Is this true.... foals.....

Lippyx

Lippyx

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Was talking to a friend and they said they were offered a free horse at the weekend (they are not horsey). Anyway, I asked why and they said it was from a stud up the road from them.
Apparently, this stud breeds race horses, and when they put a winning mare in foal, they also put a Heniz 57 type mare in foal too. The reason being, is if the top mare rejects the foal, the will put it on to the Heniz 57 mare, and remove the "worthless" foal off her.
Now, they give this heniz 57 foal away to any one willing to hand rear it, and apparently, it would grow into a good riding horse, just not any good for racing.
Can anyone confirm this happens, and is it really fair/right to the horses involved?? Seems very extreme, not to mention risky!!!??
 
I've heard of it in the past. Could easily still be happening. Sadly there is no 'prize' for behaving well when breeding and training for racing. Obviously there are good/better studs. But certainly not all are. One of the reasons I don't actively support the sport I'm afraid.
 
Yes it is true.

Although many of the better studs will actually not use a heinz57 mare - but a good pony mare or ID etc. Often in foal to the same stallion - which does give them some financial value.
 
I have one of these racing industry by-products ! Bought him by sealed bid from famous Newmarket stud at 5 months, he's now 2 and rather nice, out of very ordinary cob mare by good stallion. The stud did not actively 'vet' me as potential home but were very professional and caring .I feel they probably would not have let them go (17 were available!) to non horsey homes. I would have another like a shot and think myself lucky to have him. The racing industry is BIG business and they need to maximise chances of healthy foals, and some mares will,inevitably, be unable to care for their own foals.
 
I've also heard sometimes this was done to mares that were still racing - it was found some mares ran faster whilst pregnant, the jockey club let them race to a certain point in gestation (not sure exactly when) then they go and have their foal, foal is given to a surrogate, so mare can go straight back into training. I think this happens less now, as they use other methods such as marbles to make the mare think they are pregnant rather than actually having to be in foal.

There is a big company/stud in Newmarket that keep cob mares specifically to provide surrogates, and a friend of mine used to take the unwanted foals - she said she could have up to 20 at any one time, and that the stud in question had nearly 150 mares!
 
Yes many studs do this although I dont know any who give away their foals and usually they arent any lesser mares. Its quite usual to have mares foaling at the same time, heinz or not heinz, then you have a surrogate mare should anything happen to any of the dams. Some mares will happily suckle foals other than their own so occasionally if the dam rejects the foal then another mare can take over and nurse that foal as well as her own.
 
One of the big studs in newmarket have about 5 gypsy cob mares. If they are not needed there own babies stay with them. I dont know anything about giving foals away. If the babies do get taken away from them they get hand reared. Who ever is on sitting up duties feed them through out the night etc.
Ive never heard of them taking foals off of mares for them to race. I worked in racing for 7 years and i remember 1 good mare on a yard i worked at being put in foal as she was a run away whilst she was pregnant she stopped pulling so hard settled in her races much better then around 6 - 8 month she retired and has gone on to have another couple of foals.
I think there was a big race winner that had a foster mare.
 
I don,t know wether I like this surragate mare thing or not, I had no idea that this happened. Sounds like these poor foals are just another waste "product" of the racing industry.
 
I agree with you RSL.
It would be better if owners that have mares that have lost foals would look for foals needing a mummy and vice versa (they used to be sweets didnt they?!! sorry!)
If i had a mare that had lost a foal i would offer her out.
 
Because all the milk you drink was intended for the calves that were taken off their mothers so that you could drink it. In that instance nearly all the male calves will be pts at birth and the girls will be fed milk subsitute and when they are old enough they will be impregnated to provide you with the milk that their calves would have got.

Just like the foals from the surrogate mothers. The foals are not taken off the mares unless a TB foal needs them.
 
RSL if you drink milk and are familiar with dairy cows and calves then you will understand the point of my comment. How do you feel about adoption of human babies immediately after birth? Or puppies whose mother dies in childbirth? I could go on with another lot of examples but Im sure you understand where I am coming from. These "poor" babies know no different. They are still being raised, they are still being fed and will grow up into healthy well adjusted horses regardless of whether it is their mother or some other mother who raises them.
 
Lippyx said:
Was talking to a friend and they said they were offered a free horse at the weekend (they are not horsey). Anyway, I asked why and they said it was from a stud up the road from them.
Apparently, this stud breeds race horses, and when they put a winning mare in foal, they also put a Heniz 57 type mare in foal too. The reason being, is if the top mare rejects the foal, the will put it on to the Heniz 57 mare, and remove the "worthless" foal off her.
Now, they give this heniz 57 foal away to any one willing to hand rear it, and apparently, it would grow into a good riding horse, just not any good for racing.
Can anyone confirm this happens, and is it really fair/right to the horses involved?? Seems very extreme, not to mention risky!!!??
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yep my YO has 2 very well breed tb X cobs (on the tb side obviously) and boy they are fab horses the is a 5 yr old and already jumping BN the 6yr old is nearly qualified for the BN thingy ma bob (don't ask me i aint got a clue) the think the 5 yr old will make a grade a eventually and she has had several offers for her.
 
jaypeebee said:
They are still being raised, they are still being fed and will grow up into healthy well adjusted horses regardless of whether it is their mother or some other mother who raises them.
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I do agree with you in principle on the milk thing but don't entirely agree with this statement. All 3 of the hand reared horses I have met had behavioral issues, one of them ended up being pts. I might just have been unlucky, but I do think hand rearing a foal requires a lot of skill if you want it to end up 'normal'. Also, a horse's character has a bit more bearing on it's future than a cows. Those of you that have known some of these 'cast offs', were they actually hand reared or were they the ones whose mothers weren't required? Genuinely interested as, as I said, my experiences might just be coincidence!
 
But if these heinz 57 babies as you say know no difference and thrive well being hand reared, why don,t the studs hand rear the TB foal !

Don,t shoot me down for this question but I find your argument about human adoptions a bit daft, because when a human gets pregnant you have two woman having babies just incase the posh woman dies or rejects the baby.
 
Our local tb stud (big international venture) has lots of gypsy cob mares who have lovely foals by their tb teaser stallion each year. I presume the foals are only taken from their mothers if the mare is needed. I have been told a lot of the foals go over to Ireland when weaned and they keep the fillies. They now have a young coloured gypsy cob stallion to avoid inbreeding.
 
To those discussing the milk comparison I'd like to add that there is a clear, to me at any rate, moral distinction between cruelty, (or sub-optimal treatment, I'm using the word as short hand), incidental to milk produced for human consumption and cruelty incidental to horses produced for gambling on.

As it happens I don't drink milk because I don't like either sort of cruelty. But I can see why a person could support the one and not the other. Same as someone supporting vivisection for medical drug but not for cosmetic testing. The activity the cruelty is incidental to matters too.

Also agree with the point about "if hand rearing was so great they'd do it for the TBs". We haven;t even managed to get to a situation where breast isn't best (where available) for humans let alone anything else...
 
I made no mention about hand rearing. A foal reared by another mare has no idea that this mare is not its mother. It doesnt care so long as it is fed and nurtured, even if the surrogate mare is still raising her own foal alongside.

Hand rearing can have its own problems. Often because the human creates some sort of ludicrous fascination with the baby.

And snoopster there is nothing ridiculous about my comments regarding adopted babies. YOUR comment was *poor babies*. No, adopted human babies/ foals/ puppies are not *poor babies*, they are just babies being fed and cared for by someone or something other than their own natural mother. Nothing to do with pregnant women becoming pregnant at the same time so that they can surrogate each others babies should anything happen. Now THAT is daft :D.
 
But what I am saying is these stud yards are breeding a "heinze 57" mare just incase the TB mare rejects/dies, then the heinze 57 takes over the job of mum to the orphan foal. That in its self if the heinze 57 had lost her foal would be an ideal situation, but it,s not "is it" she was put in foal with the sole purpose of being a surragate.

It was stated that the heinze 57 foal who I suppose as been taken off the heinze 57 dam, will then be hand reared and will thrive just as well. What I was saying is if this is the case why don,t the studs hand rear the TB foal. The real reason is we all know foals thrive best with their mothers.

Yes foals, puppies and humans who are adopted by another mother don,t seem to care who rears them as long as they are being nurtured I agree with you there. But the hand reared heinze 57 who as been taken away from it,s mother so the TB foal can have her may disagree.

Should point out I am not after a disagreement just an healthy debate on something I really don,t like the sound of, so I am here to be convinced. :)
 
Yes it was stated that the heinz baby was taken off the mother so that the heinz mother could feed the TB baby and the heinz baby was given away to be hand reared. I havent heard of this happening with any of the studs I am familiar with, so I dont know the reality of it. When I have known about foals who are orphaned or whose dams reject them and another mare is available to feed these foals then that has always been first choice. In the cases I know about the other mare has kept her own foal as well as the adopted one. A surrogate mother feeding a foal, or two foals, is far preferable to one being hand reared. There is no real substitute for mares milk, although talk is that if a substitute is used then goats milk is the preferred but its still no comparison to what is best and thats mares milk. So maybe all us breeders should keep a goat ;).
 
I suppose I am a little sensitive to the subject since my gypsy cob mare is in foal at the moment, and as a one mare owner proberly don,t understand the type of cash that goes into a large TB stud.

But my uncle as a large herd of milking goats, if you know anyone who wants to buy one :p:p:p:D
 
The_snoopster said:
I suppose I am a little sensitive to the subject since my gypsy cob mare is in foal at the moment, and as a one mare owner proberly don,t understand the type of cash that goes into a large TB stud.

But my uncle as a large herd of milking goats, if you know anyone who wants to buy one :p:p:p:D
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I dont have a big TB stud but I do breed my mares as close together as I can so that in emergencies I will have a surrogate mare available should anything happen to any of the other mares. There is always relief here when the first foal is born and the dam is well as that means any other foals born afterwards will be catered for. For me this is more a case of practicality than cash.

Are you keeping your mare on a stud to foal down? If not then try to get some frozen colostrum from one if you can just in case anything goes wrong. At least the colostrum will tide you over initially should a disaster occur and with the help of your uncles goats milk that will give you time to arrange a surrogate mare. Mostly foalings are uneventful and Im sure yours will be too but its always best to cover all angles.
 
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