Page 28 - February 2009 The Game

28 The Game, February 2009 Canada’s Thoroughbred Racing Newspaper Meet Me Online: Cyberfoal Connects Nurse Mares, Orphaned Foals Globally
By Kelsey Riley
For those who work with breeding stock the feeling is surreal, yet all too familiar. You are in the barn at
3 a.m., hours deep into a foaling that has taken a turn for the worse. The mare has died and you are faced with a helpless orphan. The young foal’s internal clock is racing. You have no colostrum, and no one to call.
one of the reasons we thought if the internet could take over, we wouldn’t have to worry about that.”
In 2005, Hurst closed the Alberta Nurse Mare and Colostrum Registry to focus on Cyberfoal. To date, Cyberfoal has connected people from Alberta to Australia and across the United States, and horses from draft breeds down to welsh ponies. Two of these horses are Rabbit and Bonnie, who began their relationship via the internet in 2007.
Thanks to Cyberfoal, help is just a mouse click away.
At rst glance, the Cyberfoal
website is reminiscent of the average personal web space: a smattering of information and colourful graphics on an otherwise plain electronic canvas. But the less internet-savvy need not fear; Cyberfoal has been strategically organized for accessibility and visitor convenience. A personal message and site overview from Hurst can be found on the homepage at www.cyberfoal. com. Hurst maintains the site himself, updating and answering inquiries daily. Cyberfoal does not match up its users. It makes the contact information available so visitors can make the connections. Available nurse mares remain posted four days, and orphaned foals 21 days.
Cyberfoal is an online nurse mare and colostrum registry open to all breeds and disciplines globally. Founded in 1997, Cyberfoal allows visitors to post for free ads for available nurse mares, colostrum and foals in need.
Rabbit, an Oldenburg colt
from Missouri, found himself orphaned at 24 hours old
after his dam succumbed to complications from foaling. His owner Cristina Sikes stumbled upon Cyberfoal while researching how to care for Rabbit. A few hours later, Rabbit had an adoptive mother, a draft mare named Bonnie.
Rabbit and Bonnie, matched through Cyberfoal in 2007
Cyberfoal is the brainchild of Peter Hurst, the manager of thoroughbred breeding and racing facility Clayborne Farm in Calgary. In 1995, a dif cult foaling season left Hurst with the conclusion that no orphan foal should go without a nurse mare or adequate colostrum source. This is where the idea for Cyberfoal began.
There is no charge to use Cyberfoal; prices and terms for borrowing nurse mares are decided among the owners. Thirty- ve years experience with horses has taught Hurst that a price tag cannot be put on good care for an orphan.
“I registered him, and ve or six hours later I got a call from people in Spring eld (Missouri) that had a mare that had lost her foal that morning,” Sikes said. “It was so easy, and it worked out so great for my colt and the mare. All I was doing was researching orphan foals, making sure I was doing the best by him and up pops the site.”
Now in its twelfth year of operation, Cyberfoal is still growing. In 2004, Hurst added a disaster relief page, where farms with available space can advertise to accommodate victims of natural disaster.
“Once we got it over the internet, it pretty much ran itself,” Hurst said. “The Alberta registry was a 24 hour commitment and the phones were ringing throughout the night. That’s
“Nobody ever thinks about it until all of a sudden you’re the one in the barn at three in the morning,” Hurst said. “If every breeder were to collect colostrum, there would be no orphan foal going without it. On Cyberfoal, colostrum demand always outweighs the availability. All because we as
“We don’t charge for this service and we don’t make any money on it,” Hurst said. “Therefore if I’m willing to provide a free service and its doing the good its doing, others can also offer their time.”
Hurst spent ve years at Wind elds before moving to Edmonton, where he managed a few farms before traveling to Saskatchewan to start his own business. While running Hurstpark Thoroughbreds in Saskatchewan, Hurst was told a small breeder in Calgary was looking for help. Hurst took the job at Clayborne Farm, and has been there for 18 years.
Hurst is a strong advocate of collecting colostrum, and urges all breeders to do the same.
breeders are not taking the ve minutes it takes to collect colostrum, and it doesn’t make sense to me.”
“It was all because of one bad year
I had foaling mares and needing colostrum, and I couldn’t nd who to contact other than our vet, who didn’t have any,” Hurst said. “To me this was really frustrating.”
Originally from England, Hurst began riding at age 13. He dabbled in show jumping, fox hunting, point to point riding, schooling and coaching before entering the thoroughbred breeding industry. When Hurst landed a job at historic Wind elds Farm in Oshawa, Ontario in 1975, he and his wife crossed the Atlantic to settle permanently in Canada.
The only thing Hurst asks in return from Cyberfoal users is integrity. He does not support nurse mare farms and the deliberate removal of foals from their dams, and asks his users to be aware of the source when accepting a mare.
That year, Hurst started the Alberta Nurse Mare and Colostrum Registry, a service that connected available nurse mares with orphan foals. The registry took off quickly, within a year gaining popularity across Canada. It was then Hurst decided the service should be expanded and offered to all breeders worldwide. The only practical outlet for this would be the internet. In 1997, Cyberfoal was born.
For a free service with no paid advertising, Hurst has been more than pleased with the results of Cyberfoal.
“We do have nurse mare farms posting their mares,” Hurst said. “That’s why we tell people to be careful when approaching a mare. They’re making money out of our voluntary service, which you can’t stop.”
“We didn’t expect it to do this good,” Hurst said. “The support and sponsorship we have keeps us running.”
Any breeder struck with the helpless desperation of caring for an orphan knows that, like Cyberfoal itself, the bene ts of successfully matching a nurse mare and foal are priceless.
Did You Know....
That the Japan Racing Association is accepting license applications from foreign owners in 2009. Japan, which has the largest wagering handle in the world, has restricted licenses to permanent residents of Japan with the exception of their international stakes schedule which now includes more than 110 races.
Opening to foreign licenses is an effort to try to curb declines in handle, attendance, and owners.
There will be some restrictions with overseas license holders limited to one foreignborn horse, who has not competed elsewhere, for every ve they purchase in Japan.
FEBrUary 1 iS DEaDliNE tO NaME FOalS OF 2007;
rElEaSED NaMES PUBliSHED
The Jockey Club reminds owners and breeders that a valid attempt to name foals of 2007 must be made
by Feb. 1, 2009, to avoid a $75 late fee. As an aid in selecting a desired name, The Jockey Club once again has published, on the Registry’s website,
a list of 40,949 names released from active use on December 22.
A majority of the released names are those of horses that will be over 10 years old on January 1 and that have not raced or been bred during the preceding ve years. Names selected from the list for re-use are still subject to approval by The Jockey Club
prior to use, pursuant to Rule 6 of the Principal Rules and Requirements of
The American Stud Book.
The list of recently released names,
the Online Names Book and the Principal Rules and Requirements
of The American Stud Book are accessible through the Registry’s home page at http://www.registry.jockeyclub. com.
Interactive RegistrationTM (IR)
is the quickest and easiest way to submit name applications. Name applications submitted through IR are preliminarily screened to eliminate direct matches with names unavailable for use, resulting in a greater chance of approval of rst-choice names when compared with name applications submitted via mail. Owners who
name their Thoroughbreds through IR receive their rst choice approximately 75 percent of the time.
Owners who prefer to submit their name applications by mail should do so before Feb. 1, 2009, to The Jockey Club, 821 Corporate Drive, Lexington, KY 40503-2794.
Available at no charge through
the Registry’s website, IR enables owners and breeders to complete the requirements for foal registration and naming, report and look up microchip numbers, and conduct virtually all other business with the Registry. More than 900,000 IR transactions have been recorded since its launch in 1996.
The Game February 2009.indd 28
1/28/09 2:00:55 AM