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breedings” were truly far-reaching. Think about the people who were trying to build a breeding program on horses who weren’t who they were supposed to be. Or think about the folks who attended
a sale, looking to purchase a colt or filly with specific bloodlines. They were happy as a lark and pleased as punch when they loaded up their newest barn addition and headed home. More often than not, a good chunk of time passed before alarm bells started ringing. One long-time horseman issued a clarion call that demanded the industry stand up and take notice. He
was convinced the mares he booked to a specific farm were not bred to the stallion he’d selected. He based his accusations on the offspring produced by those mares, contending they had no characteristic or similarities to their alleged sire.
Enter blood-typing, which proved the horseman’s accusations to be correct.
Then came DNA testing. The party was over for the handful of charlatans, but the rest of the industry moaned and groaned about the cost of the required testing. It was, they said, another financial burden piled on already-breaking backs. In truth, the cost of the DNA testing was out-of- line. Eventually, things settled down and tempers cooled. The test costs backed up significantly and thoughtful heads began prevailing.
One of the most difficult tasks facing the AQHA was to determine how to implement the testing. What was the best and most significant starting point? Just how far back should the testing requirement extend?
After a great deal of head-scratching and discussion, it was decided mares foaled in 1989 forward would go through DNA testing. The exceptions would be mares bred AI on the premises and/or pasture bred with exposure to just one stallion.
There is some lingering confusion when it comes to strictly defining the difference between DNA testing and parentage verification. It’s easy to understand the confusion since there aren’t a great deal
of differences between the two. Simply put, DNA identifies an individual horse’s genetic marker.....comparable to an individual human’s fingerprint. No two are alike. Stallions that are actively breeding must be DNA tested, as well as mares born in 1989 or later and who are being bred.
Genetic testing is a one-time expense in a horse’s lifetime. A horse’s sire and dam must both be DNA typed before parentage verification can take place. AQHA automatically parentage verifies most horses.
Parentage verification also identifies a horse’s genetic marker. That information is then taken a step farther, comparing the genetic marker to the horse’s recorded sire and dam. If everything matches correctly, there can be no doubt that the names of the sire and dam listed on the registration papers are the names that should be there.
There are certain extenuating circumstances that make parentage verification mandatory. Two of them are 1) if the horse was the result of an embryo/ oocyte transfer and 2) if the horse was conceived through the use of transported frozen or cooled semen. Which brings us back to the issue of frozen semen.
It didn’t take long for transported frozen semen to become an ordinary, everyday happening. As a matter of fact,
it became the way to do things. Why
risk shipping a mare and her still-wobbly baby hundreds of miles? Why subject
an older, possibly crippled, mare to the same rigors? Why go through any of that when the alternative was so quick and so easy....just pick up the phone and order the semen. Your personal vet can tell
you when your mare is ready, providing accurate information as to when the semen should be available for optimal breeding conditions.
Picking up the phone became the prevalent method of choice.
The uses for frozen semen expanded. One of the most critical avenues was establishing frozen semen banks, especially for the most popular and most successful stallions. Would people really want a breeding world without the likes of Chicks Beduino or First Down Dash, to name just two? It’s accepted that these, and all other stallions, would die someday. How
many generations would it take before their influence began fading from the gene pool? Did we really want that to happen?
Many people answered in the negative.
Once again the remedy was easy. Simply collect the stallion during the off-season. Divide the collections to fill as many straws as possible, freeze them and store them
in liquid nitrogen. Stored, frozen semen became an insurance policy that would allow these stallions to speak from the grave. (The same thing would soon happen with mares through a flushing technique that allowed multiple embryos/oocytes
to be collected. Some would be placed in recipient mares, who would carry the baby to full term. Others could be frozen for later use, even after the mare was dead.
A 2015 study found that, since 2000,
414 foals were born after their mamas
were dead. The litany of the reproductive technologies affecting the distaff side of the equation, however, must wait for another story time.)
Okay. We’re collecting semen and freezing it – sort of like a rainy day fund. We’re keeping alive the lines of the great performers. The more frozen semen we have, the longer we can keep deceased stallions relevant within the active, contemporary gene pool.
Was that a good thing or a bad thing?
What would be a mare owner’s choice if a deceased, but highly successful, stallion’s semen were available as opposed to a young, unproven son of that stallion? Obviously, the decision would be influenced by the thickness of the mare owner’s wallet but, all things being equal, who would he choose?
What if the majority of the mare owners choose the semen of the deceased stallion?
In 2015 a new rule was approved by AQHA that affects ONLY those horses born in 2015 or later that states sperm from foals born in 2015 or after can only be used for two calendar years following that horse’s death or sterilization.
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