Rossdales Pregnant Mare & Stallion Course Notes 2017

Extensive course notes from the Rossdales Pregnant Mare and Stallion Course held in Newmarket in January 2017.

Speakers included: Dickson Varner (Texas A&M, USA); Karen Wolfsdorf (Hagyard Equine Medical Institute, USA); Tom Stout (Utrecht University, The Netherlands); Harald Sieme University of Veterinary Medicine, Hannover) and 9 other speakers.

Lectures included: the relationship between mare numbers and ejaculation frequency and fertility; sperm motility and function; semen collection; evaluation of stallion semen; genomics and stallion fertility; monitoring fertility in natural and AI breeding stallions; insurance and pre-purchase examination of Thoroughbred stallions for breeding purposes; breeding soundness evaluation for AI stallions; social interactions between stallions and mares; flow cytometric tests; processing centrifugation and separation of fresh, chilled and frozen semen for AI; monitoring older stallions; epididymal sperm harvesting; Thoroughbred mare fertility statistics and pregnancy failure; early equine embryos; implantation, early placentation and placental development at term; embryo-maternal communication during the establishment of pregnancy; early pregnancy loss; lymphocyte immunisation; ageing gametes and genetic factors; immunology of pregnancy and immunological aspects of early pregnancy loss; mare pregnancy examinations; endocrinology of pregnancy; metal sexing; management of twins; Doppler studies of umbilical and uterine artery blood flow; clinical and pathological aspects of MRLS, EAFL, Leptospirosis and placentitis; pathology of early, mid and late equine pregnancy losses; strategies for reducing EPL; EHV-1 abortion.