Fifteen years ago there was only a handful of New Zealand-based stallions for sporthorse breeders to choose from. Distelfink and In the Purple were household names, and mares by these stallions were sought after by those breeding jumpers.
The outstanding offspring of Voltaire II were making their mark in all three Olympic disciplines, while in dressage, the progeny of Anamour, Dream Boy and Belmont Golden Boy were strutting their stuff.
These were the days when a local stallion could expect a book of 40 – 100 mares each season, and some very good foundation stock were produced, from which we are breeding today.
The era of the imported warmblood stallion began to gather momentum, and New Zealand welcomed Senator VDL and Pico Bello to Mount View Sporthorses as jumping sires. Dressage breeders soon had the option of Landioso, who arrived from Germany, followed by Prestige VDL. More big names arrived, including Corofino II, Euro Sport Centavos and Cassiano, and there were also some interesting non-warmblood stallions imported, including Friesians, Gypsy Cobs and even a Missouri Foxtrotter!
Local stallions could still expect to book between 20 and 40 mares a season – and many of the top ones still do.
Those pioneering efforts by long-sighted breeders paid off, and led directly to the some of New Zealand’s current crop of top performing sporthorses, such as Windermere Cappuccino (Corofino II/Voltaire II).
However, our local stallions now have to compete with imported frozen semen: more than 150 different sires are available at EquiBreed NZ alone! These imported genetics are world class, and we have bred local mares to top stallions including Diamant de Semilly, Donnerhall and Contendro.
Nevertheless, fresh chilled semen is always attractive for its good fertility for any mare, and is particularly suitable for older mares, and mares in embryo programmes.
Chilled semen had been transported around the country for many years in a somewhat typical Kiwi DIY fashion, carefully sealed into containers such as face cream pots then kept cool in a chilly bin.
The same-day delivery flight service available here, plus the intrinsic good fertility of the local stallions, provided considerable leeway.
In other countries, semen is normally shipped overnight, and careful handling and diluent selection is crucial to the success of any breeding programme.
To add more pressure to breeders, many stallions are combining their stud duties with a competition career, and so their availability may be limited at certain times of the year. It then becomes important for the stallion owner to have tested the semen in a variety of diluents, so that its longevity is maintained over several days, in case the stallion can’t provide semen on a competition day. New technologies, such as a microscope that attaches to an iPad – called the iSperm – now make it possible for stallion owners to evaluate, calculate doses, video and communicate the details of the semen shipment and its quality with their clients.
This quality control is especially important, as mare owners have usually paid for the service fee, semen collection and shipping costs up front, and they deserve the best service and quality.
Fifteen years ago, sporthorse breeders in New Zealand were just beginning to experiment with frozen semen. There was a general reluctance to use frozen, and many disaster stories.
Indeed, in a breeders’ seminar held in the Waikato in early 2003, it was reported by one vet that the average per cycle pregnancy rate for frozen semen was around 19%! When you were paying for semen up front, these results did not offer a very good return on your investment.
Since then, the per cycle conception rates for frozen semen still ranges from 0 to 100%, but the national average per cycle conception rate would have at least doubled, and hopefully tripled, compared with the early data available in New Zealand before 2003. The semen freezing methods have improved over the years to the point that the stallion owners often sell smaller doses of one to three straws of semen for the same price. This has resulted in the pregnancy rates still hovering around 40-50% per cycle in many cases.
It is the number of motile sperm cells in a dose of semen that matters, and is an important question for mare owners to ask before investing in frozen semen.
Indeed in many cases, frozen semen is becoming more cost-effective than fresh semen for young mares, as the collection and shipping costs are usually avoided.
The introduction and acceptance of frozen semen has effectively increased the gene pool of sires available in New Zealand.
We will now see, in the younger age-group classes, some very competitive horses with international bloodlines, and be able to compare their performance with New Zealand-bred horses.
We are already seeing the positive influence of the introduction of these purpose-bred horses into the arena – there will be a quantum leap in the results as the combination of the hardy New Zealand horse with the new international genetics will exhibit a certain amount of hybrid vigour.
New Zealand-bred horses are performing at world-class levels, including the likes of show jumper Windermere Cappuccino and eventers Balmoral Sensation and Waitangi Pinterest.
Not only are some of our current top horses by European sires (Graffiti MH, LT Holst Andrea, Veroana), but progeny from European sires bred to New Zealand mares are becoming outstanding sires themselves, like Ngahiwi One Eye (by Corland VDL). The world is coming to New Zealand… and also to buy horses from our breeders, like Henton Lodge Hanoverians, Mount View Sport Horses, Ngahiwi Station, Waitangi Sporthorses and more.
At the same time, we are able to increase the level of competition so that New Zealand events are attracting international riders. We all hope this will translate into medals, and sales!
New technologies
As frozen semen becomes more commonplace in our breeding programmes, new technologies are also becoming available to the Kiwi breeder. It is now possible to geld your colt and recover and freeze semen from the sperm storage site (the epididymis) for future use. Epididymal sperm may also be our last chance to store the genetics of stallions that die or experience misadventure, or for endangered species.
The development and refining of this technology and making it available to the breeder takes time. However, thanks to funding from the New Zealand Equine Research Foundation, EquiBreed NZ showed that conception rates of 50% per cycle were possible with frozen epididymal sperm. The knowledge gleaned from this research also aids our understanding of sub-fertile stallions, and those with poor sperm motility. This knowledge can be translated to assist any sub-fertile stallion – even those that are not used for artificial insemination, such as thoroughbreds.
You can also choose the sex of your foal at the time of insemination by using sex-sorted semen, with more than 90% accuracy. This process is available commercially in New Zealand.
Again, this is a result of years of research and collaborations with scientists from around the world. To separate an ejaculate of sperm into X (filly) and Y (colt) bearing sperm cells requires extremely careful semen-handling and insemination skills. In a fertility trial using sex-sorted sperm under New Zealand conditions, it was possible to obtain 58% per cycle embryo recovery rates.
The first foal produced by sex-sorted semen in New Zealand was sired by Lucero Omega. The cost of this technology is becoming more attractive over time, so watch this space.
Whatever your choice of stallion, you must be aware of the costs involved and make sure that you and the stallion owner have signed a contract. Each contract will be different, but you do need to confirm if you pay for the semen up front, and if any extra charges like collection and freight will be included.
Another stumbling block is the definition of the live foal guarantee – this term should really be replaced by ‘free return’, and may be limited to the stallion still being available. If stallion owners are also busy competing, and consequently semen is not available, then those dates should be clearly stated on the contract.
Conclusion
Over the last few years we have seen many changes in the breeding industry and more people and vets using exciting international genetics to improve our New Zealand bloodstock. It is often said that it costs just as much to keep a high quality horse as a low quality horse, so you may as well breed the best horse to suit your goals. As you can see, almost anything is possible now, but don’t forget good old-fashioned natural mating, if that is what suits your equine breeding and budget objectives.
