You make it sound like a marketing gimmick designed to artificially limit supply and keep prices inflated.
I was about to mention that passage. Although fiction, it is obviously relevant to this thread. And it was one of the most unforgettable narrative scenes I’ve ever read.
Presumably yes, although I am not familiar with the details.
While limiting supply and inflating prices might be a minor factor (in actual fact, there are more Thoroughbreds than actively racing horses - but then, racing is not all that Thoroughbreds do, just their main reason for existing in the first place) that is not, presently, the driving factor. I don’t know why that rule was first put into place, but the effect is to limit the number of foals a stallion can sire. This limits inbreeding. Given that ALL Thoroughbreds are related to each other through multiple bloodlines, and they are all inbred to one degree or another, this is arguably a very important thing in regards to maintaining the health of the breed by imposing genetic diversity. I don’t know if that’s how the rule got started, but it’s certainly one reason it continues.
Otherwise, in theory, all the foals of a generation might be sired by one stallion, meaning the next generation would be matings of siblings and half-siblings… this is not really a good idea.
Many, many mares are bred by running with a stallion for the whole or part of the breeding season, and left to get on with it. The more valuable the animals, the more human involvement, and more precise timing, although knowing the exact date of conception doesn’t accurately predict the foaling date.
Sampiro, your take on geldings used as “warm up” made me laugh. I’ve only come across one teaser that was allowed to mount the mares, the National Stud in Newmarket had a vasectomised stallion some years ago - still had his testicles, so he could do the business without getting anyone pregnant. He was a very happy horse.
The mare arrives at the designated time via trailer, say 10:30. She is led to the mating area in a barn. The owners of the stallion/mare adjourn to the viewing room. The assistants get the mare “in the mood” while the stallion watches (and is restrained a bit). The assistants at the farm I was witnessing at had a large pink thing on a baseball bat handle along with a large barrel of lubricant to prepare the mare. When both parties are ready; a large leather blanket is flung over the mare for protection from biting. Assistants steady the mare and steer the stallion – including the naughty bits. The act finishes complete with photos and video. The mare departs via trailer. At the farm where I was, a desirable stallion would breed up to 4 times a day. Next mare would be at 11:00. When put out to stud, the stallions are fat and happy – not quite the sleek muscular selves from racing days.
Two financial arrangements were available. One was mating only. No foal, too bad. The price might include multiple matings to increase odds of a foal (more money). A more expensive option would be a guaranteed foal.
There’s another factor nobody’s brought up: it’s a heck of a lot cheaper to ship a vial of semen across country than it is to ship a stallion.
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Please keep your random political jabs out of the GQ forum.
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This isn’t true at all. A vanishingly small proportion of racing stallions end up as profitable studs.
What I heard about the logic behind the “actual-mating” rule was that it was to encourage breeding of TB horses that could survive the rigors of racing over faster horses that couldn’t. Allowing AI would allow horses with ultra-thin bones to breed. Such horses might be faster than TB horses with thicker bones, but would have an unacceptably high risk of breaking down over a season. Requiring actual mating therefore sets a lower bound on how fragile the TB can be.
Sorry, I’m not following. How do traditional methods preclude thin-boned horses from mating?
A thin boned horse wouldn’t be as likely to withstand the travel requirements as one with thicker bones. TBs have a reputation for being fragile and high strung, and a horse that is especially fragile or high strung would not travel well, so that’s another reason to require the live breeding.
There’s something called Popular Sire Syndrome in purebred cats and dogs, in which one particular male sires a lot of offspring, and so it’s harder for later generations to find suitable mates, as Broomstick noted. This is as good a reason as any to require live breeding. The semen from a dead horse might be useful for breeding horses that weren’t going to be registered as TBs, or for horses not meant to race…but it’s not nearly as valuable as a breeding stallion. Still, if I owned such a beast that was inches away from death, I’d probably want some semen samples if they were easily obtainable. After all, the rules might change in the future, too. Or perhaps the samples could be valuable for research.
Documentation. You bet it’s documented. The day, the date, the hour. These are all on a certificate that’s signed by the witnesses and, I guess, in the case of really valuable stock, kept in a safety deposit box.
I bred my mare a couple of times to a stud that was way down the pecking order from Thoroughbred and I got the piece of paper.
They did not tie my mare down but did hold her head. I’m told. My mother thought I probably shouldn’t watch.
AI. Some breeds allow it. A friend of mine has foals sired by an Arabian stallion who died years ago, which I think is kind of creepy. She has a couple of these foals for sale every year until she runs out of frozen baby broth.
The Thoroughbred breed doesn’t allow this, although there are alleged bootleggers who get the seed one way or another. Those horses won’t have the papers to be legit, they can’t run in the big races no matter how fast they are, and I do think this is some kind of marketing thing and is meant to limit the supply. Of course a bootlegged Thoroughbred foal is still a TB and can enter some races, or be a good riding horse.
The restraints in place during a live cover are mostly for the stallion’s protection. You should also know that you can’t breed just any old mare to a top stallion. The mare has to be qualified, and in some cases there’s a lottery, and it costs A LOT. For your money you are usually guaranteed a live foal, but in some cases you aren’t even guaranteed a pregnancy. So you want to be darned sure your mare is receptive.
What is the reasoning behind this?
If some rich guy wanted to have an old nag serviced by the offspring of Secretariat, they would turn down his money?
AI is safer all around for everyone. When I thought seriously about having my mare Dawn bred, that was the only way it was going to happen. I’ve been present at several live cover breedings and nope, no way would I expose anyone to the potential dangers of live cover.
I apologize for being unclear. With a live cover (guess that’s the terminology; I’m not horsey at all) naturally, the stallion has to be alive in order to inseminate the mare. If he’s alive, and able to mate, then the rigors of racing haven’t killed him yet.
This isn’t the case with AI; it’s easy to collect excess semen and freeze it for much later insemination. Hypothetically, a thin-boned stallion could have won one or two races, in dominating fashion, and had his semen collected. He then breaks down in race three. With the live cover requirement, his thin-boned genes don’t get passed on, but with AI allowed, they do. As I remember having it explained to me, it’s an attempt to make sure that TBs don’t get overbred to the point that they’re breaking down after a few races. I mean, if AI was allowed, wouldn’t a stable want to roll the dice with Barbaro’s semen?
An easy answer to the potential problem would be to simply to prohibit registering any issue utilizing semen from an already-deceased horse. This blog has some interesting give and take on the issue of AI vs Live cover, particularly in the comments. As I said, I’m not horsey at all, yet I found their points interesting.
Pardon an off-topic question (still about horse breeding though), but—
My cousin had an Arabian mare (no champion bloodline or racing history or anything) who was bred three times. The first time she gave birth to premature twins, both of whom died at birth or immediately after. The second time she gave birth to a healthy single foal. The third time was to another set of twins, this time full term, one of whom died at birth and the other was initially unhealthy; she gave it to a local horse lover who had a lot more time and money than she did and the new owner was able to nurse it to health and it became perfectly healthy in time, BUT the new owner said that she would never use it for breeding because of the mother’s having twice had twins.
I know that twins are much rarer in horses than in humans, but does anybody know if producing twins is hereditary in horses as it is for humans (fraternal anyway)? Also, is it that common for twins to die?
I grew up on a cattle farm and we only had one set of twins born to one of our cows that I recall; they were small initially, but they were healthy and the mother pulled through just fine. We had a goat who gave birth to a litter of four kids, which is also as rare as twins for a human (they usually have two, sometimes three, very rarely more) and they were fine, as was the mother (though she was a terrible mother- had to be forced to nurse, but she was like that when she had her first two as well).
To be clear, a horse without proof of live cover and two Thoroughbred parents can never enter the Jockey Club Registry, which is the official Thoroughbred Registry, and cannot race in any Jockey Club races in the United States (all of the legitimate ones above “County Fair” level.) All registered Throughbreds have a tatoo under their lip identifying them.
Possible an unregistered Throughbred could race internationally; I don’t know the rules.
An AI-bred Throughbred or Thoroughbred cross can, obviously, be used for non-racing horse sports that do not require the registry.
A “bootleg” TB could be created with a mediocre mare and stallion as the reputed parents, and forged cover papers, while the mare is actually impregnated with the semen of a superior stallion. The offspring wouldn’t be worth much until it started racing, and winning. That seems to be fairly risky, though…as the offspring might have some of its real sire’s traits, it might just as well take after its dam, or it would be a mix. I guess if you have some mediocre mares and a supply of frozen high quality TB jizz, it might be worth a shot, though.
Yes. They don’t want the pure blood of their stud diluted by breeding to just any old mare. She has to be worthy.
The stallion can only service so many mares, and the stud fee is high so they can afford to be picky. I guess most of them think they can’t afford not to be picky.
The breeders I knew seemed to have it down that the sire was significantly more important than the mare. It wasn’t a 50/50 thing. I’m not finding the percentage in my search, but then, I’m not really sure what search terms to use, and I’ve been out of the horse world for a long time.
PS Back when I was in the horse world, I knew of several instances where registered QHs were “faked”–I had one mare who was thought not to have a shot at racing, so her breeding slot was moved to one of her siblings, and I got her at a signficantly reduced price. When it turned out she was pretty fast after all (the deal was, as a yearling she got into a bad tangle with barbed wire that they thought would kill her racing chances), I sold her back to the breeder, who did some kind of reshuffling.
It sounded kind of dodgy to me, but he seemed to think it was perfectly OK, and he didn’t seem like the kind of guy who would do something illegal. In retrospect, I think it probably WAS illegal, or at least unethical. I’m pretty sure TBs are more rigorous than QHs. Also, I have no idea what kind of papers QHs need for racing purposes.
They don’t need anything for rodeo sports, though. People have made good cutting horses and prize-winning barrel racers out of nags they rescued just short of becoming dog food.