Wrong sire

[3beats]

Ok folks, I have been searching the internet looking for what SHOULD happen in this scenario, but I have turned up nothing. I’m researching for an older person that doesn’t use the net, so with that said, I’m not the breeder/owner.

The owner had her mare breed and when she went to register with aqha it turned out the parantage didn’t match, and the sire is actually not even a quarter horse in the database. It was done AI so that means that only two people had their hands in it. The mare’s vet and the sires vet. Either the mare’s vet brought the wrong seamen or the sire’s vet sent the wrong seamen.

What does/should the process look like to clear this up. I feel like the mare’s owner should be compensated because she suffered loss. Is this something that gets rectified? I personally know very little about breeding or equine law.

Thanks in advance for input.

[oldernewbie]

Someone on this forum had a similar problem. Here’s the discussion

https://www.chronofhorse.com/forum/forum/discussion-forums/sport-horse-breeding/53693-wwyd-embryo-transfer-mixup-new-update-july-2011

[3beats]

Thanks for the quick reference. Fortunately my friends situation isn’t that crazy since her case doesn’t involve shipping mares different places.

Im struggling to learn do vets keep logs in/out of seamen? I feel like they should, but idk. This is just a giant case of “who is the dad?” If indeed they must keep logs, (and supposedly my friends vet checked her logs and none of them are a dna match… but I don’t trust the vet- I think they are shady) whose responsibility is it to reach out to the studs vet?

Just trying to pick up some forward movement. If a lawyer was hired, would they conduct the investigation or is it on the mare owner to collect info
supporting the case?

[skydy]

An attorney that specializes in Equine law will know what to do. I suggest that the mare owner consult with one that is local to her.

It is a big deal. I would be livid, as would be any other mare owner that I have ever known.
The mare has missed a season to the intended sire and there is a foal of unknown origin.There may be health ramifications. Was the mystery stallion tested for EVA? Hypp? etc…etc…

[Miss_Motivation]

Similar story… only different, and with a good outcome:

Friends bought a nice AQHA mare, in foal, from a very big, well-known reining breeding farm, at auction. Received their mare (bought online auction) and liked her even better than they thought they would.

They even rode her a bit as she was only just in foal when they got her, and found the mare to be a much better horse than they thought they bought. She seemed almost ready to go in the show pen, great lead-changer, great stopper… just a very high quality mare.

They messed around with her a little that summer and fall, then waited for her to foal.

Which she did, a very nice foal that exceeded their wildest expectations.

Then they went to register the baby and were told by AQHA that the mare was not the mother of the baby which they had helped deliver! Clearly, the mare was the mother of the foal, but something was amiss…

After many conversations with both the seller and AQHA, they finally found out that the seller had DNA’d two identical plain bay mares the same day… and they got switched.

Fortunately, the seller honored their end of the deal and acknowledged that they had sold the wrong mare, unknowingly, to my friends. My friends had bid on, and expected, a nice mare in foal to a nice stallion… what they got was a great mare with a ton of training (although never shown) in foal to a much more expensive stallion. Which yielded them a very high-quality foal that they paid a modest price for as a 2 in 1 package.

Good for the seller to honor the deal which was their error-they ended up selling an elite mare in foal to an NRHA Futurity winning sire for a song to my friends. They had so many horses that they got the two mares mixed up initially, and they stayed mixed up for a long period of time, until my friends went to register one of the resulting foals.

[Pocket_Rocket]

@3beats Something that stands out to me is that, procedurally, each of the parties (vets) may have been remiss in the basic identification of the semen straw/s that was/were used on the mare (assuming semen was sent vet to vet direct). As it was despatched, and as it was used, it should have been identified and documented. It’s also possible that the semen (if frozen) was stored by a 3rd party (storage centre) and the wrong dose/s were sent to the mare’s vet. Or, going back even further, incorrect labelling when the stallion was collected (less likely, I’m sure). If your friend’s vet isn’t being forthcoming, I think she should contact the vet that collected the semen and get a paper trail of collection data (date/day/id etc) storage records (if applicable) and the documentation that accompanied semen to the mare. Hope it gets worked out for her, and maybe this is somewhere to start?

[JB]

Get another DNA sample from the alleged sire, from a location different from the original. It has happened that the alleged sire IS the actual sire, but the stallion was also a chimera, so DNA on file did not match DNA from the foal. If mane hair was pulled and is the DNA on file, then pull tail hair and even see if you can pull some body hair.

[Daventry]

I work full-time as an equine appraiser and equine expert witness. I have been involved in several cases just like the OPs. The first step would be to contact the Stallion Owner and alert them that there is a problem, if that has not been done already. If they are unwilling to work with the Mare Owner on this and figure out when and what went wrong, the next step would be to contact a lawyer in your area that has some equine experience or an equine lawyer. I have a list of equine lawyers on my website at: www.equineappraisers.com/equineattorney.html

I agree with everyone else that the Mare Owner should be entitled to some sort of compensation as all of the time and money spent on breeding to stallion X has been thrown out the window, plus an entire year has been lost on the mare. As JB also mentioned, it might be worth redoing the DNA tests again if a solution cannot be found.

[3beats]

Thanks everyone for your replies! I’m going to try to get her to reach out to the stallion owner. At this point she has been letting one of her children deal with it for her, but Im not sure that I would trust them, since they are friends with her vet, and seem to be saying “just write it off…” (there’s obviously deep problems there). I would have never thought of some of the issues that could occur such as genetic issues from the sire! I am going to encourage her to move forward on her own. I don’t think this is a mistake that she can truly afford and she has over a year in. I wouldn’t be surprised to know the error is on her vets side, since we have heard rumor of her having this happen before!

Thanks again, all of you, for your help!!

[Pocket_Rocket]

As a side-note @3beats, I sat up half the night reading the link that oldernewbie put in above! I love reading through older posts and that one was a doozie (and kinda remains a cliff-hanger)! Hope your friend’s issue is resolved in a much better way And, like Skydy also said, do be sure to get copies of health testing/genetic testing results and semen/antibiotic protocols on the actual sire should that be discovered to everyone’s satisfaction.