by live cover.
The KY farms would be affected somewhat but they’re not going to lose their boarding base. The massive infrastructure is here, the land is here, the best vets in the country are here, and the weather in KY is usually cooperative. There’s no way that the introduction of AI would turn the TB industry into a backyard business elsewhere.
If AI became a thing, the KY stallions would benefit and the number of mares going to regional stallions would drop precipitously. People breed to regional stallions because of proximity (and to be eligible for state-bred programs) If it was easy to breed to the best TB stallions in the country, all of which are currently in KY, everyone would do it.
And finally, the reason everyone isn’t breeding to Into Mischief or Tapit has nothing to do with live cover. It’s a money thing. Not everyone has 250k to spend on a stud fee.
Seriously, snaffle, do you just make this stuff up?
I still want to know what courier service is going to be shipping semen worth 5-6 figures around the globe.
An “expensive” stud fee for most breeds utilizing AI is <$5K. And OMG how often does Fed Ex fudge that up? (The answer: all too often)
I was curious, so I just checked out some of the contracts available online for $$$ standardbred stallions. Some use FedEx, some say “same day shipping only”, and some say “local semen pickup only.”
Any animal industry that uses AI knows that one of the biggest obstacles with it is policing birthdates of the resulting offspring. If you could have a yearling born in November but sold with a January birthdate, it is going to be not much older than its counterparts but be ahead of the curve in terms of growth and ability by just enough to give it an edge. Especially in an industry that has such a massive influence by public sales; whether that be right or wrong. The reason for the JC requiring live cover is about control of the entire process, not just DNA. If you don’t think it will happen then you are looking at it with blinders on. The industry already doesn’t use AI but they have mares with light blinders on in March and housing them under lights in small paddocks to get them to cycle as soon as possible to have January foals because the earlier the foals are born the more they can capitalize on their birth year and be ahead of their counterparts born later. It’s already happening just within the measurable control of the well-documented cover dates that are recorded, video taped, certified, etc.
The KY farms for sure wouldn’t lose their boarding business in its entirety, it is a horse-capital. The sales are focused around KY, there is plenty of business there. But those farms not 100% invested in the sales business would likely need some readjustment. Yes, the land is currently there but look at the affect of urban sprawl in Lexington in the past 10-15 years. Then look at Lexington area30-40 years ago. It’s already happening especially with smaller and smaller amounts of mares bred as the years tick on.
In regards to Into Mischeif and Tapit; sure their stud fees limit who can use them. But when their book is full, their book is full. Not everyone can use the same 10 stallions. I do think AI if it is ever permitted, will have an effect on stud fees if they allow more than the current book of mares. It will be interesting to see how that plays out and how certain farms would manage it. It could make the expensive stallions slightly more affordable but triple the profits if they could breed more mares. Or the farms could keep their books small and charge the same stud fee to keep them highly desirable.
And no, I don’t make this stuff up. It’s called looking at the big picture. The TB industry is like any other animal industry. Driven by massive amounts of money and extremely wealthy people. It’s not human nature for people to play by the rules when there is money and notoriety to pay; it’s the reason why the JC has such strict rules to control it.
new business venture for someone. Could be lucrative.
I think I read somewhere that in Australia, the foals are separated by year based on when the mare was bred, not the day the foal was actually born. I believe the official start of breeding season is maybe September 15th, and no thoroughbred stallions are allowed to cover mares before that date.
Which sort of makes sense, so that somebody who might have an early foal does not end up with a three day old yearling, which could conceivably happen with the official January 1st birthday for all the thoroughbreds in the US.
I once worked with a dark bay Trakehner stallion who hated grey mares. He was a complete gentleman and easy to handle - but grey mares were disgusting to him.
That farm had an old retired bay mare with Cushings with the dubious name of Brownie that the Trakehner adored. So if he had to cover a grey mare, old Brownie would stand next to the grey… the stallion would approach Brownie and romance her and get excited - and then at the crucial moment, he would be diverted over to the grey. He would pin his ears but follow through… sort of a “close your eyes and think of England” moment. 
Afterwards we always made a great fuss of him to make covering an abhorrent grey mare acceptable.
Close your eyes and think of England 
It’s strange that they would have that color revulsion. Poor Brownie, always the bridesmaid never the bride The mare I remember was also a bay, solid bay, the kind that doesn’t stand out in the old hunter classes. It really seemed that they “liked” each other all the time. She was in the stall next to him and they would doze side by side (fence between!) in the paddocks. I guess she was his soul mate.
Southern hemisphere birthdate is August 1 instead of January 1. They could have the same early foal problem as northern hemisphere foals if they were born July 30.
Stallion sheds in North America traditionally open on Valentine’s Day, February 14. 320 days is considered minimum gestation for a viable foal, which puts it right at Dec 31. Most mares foal between 330-350 days gestation, which is comfortably after January 1. On rare occasion, some busy breeding sheds might try to squeeze (their own) mares in the first week of February, but they know it’s a risk and they generally won’t accept client horses early.
I bred one of my own mares to my own stallion on foal heat, around February 5, 2021. She had previously foaled at 340, 341, 338 days so I felt like I would be ok. Wouldn’t you know she had a filly exactly on January 1, 2022! Probably the only time I will ever have that!
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