From follicle measurements to inspecting a placenta, BTEC students got stuck into the science and reality of foaling season at TGS this month
All images © Courtenay Hitchcock The BV
At last, the weather’s warming up, the grass is growing – and so is this year’s foal crop. But while we focus on nurturing the racehorses of the future, the Thoroughbred industry must also turn its attention to the next generation of human talent. Sheikh Mohammed’s Darley operation has its two-year Flying Start scholarship, encouraging young people to study all aspects of the racing and breeding industry, offering placements with studs, auction houses, trainers and racecourses in Europe, the USA and Australia. The British Horseracing Authority also has its graduate programme, similar to Darley but UK-based. And here at TGS we had a slightly more modest, but equally important, visit by four BTEC Equine Management students from Leweston School.
A 9.30am arrival fitted well with the morning’s scanning, and while stud vet Paul Legerton was setting up, Doug quizzed our young visitors as to what their reasons were for doing an equine course. The prize for best answer? “To make a change from farming!”
It was then into the front paddock for a brief introduction to correction of conformational faults in young foals. We then moved to the stocks to view the vet scanning the mares. Questions came thick and fast, starting with ‘Why do you put your arm in the mare’s rectum?’…. (terminology was quickly corrected from ‘bum’ when their teacher suggested that they think back to their anatomy lessons!).
Paul explained that the uterus and ovaries lie just below the colon, and so this is the only way, due to sheer volume of an adult mare, to get the ultrasound probe close enough to obtain an image.
Luckily one mare was coming into season, so the students could see both the characteristic spoked wheel pattern of the uterine oedema (thickening of the womb lining) and a ripening follicle. Paul explained how he measures this diameter and that most mares ovulate when the follicle has grown to around 4cm. The next question was, “Why are you getting them pregnant again so soon?”
Doug explained that with a gestation of around 11 months you need to cover again as soon as possible to have the foals born early the following year – as we said last month, the goal is to have a foal born as soon as possible after 1st January.
Doug naturally took full advantage of having some free labour, and gave the students valuable experience by asking them to lead mares to and from the stocks.
Equine labour
Then on to the cute bit: the students were introduced to a Golden Horn colt, born just after midnight that same morning. Once the aahs had died down, Doug was bombarded with questions about the foaling process. Conveniently he had a video of a foaling taken earlier in the season, so his descriptive powers weren’t overly taxed!
Next, they asked how you know when a mare is going to foal. Doug explained that there is a large range in a “normal” gestation between 320 and 370 days. Therefore, we rely on physical signs in the mare.
First of all, the udder swells, called ‘bagging up’ and the students were able to see an example of this on one of the mares currently waiting to foal. He explained that this is the point when a mare is moved to one of the 11 camera-monitored boxes, allowing the team to keep a close eye on her during our round-the-clock foaling vigils at this time of year.
The next stage is ‘waxing’, when a waxy discharge begins to build up on the mare’s teats.
The final stage is watching for the restless behaviour which is typical of a mare about to foal: we watch her pacing her stable on the cameras.
The morning wrapped up with Doug showing the students how to inspect a placenta, using the one from that morning’s foaling. A Thoroughbred foal’s placenta is roughly 5kg in weight and it is important to be sure that the placenta is complete and that none has been retained in the mare, which may cause infection if left untreated.
The student’s course manager said the students had had a brilliant visit, and that they had told her all about the visit in great detail on their return to school. Let’s hope that their thirst for knowledge continues to grow – and that they all get A*s in their equine reproduction modules at the end of the year!
