NICE WORK PECKY! Oct. 2011 Harness Racing International. Pages 16-19

[triplev123]

That article's a MUST READ...& especially so from the top right hand side of Page 16 which begins with 'The elephant in the room'.
Then, to put things in even better context...for those who have a copy of it handy, go back & have a read of "The Great Furphy- We Don't Breed Enough Mares" from November/December 2010 edition.

The fact is...we already do breed enough mares but the incredible level of wastage that results, some sections of the Industry seem content to blindly accept. It is of course, twofold.

-Firstly around 1000 mares a year that are initially deemed PTIF do not produce a live foal

and

-Secondly, 50% of the live foals that are produced (fillies & mares) are subsequently not even close to being properly catered for as far as racing opportunities against their own sex is concerned...this despite the inescapable fact that they are the future mothers of our racehorse population.

Hello. Ground Control to Major Tom...Gound Control to Major Tom...

I wonder why in the Hell that simple but crucial aspect hasn't yet dawned on the 'just breed more foals, we need for foals, we want more foals, just give us more foals, gimme gimme gimme, numbers numbers numbers' crew?

The breed more foals routine completely fails to address the clear husbandry/wastage issue at hand...to be honest I think the various State Breeders Associations are squibbing it in that regard, they don't want to raise it with their members... and it completely fails to address the clear lack of racing opportunities for fillies & mares issue...rather it seeks to just blast away, to up the abovementioned wastage factors, to punt them into the stratosphere...the cost to the Industy be damned.

Gimme a break.

[justdoit]

-Firstly around 1000 mares a year that are initially deemed PTIF do not produce a live foal

Did these results get looked into by the Breeding Panel in depth? I feel that it would show a very different story as to why mares
most likely lost their PTIF status.
Are you ready for this TripleV123:-
1000 mares PTIF(14days in foal)-
Race fillies(short period of the track)
mares aged(3yrs-8yrs)never having been bred
mares aged(9yrs and up)never having been bred
mares with a foal at foot(bred on foal heat)less than 12yrs old
mares with a foal at foot less than 12yrs old
mares with a foal at foot(bred on foal heat)12yrs and up
mares with a foal at foot 12yrs and up, I'm done.

Can anyone else add more of the conditions that mares are in (not so much caused by human interference) that can have an influence on their ability to hold a pregnancy,
and after looking at the results of the mares status we can then look at other reasons for the loss of PTIF.

Collecting all the relevant information to assess this correctly would be very difficult.

[triplev123]

Howard Cosell, you ain't nothin' but an instigator.