Nominate a breeding great for lifetime contribution award
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lifeslemons
Well-Known Member
Twink Allen gets my vote! Once again facinating in Horse and Hound this week.
magic104
Well-Known Member
Oh wasn't it just. What a shame that such short-sightedness caused the closure of something so valuable.
Ciss
Well-Known Member
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Twink Allen gets my vote! Once again facinating in Horse and Hound this week.
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Martin Boyle won it a couple of years ago so there is a precident. OTOH, Twink is one of the major promoters of cloning of successful geldings as a source of top class sports horses, which is a very contentious issue -- particularly as many would argue that geldings that are successful may well be so ONLY becuase they are geldings and don't have the natural good temperament that top class winning stallions have.
He didn't mention cloning in his article as obviously it is even more unpopular with the Thoroughbred industry (who were paying his salary) than is AI, and the fact that he couldn't get Home Office permission to do cloning experiments on equines -- and therefore no finance for that from some big European investors -- that caused the real funding shortfall and closure of the EFT.
Twink Allen gets my vote! Once again facinating in Horse and Hound this week.
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Martin Boyle won it a couple of years ago so there is a precident. OTOH, Twink is one of the major promoters of cloning of successful geldings as a source of top class sports horses, which is a very contentious issue -- particularly as many would argue that geldings that are successful may well be so ONLY becuase they are geldings and don't have the natural good temperament that top class winning stallions have.
He didn't mention cloning in his article as obviously it is even more unpopular with the Thoroughbred industry (who were paying his salary) than is AI, and the fact that he couldn't get Home Office permission to do cloning experiments on equines -- and therefore no finance for that from some big European investors -- that caused the real funding shortfall and closure of the EFT.
pocomoto
Well-Known Member
If you read Twink Allens previous articles on the subject you will glean that the money provided by the TBA was not enough to cover the costs of the EFT, so the Prof used AI etc to ensure that the EFT remained at the forefront of equine breeding research to the benefit of a huge number of breeders outside the time warp that enshrouds TB breeding.
As a scientist of world renown it would have been professional suicide for Prof Allen to ignore cloning, which would be very limiting to the further advancement of breeding techniques and more that in ignoring it he would risk not attracting the best students to study and work at the EFT. Further The Laboratory of Reproductive Technology is in Cremona, under Cesare Galli have successfully cloned horses leaving UK reproductive technologies at a disadvantage. The cloning of geldings for breeding purposes is a subject that Prof Allen holds dearly, for years he has been putting up slides of performance horses and a racehorse and asking why are we using something that runs fast in a straightish line to breed horses to jump. He has championed the breeding good performers in a field together and cloning would allow that to happen more often, since geldings are often preferred in most competition circles, regardless of temperament, some people do not have the facilities to keep competing stallions.
I for one am a great fan of Prof Allen and sympathise greatly with him on what must now be a sad time in his life, in that his retirement is marred by the loss of his beloved EFT. A sad day for British breeding.
I am no longer a TBA member and will not rejoin following this important decision which did not involve ordinary members. I think it is high time that the TB industry woke up and smelt the bacon. AI is the way forward, there are simple arrangements which can be made to limit use of popular stallions and therefore protect the gene pool, the only remotely tenable argument raised against it. There are so many plus arguments for it including disease control that I cannot see how this archaic resistance is tolerated by breeders.
I would see AI implemented more for the welfare of TBs themselves, what lunacy to transport bloodstock worth millions regularly around the world and worse to deliberately foster foals to enable mares to visit stallions further a field, and to send stallions to an unnatural breeding season half a world away when you could send a flask and check the DNA (which is required anyway)!!!!!
As a scientist of world renown it would have been professional suicide for Prof Allen to ignore cloning, which would be very limiting to the further advancement of breeding techniques and more that in ignoring it he would risk not attracting the best students to study and work at the EFT. Further The Laboratory of Reproductive Technology is in Cremona, under Cesare Galli have successfully cloned horses leaving UK reproductive technologies at a disadvantage. The cloning of geldings for breeding purposes is a subject that Prof Allen holds dearly, for years he has been putting up slides of performance horses and a racehorse and asking why are we using something that runs fast in a straightish line to breed horses to jump. He has championed the breeding good performers in a field together and cloning would allow that to happen more often, since geldings are often preferred in most competition circles, regardless of temperament, some people do not have the facilities to keep competing stallions.
I for one am a great fan of Prof Allen and sympathise greatly with him on what must now be a sad time in his life, in that his retirement is marred by the loss of his beloved EFT. A sad day for British breeding.
I am no longer a TBA member and will not rejoin following this important decision which did not involve ordinary members. I think it is high time that the TB industry woke up and smelt the bacon. AI is the way forward, there are simple arrangements which can be made to limit use of popular stallions and therefore protect the gene pool, the only remotely tenable argument raised against it. There are so many plus arguments for it including disease control that I cannot see how this archaic resistance is tolerated by breeders.
I would see AI implemented more for the welfare of TBs themselves, what lunacy to transport bloodstock worth millions regularly around the world and worse to deliberately foster foals to enable mares to visit stallions further a field, and to send stallions to an unnatural breeding season half a world away when you could send a flask and check the DNA (which is required anyway)!!!!!
S_N
Well-Known Member
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I would see AI implemented more for the welfare of TBs themselves, what lunacy to transport bloodstock worth millions regularly around the world and worse to deliberately foster foals to enable mares to visit stallions further a field, and to send stallions to an unnatural breeding season half a world away when you could send a flask and check the DNA (which is required anyway)!!!!!
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I couldn't agree more!! Esp. after the Australian flu epidemic this year!!
I would see AI implemented more for the welfare of TBs themselves, what lunacy to transport bloodstock worth millions regularly around the world and worse to deliberately foster foals to enable mares to visit stallions further a field, and to send stallions to an unnatural breeding season half a world away when you could send a flask and check the DNA (which is required anyway)!!!!!
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I couldn't agree more!! Esp. after the Australian flu epidemic this year!!
pocomoto
Well-Known Member
Yes and whats the betting we don't get some of that back with the shuttle horses!!!
I really don't know why the TB governing bodies are so resistant all they have to do is say we will only register up to x no of offspring worldwide per stallion per year? and to loose the EFU over it is madness. Sad for british breeding i'm surprised no one stepped up to save it.
I really don't know why the TB governing bodies are so resistant all they have to do is say we will only register up to x no of offspring worldwide per stallion per year? and to loose the EFU over it is madness. Sad for british breeding i'm surprised no one stepped up to save it.
alleycat
Well-Known Member
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I really don't know why the TB governing bodies are so resistant
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I think the TB governing bodies in this country get a lot of stick on this issue, when one country alone can't really turn it around. I think I saw an earlier post pouring scorn on Weatherbys and reviling the TBA, and much as I'd like to be able to use A.I. (and all the rest) on TBs, I felt it was rather unfair that the a group of private individuals like the TBA should be blamed for ceasing to fund something that was ever more deeply involved in projects that really benefitted sportshorse rather than TB breeders. It is indeed a shame that the various studbooks couldn't have joined forces for once, levied their members and funded this centre.
I once quizzed the people at Weatherbys on this issue, as I had a TB mare who needed more help to produce a foal than the regulations permitted; they were so helpful and reasonable, and didn't have any issues with A.I.- but of course they only administer the Stud Book; they don't set the rules. The impression I got was that it was the sheer size of the TB industry and the inertia to be overcome in changing the direction of something international, that was the problem. After all, it would be financial suicide for one country to go it alone, if the others didn't immediatly follow suit. All that year's foals would be unsaleable & unraceable abroad, that year & possibly for ever, if the other countries didn't choose to make the same move. I don't think such a move can come from us; it would have to come from, I think, from America, which is big enough to dictate its own terms; only, small as we are, we need it more.
Sorry, seem to have hi-jacked a thread here....
I really don't know why the TB governing bodies are so resistant
[/ QUOTE ]
I think the TB governing bodies in this country get a lot of stick on this issue, when one country alone can't really turn it around. I think I saw an earlier post pouring scorn on Weatherbys and reviling the TBA, and much as I'd like to be able to use A.I. (and all the rest) on TBs, I felt it was rather unfair that the a group of private individuals like the TBA should be blamed for ceasing to fund something that was ever more deeply involved in projects that really benefitted sportshorse rather than TB breeders. It is indeed a shame that the various studbooks couldn't have joined forces for once, levied their members and funded this centre.
I once quizzed the people at Weatherbys on this issue, as I had a TB mare who needed more help to produce a foal than the regulations permitted; they were so helpful and reasonable, and didn't have any issues with A.I.- but of course they only administer the Stud Book; they don't set the rules. The impression I got was that it was the sheer size of the TB industry and the inertia to be overcome in changing the direction of something international, that was the problem. After all, it would be financial suicide for one country to go it alone, if the others didn't immediatly follow suit. All that year's foals would be unsaleable & unraceable abroad, that year & possibly for ever, if the other countries didn't choose to make the same move. I don't think such a move can come from us; it would have to come from, I think, from America, which is big enough to dictate its own terms; only, small as we are, we need it more.
Sorry, seem to have hi-jacked a thread here....