Harness Racing is an international industry and Embryo Transfer is part of that as is AI part of it. I would be interested in your views on these within our industry and what you make of the submissions within the attached article....
http://www.jca.org.nz/non-race-day-h...ir-prof-g-hall
Personally I think a fitting punishment would have been that none of the 3 foals should be allowed to be registered. A fine means nothing to people like that.
I would also ban embryo transfer. Seems fair if frozen semen from dead stallions can no longer be used.
The rules as outlined in that JCA decision are fine by me
I get there's a rule but seems harsh seeing as though only 1 was registered
We have a declining number of foals born every year.
I believe we should allow broodmares to have up to 3 foals a year (through embryos).
There would need to be conditions around same, like the breeder could only keep one of them, that each service would need to be to a different sire, that one of the services had to be to a stallion that was born in Australia or New Zealand.
This would mean the best maternal blood would be available to more breeders/owners and that mares with poor bloodlines/performers that consistently fall in pregnant could be used as embryo mares.
I give you an example.
I am lucky enough to have a 10% share in Miracle Mile winner Baby Bling.
We have kept all of her foals, therefore no one has had the chance to purchase into the family.
If she had three foals (two by embryo) two would be available for others to purchase at the yearling sales.
One would need to be by a Colonial Stallion, which means every year the best mares would be breeding to one of our own.
As owners we would receive commercial value for her progeny.
As a consequence Breeders would be searching to purchase the best broodmares or would be buying the best bred fillies at the sales, of which they could then have three foals and two of them would need to be on sold.
The horse population would grow, the quality of the stock would be amazing and the % of foals that would make it to the track would considerably increase.
Interesting, sounds good in practice but looking for the catch first thoughts would be:
That up to 50% of current mares would quickly be deemed useless (next to no money to be made owning an embryo mare)
Those that own the best mares now would be in a much, much, much stronger position than they are even now
What effect would it have on the gene pool in the long run
Would fillies be in more demand at future sales for at some point there is going to be a large pool of 'triple whammy mares' already out there
I think you would have a lot of fake ownership changes under that plan Adam. The rich would get richer and the industry would shrink.
Am I right in thinking, that for there to be only 10½ months between a mare's foals the first one had to be embryo transplant?