Just wondering, since they lost Z Princess, if they will breed Zenyatta again? I know TB does not allow embryo transfer, but are there any Zenyatta sport babies coming?
They’re planning to breed her to War Front this year.
“Zenyatta] is doing very well,” said Moss. “We didn’t breed her this year because she had gotten very heavy. She’s lost a lot of that weight, which she needed to do Sometimes that weight can be hard on the legs and she’s such a big girl. We saw her just a week ago and she’s looking great.”
Zenyatta will never be bred for sport horse babies. She is far too valuable to the TB world. Even if she has 10 bad racing offspring in a row, she will still be bred to top TB stallions.
The bigger question is, WTF about her being too fat to breed? How would Lanes End ever allow that to happen? They wouldn’t. Fat mares have a harder time conceiving, but, if she did catch there was plenty of time for her to slim down again before the foal became big enough to have an effect on her weight.
Reading between the lines — perhaps they were afraid she was foundering?
[QUOTE=Lord Helpus;8132337]
Reading between the lines — perhaps they were afraid she was foundering?[/QUOTE]
I wondered about that too … or was it just that a 2014 breeding, 2015 foal would be too “late” in the TB year?
They originally said it was too late. I personally don’t believe anything they “say” because they have to weigh their words so carefully to avoid upsetting the peanut gallery.
[QUOTE=Lord Helpus;8132337]
The bigger question is, WTF about her being too fat to breed? How would Lanes End ever allow that to happen? They wouldn’t. Fat mares have a harder time conceiving, but, if she did catch there was plenty of time for her to slim down again before the foal became big enough to have an effect on her weight.
Reading between the lines — perhaps they were afraid she was foundering?[/QUOTE]
Actually, research has shown that fat mares are more likely to conceive and also require fewer cycles per conception. 
I also am not sure that we’ll ever hear the “true” reason for Zenyatta being left open this year. Not that it really matters or is any of our business.
Apropos of nothing, I still harbor great distaste for the caretakers of Secretariat that let him get so fat and founder at the young age of 19. INEXCUSABLE.
She had foals three years in a row. Having a year off from being pregnant might be a good thing. And it’s not entirely unknown to give a mare a break every so often.
Seriously Laurierace?
[QUOTE=ben4me;8132921]
Seriously Laurierace?[/QUOTE]
What, the peanut gallery thing? Spot on. Have you SEEN the Zenyatta fans? Some of them are not horse people in any sense and they go nuts over stupid things, so the Mosses and the Lane’s End people need to edit carefully or some idiot takes a comment a horse person would understand and blows it up into a PR mess.
When Secretariat foundered, I don’t think they really knew how to treat laminitis. You’d think they would have had a clue, but who’s to say?
I often think/wish that they had known what we now know about laminitis and founder. I do know that when the equine cushings/laminitis list was started on Yahoo, it was a revelation to many, many people. At the time, vets were telling people “don’t feed him as much grain” when they presented a laminitic horse for treatment.
Personally, I was sometimes treated as if I were burning chicken feathers and casting runes, when I shared what I had learned from the group. People really, really want to cling to the traditional methods, even when these methods are proven wrong.
[QUOTE=Lord Helpus;8132337]
The bigger question is, WTF about her being too fat to breed? How would Lanes End ever allow that to happen?[/QUOTE]
That was the weirdest quote ever, wasn’t it? You’re right, how the heck could that happen? Although I agree that it could be PR so as not to start the founder/laminitis panic. A lot of the comments when her filly died were just outrageous; wouldn’t blame them for not going into detail.
When Secretariat foundered, I don’t think they really knew how to treat laminitis. You’d think they would have had a clue, but who’s to say?
Oh, come on, it wasn’t that long ago! You talk as if he lived centuries ago.
It’s pushing almost 30 years since Secretariat died. There have been a lot of advances in laminitis treatment in the last 10 years, let alone 30.
There have been advances in treatment but in 1989, they knew that overweight horses were more prone to founder. Several farms had instituted exercise programs for stallions by then but Claiborne is “old school” and didn’t use them. Claiborne has had several stallions love to advanced age but they are typically lighter horses like Mr. Prospector.
As for Z, every word of every press release if fine tuned because of the “peanut gallery.” Her fans are in many cases non horsemen and anthropomorphize every work said about her.
Secretariat had cushings disease that led to his crestiness and laminitis. We definitely didn’t know much about cushings back then.
[QUOTE=vineyridge;8132798]
She had foals three years in a row. Having a year off from being pregnant might be a good thing. And it’s not entirely unknown to give a mare a break every so often.[/QUOTE]
Maybe not entirely unknown but very uncommon. Generally that only happens if there is a physical reason for a break, a very late foal or the mare was bred and barren. Mares only have so many foals and the younger they are the better. It is rare for a serious breeder to voluntarily give up a prime foal bearing year of a valuable mare but the Mosses are so under the microscope with this horse maybe they are doing the uncommon.
Sorry, while there have been some improvements in treatment in the past 20 years, it was well known, even back in '89, that allowing a horse become obese through over feeding & under exercising puts them at high risk of laminitis and founder. Shame on Big Red’s connections for letting him get in that condition.
I always think of this and roll my eyes whenever I read about what “great care” the top horses receive. Like a fat old pony in some ignorant owner’s back yard, Secretariat was killed with “kindness”.
[QUOTE=rcloisonne;8133474]
Sorry, while there have been some improvements in treatment in the past 20 years, it was well known, even back in '89, that allowing a horse become obese through over feeding & under exercising puts them at high risk of laminitis and founder. Shame on Big Red’s connections for letting him get in that condition.
I always think of this and roll my eyes whenever I read about what “great care” the top horses receive. Like a fat old pony in some ignorant owner’s back yard, Secretariat was killed with “kindness”.[/QUOTE]
Have YOU ever managed an aging stallion? Because from your posts, it’s pretty clear you have not.
Fluctuating hormone levels already make stallions more predisposed to obesity and laminitis. They drop weight like crazy in the breeding season, then they plump up like prize pigs as soon as they aren’t breeding. Just like with humans, as stallions age, it becomes more difficult to maintain ideal body condition. Some become too gaunt, others become stubbornly obese.
When you are dealing with other metabolic disorders like Cushings and IR, it then becomes 10x more difficult to maintain their weight. I don’t know for a fact if Secretariat did or did not have a metabolic disorder, although seeing pictures of him late in life does make it seem likely.
I highly doubt Secretariat’s connections were blind to his condition. They don’t hire anyone off the street to care for multimillion dollar stallions. Although in 1989, they did not have the level of nutritional and laminitis research to be as proactive as we are today.
[QUOTE=Linny;8133125]
There have been advances in treatment but in 1989, they knew that overweight horses were more prone to founder. Several farms had instituted exercise programs for stallions by then but Claiborne is “old school” and didn’t use them. Claiborne has had several stallions love to advanced age but they are typically lighter horses like Mr. Prospector.
[/QUOTE]
Which is funny to call that old school, because OLD old school, they got worked lightly. Man o’ War got jogged nearly every day with a rider up.
