Adam Bowden, the owner of Diamond Creek Farm, is no stranger to the racetrack. His love for horses and harness racing began as a little boy when he grew up going to the racetrack in Maine with his father. His passion for racehorses continued through his college years when he spent time as an intern at Hanover Shoe Farms. It was during his time as an intern that his vision of becoming a major stallion operation, not only in the state of Pennsylvania but throughout the world, began to take shape. Diamond Creek Farm is well on its way to reaching this objective. Although they have only been breeding horses since 2006, they have already branched out into Ohio and hope to expand into New York, New Jersey and Ontario, Canada in the near future.

The test freeze is the first freeze performed on a stallion when he comes to a Select Breeders Services (SBS) Affiliate Lab to have semen frozen. We primarily have four different semen freezing protocols that we test on each stallion. The differences between each protocol being in either the extender formulation or the rate of cooling. For subsequent freezes we choose the protocol which gives the best results as determined by post-thaw motility. Regardless of the protocol, once the straws of semen reach -120 degrees Celsius in the programmable cell freezer they are then plunged into a bath of liquid nitrogen at -196 degrees Celsius.

Successfully managing a stallion’s competition and breeding careers requires careful planning. It’s easy to forget that they are essentially being asked to have two distinctly different jobs. Each of his jobs place different physical and mental demands on the stallion and your management approach needs to account for all of those demands.

The SBS network of affiliates is the acknowledged leader in the field of cryopreservation of equine semen. Each year we freeze thousands of ejaculates equating to tens of thousands of doses. In fact, this year the SBS Network will surpass the 50,000 ejaculate milestone since the company’s founding in 1987. When SBS was founded the company leadership made a commitment to quality of the finished product above all else. We wanted to put technology to use to help grow the equine frozen semen AI industry in the most responsible manner possible. It was clear early on that one of the major factors limiting the application of frozen semen in the horse industry was inconsistent quality of the product being put on the market. Breeders and veterinarians experienced frustration with attempts to use expensive semen that in many cases was of very poor quality. We knew that in order for breeders to realize the full potential of frozen semen technology they would have to be convinced that by applying strict standards for quality, frozen semen could be produced to achieve results similar to cooled semen. We also knew that these results would have to be produced in an efficient and economical way. Quality became the cornerstone upon which we would build our business.