At SBS, we are often presented with young stallions for semen collection and evaluation. There are a variety of reasons that stallion owners want to have semen collected from their young stallions including; 1) evaluation of sperm production and quality to assess suitability as a breeding stallion, 2) training to collect on a phantom with an artificial vagina in preparation for a breeding career and 3) to collect and preserve semen from a young stallion prior to castration or starting a performance career.

When Maryanna Haymon was told many years ago she could no longer ride horses she knew she had to figure out a way to remain in the horse business. She found her answer in the sport horse breeding industry. She would be able to continue her love of horses, remain a part of the sport horse world and leave her imprint in the industry. Maryanna and her husband, Wendell, own Marydell Farm in Columbus, North Carolina. The region boasts a temperate climate which allows grass to grow in the pastures 10 months of the year which is the ideal setting for breeding and raising young horses. Allowing their “horses to be horses” with lots of outdoor exercise helps them reach their optimum growth potential.

For many, the decision to perform embryo transfer (ET) from a valuable donor mare must also consider the location and availability of quality and reputable recipient mare herds. In certain parts of the country, the availability of recipient herds with fertile, healthy, manageable, and adequate recipient numbers is very limited. In other parts of the country, quality recipient herds are easily found and used successfully for both fresh and shipped embryos. Picking the right recipient herd for your donor mare should always involve carefully reading the recipient contract and knowing what is expected from the donor mare, recipient mare lease, return policy, lost embryo/fetus policy, and enrollment fee requirements. The ins-and-outs of recipient lease or purchase agreements are great topics to be covered in a later blog article. However, when it comes to selecting a recipient herd to ship your donor mare, ship a collected embryo, or trailer the donor mare into a facility for an embryo flush attempt, it is important to know what we as ET practitioners are looking for in recipient mares.

Centro di Riproduzione Equina Centauro (CREC) is located at Bagni di Tivoli near Rome on a historical Standardbred farm. The facility, situated on an almost 100 acre property, is a state of the art veterinary practice, built according to the latest guidelines for animal welfare. The care of the horse is of utmost importance at CREC; horses are housed in stalls at night with turn-out in large paddocks during the day. Every day the CREC team provides the most advanced reproductive techniques to the equine breeding industry by bringing together specialized experience and the best in patient care.