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chevy86

AI in Thoroughbred World

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Can somebody please explain the rationale for insisting "natural service only" in the equine thoroughbred world. AI works just fine with standardbreds and other animal breeds. Seems to me in these chastened times in our industry that plenty of breeders may continue in the game if conditions were eased, especially where the expense of transporting mares to Australia was avoided. Beyond the expense there is the consideration of mare welfare, especially if they have frailties, mental or physical. Thanks.

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16 hours ago, chevy86 said:

Can somebody please explain the rationale for insisting "natural service only" in the equine thoroughbred world. AI works just fine with standardbreds and other animal breeds. Seems to me in these chastened times in our industry that plenty of breeders may continue in the game if conditions were eased, especially where the expense of transporting mares to Australia was avoided. Beyond the expense there is the consideration of mare welfare, especially if they have frailties, mental or physical. Thanks.

Surely this would be the near end of NZ Stallions standing at Stud in NZ , for the reason you have outlined?

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5 hours ago, Huey said:

Surely this would be the near end of NZ Stallions standing at Stud in NZ , for the reason you have outlined?

Not at all Huey. Many standing here are good value but it would allow many more breeders to improve their product selectively if they wished.

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AI means a stallion could serve hundreds if not thousand of mares per season. The drop in value of stallions would ruin the studs overnight and at the end of the day they are the ones that make the most money out of this industry. Ironically they are allowed to AI fresh semen from a service immediately after. This is to improve fertility rates. AI has around a 5% better conception rate above a natural service. The big studs with multi million dollar stallions control the industry. They also get huge tax benefits writing off millions of dollars when stallions reach a certain age (please correct me if I am wrong about this). The real issue with AI is in a very short time with everyone utilizing better stallions at lower cost the gene pool becomes very restricted. Imagine if Savabeel served over a thousand mares per year. That represent around 20 of the mares in NZ. You would potentially only need half a dozen or so stallions in the country. Definitely cheaper for the small investor with better access to better stallions  but the people that control the industry will not likely allow it to happen.

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Thanks for the response Guinness. I am not advocating mass discounting of service fees because of easier access to semen. Thousands of progeny per stallion per year in standardbreds has not happened as the service fee level has not been discounted. Savabeel could still be charged out as per normal and numbers thus would be price-limited. I am more interested in being able to avoid all the ancillary expense of transporting a mare between countries, rather than trying to secure a discounted service fee.

I am also interested in establishing what august body has decreed that AI not happen in Thoroughbreds.

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I use frozen semen from the States for the top cutting horses. The only thing I would say is that it is a win win situation for the Australian breeder as the fees are not in USA dollars but in Aussie dollars and there is no increase for the conversion. I would presume that if a NZ stallion was used it can only be a benefit to that NZ stud as the NZ dollar is so low.

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chevy86

I think the "august body" is the Jockey Club in the USA and their equivalent in the UK which have both maintained rule for decades if not centuries.

In case you weren't aware, here is a brief article on the Court case an Aussie took against the rules in Australia. He lost.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-12-19/court-upholds-racehorse-insemination-ban/4436834

 

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