The studmaster at Australasia’s leading harness racing breeding farm has warned the trend towards the use of frozen semen threatens to collapse the industry “within a few years”.
Alabar Farm proprietor Alan Galloway was a pioneer of cryogenics (frozen semen) 30 years ago, but now says it’s not feasible on an industry-wide basis and has the potential to threaten the viability of harness racing.
“It’s too expensive, it has poor outcomes and actually can be quite cruel on the mares, but none of those things are admitted to by those advocating frozen semen,” Galloway said.
“From a breeder point of view, the difference is not well understood. Most breeders think ‘frozen’ means ‘chilled’ and that couldn’t be further from the truth,” he said.
“Frozen semen gets terrible results in comparison to fresh, chilled semen – foaling rates suffer, because there are lower conception rates and also higher percentages of foals aborting.
“On top of that, to impregnate mares using frozen semen is expensive for the breeder, taxing on the mare and stressful on farm staff.”
Galloway said the intensity of effort required for acceptable fertility rates was one reason Alabar virtually ended its use of frozen semen.
“We still do a little but it’s a huge amount of work,” he explained.
“Frozen semen is less viable – just by freezing the cells, you reduce their viable number by half – and getting mares pregnant means costs go through the roof because of the work involved.
Frozen semen is normally packaged in 0.5-ml straws, with eight straws (800 million sperm cells) representing one insemination dose.
Although there is tremendous variability between stallions, a typical ejaculate from a stallion will provide approximately eight insemination doses (approximately 64 straws).
“You need to be absolutely accurate in your timing of insemination, because instead of fresh semen living for five or six days in the fallopian tubes of the mare, you have only three or four hours where frozen semen is viable,” he said.
“So, to have the best chance of getting a pregnancy, you need to be scanning mares every three or four hours in their fertility phase. This can be hard on the mares and you need experienced operators. There are only a handful of vets skilled enough.
Historically, the insemination of mares with frozen stallion semen often resulted in disappointing results and high veterinary bills.
“All of this comes with an added risk to the mare. Inflammatory reaction or infection can be more prevalent which means higher vet bills. Lower conception rates also mean the mares have to go through these procedures on more cycles per season. The costs just continue to rise – and even then there’s much lower percentages of live foals at the end of it all. It’s just too expensive and frustrating for the general consumer, so you have breeders, especially new or first-time breeders, getting burnt and exiting the industry.
“It just doesn’t add up, but there’s a very strong trend happening, which concerns me deeply.”
Galloway said key owners of American standardbred stallions were moving to “lock up” their sires in the Northern Hemisphere.
“The trend is to keep those stallions there, in view of the reduced risk to the stallion, and because it’s cheaper and more convenient to simply send frozen semen to the Southern Hemisphere,” he said.
“A good number of the American sires ‘standing at stud’ here in Australia this season are not here at all – they’re still in the Northern Hemisphere and the studs are simply shipping the frozen semen and offering a distribution service.
“There needs to be more transparency because at the moment, the real fertility rates, the real results in foaling rates and the costs to owners are being hidden – and that’s to the detriment of breeders who are right now making decisions about what stallion to send their mare to.”
Galloway said the industry’s administrators had also failed to identify and act on the risk the trend presented to harness racing.
“One of the great injustices is that foals from North American stallions available here via frozen semen are eligible for our futurity and sires’ stakes races – yet to be eligible for their own sires’ stakes racing in North America the stallions have to be physically resident in the state!” he said.
“So, there’s no incentive for breeders to support local studs and stallions – which is what sires stakes racing was set up to do, to encourage and nurture our own industry.”
Galloway said he was excited about the prospects of work by the University of Newcastle of an “equine extender”, a process which allows semen to live for two weeks outside the body, without the need for freezing.
He said he also wanted to encourage breeders to think carefully about their options for the upcoming season.
“I’m not advocating breeders to come to Alabar, but just to be aware of what decision they are making and what that means– for their potential of getting a foal this year, for their costs and for the long-term future of our industry,” he said.
“I don’t want to see frozen semen banned because if you did, we wouldn’t have had access to some of the truly great sires, particularly in trotting, which are just not available here. But don’t hide the fact that you get reduced pregnancy results with frozen semen.
“If it becomes the ‘norm’ then it will destroy our industry within a few years – we simply won’t have enough racing stock, because foaling rates will collapse.”
Alabar has been the dominant Standardbred stud in Australasia for 30 years, breeding 40 percent of the mares in the Southern Hemisphere in the past decade (between 2500 and 3000 mares each year).
“All I am asking is for more transparency around how the system is evolving and what it means for the future. And if the switch is made to frozen semen, I’m out – simply because I won’t subsidise the industry to that extent,” Galloway said.
Terry Gange
NewsAlert PR Mildura