Was there a legendary stud who had some semen frozen

[Lucy]

Well lets say your Storm Cats groom and.......blech.... and you own a stallion and a few mares whats to stop the ol switcheroo.

DNA. Isn't a sample required for registration nowadays?

[oliverstoned]

Doh! Yea? Oh well I did read somewhere that they did some random DNA tests on TB horses and a surprising % were not what they were supposed to be. It was was due probaly to farms of yesteryear making breeding mistakes on the farm ie. grabbing the wrong mare out of the field or maybe even the Stud had too many covers that day so just grab the other one kind of thing." Who will ever know"

[pokeyman]

Horse semen doesn't tolerate freezing very well. Freezing will kill all sperm cells after freezing of half the horses, the other half will lose at least half of the motility. Horse semen is not as durable as cattle or humans sperm. If you could find it, most likely it wouldn’t work.

Huh!! We use it all the time with our breeding program!! It works just fine......

On another note, plenty of TBs breed other TBs via frozen or fresh semen. Unfortunately, they are not able to be Jockey Club registered but many are registered elsewhere like the Performance Horse Registry or a Warmblood registry.

[pokeyman]

I am almost positive Mokhieba has some semen frozen. I believe he is the 3rd All-time Leading Steeplechase sire....

[SlewCrew]

Doh! Yea? Oh well I did read somewhere that they did some random DNA tests on TB horses and a surprising % were not what they were supposed to be. It was was due probaly to farms of yesteryear making breeding mistakes on the farm ie. grabbing the wrong mare out of the field or maybe even the Stud had too many covers that day so just grab the other one kind of thing." Who will ever know"

Every thoroughbred today is DNA tested...and yes,the JC will know.

[Jorge]

Hmmm, that story on Anilin sounds interesting. Is there more evidence?

As per the other cases.......one wonders what would have happened if the semen from a deceased KY Derby winner would have been preserved for the benefice of steeplechasers and sport horses.

Hey, this thread is getting more and more interesting but I perceive that its bottom line is, as on many previous occasions, AI

[casallc]

Horse semen doesn't tolerate freezing very well. Freezing will kill all sperm cells after freezing of half the horses, the other half will lose at least half of the motility. Horse semen is not as durable as cattle or humans sperm. If you could find it, most likely it wouldn’t work.

Huh!! We use it all the time with our breeding program!! It works just fine......

On another note, plenty of TBs breed other TBs via frozen or fresh semen. Unfortunately, they are not able to be Jockey Club registered but many are registered elsewhere like the Performance Horse Registry or a Warmblood registry.

The biggest disadvantage of frozen semen today is the individual freezing variability; stallions vary in fertility with frozen semen. About 20-30% of stallions with normal semen quality will produce semen that freezes extremely well, another 40% produce semen that freezes modestly well and approximately 30% of those stallions don't freeze well at all.

Conception rates of artificial insemination with frozen semen are lower than with fresh semen, although with a good freezing technique and well managed mares, conception rates of 60-65% can be reached.
http://www.equinecentre.unimelb.edu.au/ ... o_ai.shtml

The percentages vary a little but the statement is valid. Cooled semen is another story with better results.

[xfactor fan]

The mistakes in pedigree of modern TB's are mostly thought to be ancient history, not modern, or current mistakes. DNA testing is supposed to catch most of them.

A mistake 10 generations ago (either by accicent or deliberate) could affect thousands of modern horses.

The main argument against AI seems to come from Tesio, who was against it. While Tesio was a great breeder, he was not working with the kinds of technology we have right now, and his perceptions were based on his days understanding.

[CA Michael]

Rumors of semen freezing have long permeated KY. It's been said (remember this is RUMOR) that Bull Hancock froze semen from his best stallions, like *Nasrullah and Bold Ruler. Remember, blood typing was not utilized until the early 1980's, so hanky panky was controlled only by Gentleman's Honor before then. Fortunately, gentlemen were in higher supply in those days.

[Lei Owen]

Horse semen doesn't tolerate freezing very well. Freezing will kill all sperm cells after freezing of half the horses, the other half will lose at least half of the motility. Horse semen is not as durable as cattle or humans sperm. If you could find it, most likely it wouldn’t work.

Huh!! We use it all the time with our breeding program!! It works just fine......

On another note, plenty of TBs breed other TBs via frozen or fresh semen. Unfortunately, they are not able to be Jockey Club registered but many are registered elsewhere like the Performance Horse Registry or a Warmblood registry.

The biggest disadvantage of frozen semen today is the individual freezing variability; stallions vary in fertility with frozen semen. About 20-30% of stallions with normal semen quality will produce semen that freezes extremely well, another 40% produce semen that freezes modestly well and approximately 30% of those stallions don't freeze well at all.

Conception rates of artificial insemination with frozen semen are lower than with fresh semen, although with a good freezing technique and well managed mares, conception rates of 60-65% can be reached.
http://www.equinecentre.unimelb.edu.au/ ... o_ai.shtml

The percentages vary a little but the statement is valid. Cooled semen is another story with better results.

That article is 4 year's old!

One advantage of using frozen nowaday's is the fact that you have the semen on hand at the optium time for the mare. We've gone the cooled route and let me tell you, that was a pain in the tush!

As far a collecting thoroughbred's you'd have to teach them to use a phatom. I guess you could stuff an examining sleeve into the mare.

[casallc]

Horse semen doesn't tolerate freezing very well. Freezing will kill all sperm cells after freezing of half the horses, the other half will lose at least half of the motility. Horse semen is not as durable as cattle or humans sperm. If you could find it, most likely it wouldn’t work.

Huh!! We use it all the time with our breeding program!! It works just fine......

On another note, plenty of TBs breed other TBs via frozen or fresh semen. Unfortunately, they are not able to be Jockey Club registered but many are registered elsewhere like the Performance Horse Registry or a Warmblood registry.

The biggest disadvantage of frozen semen today is the individual freezing variability; stallions vary in fertility with frozen semen. About 20-30% of stallions with normal semen quality will produce semen that freezes extremely well, another 40% produce semen that freezes modestly well and approximately 30% of those stallions don't freeze well at all.

Conception rates of artificial insemination with frozen semen are lower than with fresh semen, although with a good freezing technique and well managed mares, conception rates of 60-65% can be reached.
http://www.equinecentre.unimelb.edu.au/ ... o_ai.shtml

The percentages vary a little but the statement is valid. Cooled semen is another story with better results.

That article is 4 year's old!

One advantage of using frozen nowaday's is the fact that you have the semen on hand at the optium time for the mare. We've gone the cooled route and let me tell you, that was a pain in the tush!

As far a collecting thoroughbred's you'd have to teach them to use a phatom. I guess you could stuff an examining sleeve into the mare.

Just because the article is 4 years old does not make it any less accurate.
What if the stud that you want to use’ semen won’t hold up to freezing? Then what do you do? I did not say that you can’t freeze horse semen, just that it is less effective and in some cases impossible.
You don’t have to train a horse to a phantom to collect it. In fact most people collect on a mare because it is easier for them. When doing semen evaluations on young prospects, they are always collected on a mare. No one is going through phantom training for an evaluation.

[madelyn]

This topic seems to be heading from the sublime to the ridiculous. Even frozen, it would have a point of expiration. Freezing does not completely stop deterioration, it just slows it to a crawl. Ever thawed a chicken that spent a YEAR frozen? Yuck. I imagine even frozen sperm would have a timeframe after which it would be truly dead.

[summerhorse]

That's correct, it doesn't last forever. Your only hope for thta would be to take viable DNA samples for future clones. All animals have a variability in what semen freezes well both between species (cows better than horses) and individuals (some last a long time, some not long at all). Frankly were I Barbaro's owner I would have collected him every time he was under and bred some sport horses from him. Also you could have bred Qhs, Apps, Paints. It's kind of a waste with our technology that his genetic potential went to waste.

You can collect from an animal without training them to the dummy but it isn't terribly pleasant so that's why I say when he was under and he wouldn't have known a thing about it.

[xfactor fan]

Just to throw another thought out there. You can fertilize eggs with dead sperm. Takes a lab and a petri dish, but it can happen. The resulting embryo is viable, and the few animals that have been created this way seem to be normal.

This is by the way the method the folks trying to resurect the Wooly Mammoth are planning to use.

Find a frozen dead male, harvest the dead frozen sperm, fertilize a elephant egg, implant then have a 1/2 elephant, 1/2 mammoth calf. Repeat till the percentage get close to 100%.

And no, I'm not making this up.

[Laurierace]

Abdullah was one of the greatest show jumpers of all time. I don't know how many years he has been dead, but they are still breeding mares successfully with the frozen store they had socked away. However he is NOT at TB and therefore not subject to jockey club rules as in the OP's question. That would be a waste of time.