Looking for the one-shot answer to combat your mare’s estrus cycle? Dr. Patrick McCue walks you through the estrus cycle and how to battle it.

Estrus suppressing vaccines offer great potential for blocking estrus or inducing contraception in mares, however, they could also lead to some serious future reproductive issues.

By Dr. Patrick M. McCue in The American Quarter Horse Journal

Mares come into heat or estrus due to rising estrogen levels produced by developing ovarian follicles. Mares typically do not show heat during the winter when they have small, inactive ovaries. Heat is also not exhibited after ovulation when mares have a corpus luteum producing progesterone. Ultimately, expression of behavioral estrus occurs in the presence of estrogen and the absence of progesterone. Absence of estrus is a function of low estrogen levels and/or elevated progesterone levels.

The development of follicles and ovulation are initiated by hormonal signals from the brain. Gonadotropin-releasing hormone is produced by the hypothalamus and secreted in pulse into the bloodstream. The anterior pituitary gland near the base of the brain receives the hormone signals. The pituitary secretes a follicle-stimulating hormone that stimulates follicular growth and a luteinizing hormone that causes follicle maturation and induces ovulation.

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Barrel racing and flat racing are seeing more crossover in the sale ring and breeding shed.

In barrel racing, half-second or even a hundredth of a second makes a huge difference, which is why barrel racers are looking to cross their mares with race-bred stallions.

By Denis Blake in The American Quarter Horse Journal

This is the second of a two-part series. Need to review Part 1?

Dual-Purpose Stallions

The barrel world can also be a new territory for established racehorse stallions.

“Dash Ta Fame is a perfect example,” says Jeff Tebow, general manager of the Oklahoma City-based Heritage Place sale company, about the veteran First Down Dash stallion. “He has been a great sire of racehorses, but there are many people who also look at his offspring for barrel racing. His racing offspring have earned about $15 million on the track, but he has also been a top barrel futurity sire for years.”

Another example can be found in Royal Shake Em, a stallion who sired the earners of more than $8 million on the racetrack and who stands at Ronnie and Bonnie Stewart’s Double S Farm near Holland, Texas.

“To be honest, the barrel end of this just fell into my lap,” says Ronnie. “A lady pulled up here one day named Kelly Yates with a mare named Firewater Fiesta. I didn’t know who she was or who the mare was, so she was telling me about her mare and how she wanted to breed to a stallion with an excellent mind. So she ended up breeding to Royal Shake Em.”

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Barrel racing and flat racing are seeing more crossover in the sale ring and breeding shed.

Speed is the name of the game whether you are running down the track or around the barrels.

By Denis Blake in The American Quarter Horse Journal

It’s easy to say that barrel racing and flat racing are similar in that the fastest horse wins, but on the other hand, the two industries can sometimes seem worlds apart. In recent years, however, those two distinct worlds have come closer as barrel racers seek to add more speed to their bloodlines, and racehorse breeders and stallion owners seek new revenue streams. While hard numbers are difficult to come by, the fact that a barrel horse sold for $50,000 at this year’s Heritage Place Winter Mixed Sale – one of racing’s biggest auctions – is a good indication that the level of crossover between the two industries is on the rise.

“I’ve seen an increasing number of barrel trainers at the January Heritage Sale that are buying straight racehorse prospects to make barrel horses out of them,” says performance horse breeder Jud Little, who stands seven stallions at his Jud Little Ranch near Ardmore, Oklahoma. “They are making a very significant impact on the racehorse sale industry.”

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Fillinic gave us generations of great horses.

Fillinic, above, saw a great deal of success in the show pen and the breeding shed, and so did her 10 foals, including her last colt, Reminic.

From America’s Horse

Back in 1961, Greg Ward of Tulare, California, was the stereotypical struggling young horse trainer. At 26, he had two horses for which he was being paid $75 a month to ride, a wife, a kid, a car and not much else. He’d ridden up to the neighbor’s to help doctor cattle, and as he rode back home, he could see the dust stirring up by the barn.

As he rode closer, he found the source of the dirt cloud: a lathered little chestnut mare someone had left tied to the fence.

“She had pawed and pawed until she was standing in a hole you could have buried two or three horses in,” Greg said. “I thought, ‘Oh, boy. What a rinky-dink this is.’ She had wire scars on her nose and big ol’ wire scars on her back legs. In those days, when you halter broke your horses, you didn’t want to hurt their hackamore nose, and here she was with this big scar across hers.”

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As the unwanted horse problem continues, responsible breeding is a must.

To combat the unwanted horse issue, horse owners should only breed the very best to the very best.

By Dr. Thomas R. Lenz in The American Quarter Horse Journal

The unwanted horse continues to be a major issue in the U.S. horse industry. The economic downturn has only served to make the situation worse, as many people can no longer afford to keep their horses or find qualified buyers.

AQHA and the Unwanted Horse Coalition are focused on finding homes, alternative careers and additional options for horses that are no longer wanted. But if we’re going to solve the problem, we must also decrease the number of unmarketable horses we are producing through responsible breeding practices.

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“Rabicano” is a little-known term for a fairly common white marking.

The 1953 stallion Go Man Go, registered as a roan, was a sorrel with rabicano markings.

By Andrea Caudill

Commonly called “ticking,” “coon tail” or “skunk tail,” and appearing as white flecking, rabicano (rah-bih-KAH-no) is commonly mistaken for a roan coloration, but it is a marking caused by a different gene.

Rabicano is a specific set of white markings that usually affect the base of the tail, flank and belly of a horse. In its most minimal form, it will show only white frosting at the base of the tail, often called a coon or skunk tail because of the striped appearance. A medium expression will have the white tail base, plus white hairs interspersed over the horse’s flanks, creating a roan appearance.

In its most extreme manifestation, a rabicano can appear almost like a true roan. It will carry the coon tail and have roaning on the body, concentrated on the flanks and under the elbows, and also have vertical strips of white on the barrel called rib barring.

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Testing continues for contagious equine metritis.

The USDA has initiated the testing of breeding stallions to demonstrate that the U.S. equine population is free of CEM.

Provided by Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service

The USDA has initiated the testing of breeding stallions around the United States for the bacterium that causes contagious equine metritis. The testing is being carried out to help demonstrate that the United States equine population is free of CEM or, if CEM exists here, it is only present at a very low level.

The testing effort will continue until August 2010, so there is still time for owners of active breeding stallions to participate. USDA will pay the shipping and diagnostic laboratory testing costs for one set of samples, if stallion owners pay the costs associated with collection of those samples by a USDA-accredited equine veterinarian.

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Considering your stallion’s social needs when you handle and house him pays you back with a happier horse.

AQHA Featherlite Trailer All-Around Amateur Karen Evans Mundy usually stalls her stallion, The Article, next to his gelding companion when they travel to horse shows.

From The American Quarter Horse Journal

This is the last of a three-part series. Need to review Part 1 and Part 2?

Breeding and Showing: Mutually Exclusive?

Many people don’t think breeding stallions are good in the show ring. Sue McDonnell, an equine behaviorist who has spent much of her career working with stallions, disagrees with this theory. In Sue’s experience, younger stallions especially benefit from a dual breeding and show schedule, as long as it is balanced. She has noticed that younger stallions who haven’t begun their breeding career are more on edge in the show ring and often spend more time looking around at other horses than paying attention to their handler.

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Considering your stallion’s social needs when you handle and house him pays you back with a happier horse.

The most natural way to house your stallion is in a herd with his mares. Ignoring a stallion's social needs often results in a stallion that is difficult to handle or doesn’t know how to interact with other horses.

From The American Quarter Horse Journal

This is the second of a three-part series. Need to review Part 1?

Socializing a Mature Stallion

Not everyone raises stallions the same. Ignoring their social needs often results in stallions that are difficult to handle or don’t know how to interact with other horses. If you’ve acquired a stallion like this, it isn’t too late. You can still socialize him, although it might take some time and planning.

If your stallion doesn’t respect people, fixing that needs to be a priority, and you might need to skip a breeding season to reform him. The loss of income from the missed breeding season might prevent bigger losses down the road, because stallions that don’t respect their human handlers create a liability for your farm. If you aren’t an experienced stallion handler, seek professional help from someone who is.

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Considering your stallion’s social needs when you handle and house him pays you back with a happier horse.

Social interaction with other horses will teach a young stallion how to behave with other horses and make him easier to handle.

From The American Quarter Horse Journal

The Article is the type of stallion everyone wants to own. He’s handsome, talented and behaves like a gentleman in the training barn and show ring. He and owner Karen Evans Mundy of Cedar Hill, Tennessee, have developed a great partnership, winning many honors.

Karen knew he was a great horse when she bought him as a colt but says if he hadn’t behaved, she would have gelded him.

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An incredible genetic circumstance creates a unique DNA puzzle.

Dunbars Gold, a 1996 brindle stallion by Two D Nine and out of Outa Chiggers by Outa Utopia. Genetic testing has shown the horse to be an extremely rare chimera, an individual with two DNA types.

By Christine Hamilton in The American Quarter Horse Journal

This is the second of a two-part story. Need to review Part 1?

Chimerism

In genetics, a chimera is an individual formed from two different cell lines. Scientists believe that it happens when two nonidentical twin embyos (fertilized eggs) fuse into one embryo very early in their development.

The embryo develops into a normal, complete individual that has two different DNA types. He or she might have kidneys that developed from one DNA type and a heart or skin cells from the other type.

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An incredible genetic circumstance creates a unique DNA puzzle.

Dunbars Gold, a 1996 brindle stallion by Two D Nine and out of Outa Chiggers by Outa Utopia. Genetic ttesting has shown the horse to be an extremely rare chimera, an individual with two DNA types.

By Christine Hamilton in The American Quarter Horse Journal

“Excluded.”

For the second time Denise Charpilloz had sent in hair from her 2004 foal out of her mare Sharp One for DNA testing and parentage verification. And for the second time, the Veterinary Genetics Laboratory at the University of California, Davis, had excluded not only the stallion Dunbars Gold as the foal’s sire, but also Sharp One as the foal’s dam. Read the rest of this entry »