Encouraging News
Both the Suffolk Horse Society Magazine and Heavy Horse World Spring 2019 report some very promising good news for the Suffolk Horse herd in the UK.
26 foals were registered in 2018 (an increase of three foals on the previous year’s total of 23 foals)
Stallion returns show that hopefully there will be ‘in excess of 30 foals on the ground in 2019’. The article in the Heavy Horse World says: ‘….. A total of 66 mares were covered and of these 40 have been scanned and confirmed in foal. Some of the mares which have not been scanned may also be in foal.’ (Suffolk society redoubles efforts to improve foal numbers, p18 HHW, Spring 2019)
A new grant for mare owners of £100.00 ‘for covering with a UK registered, licensed Suffolk stallion who has not previously sired a foal whether or not the mare was successfully inseminated’. It does have the Condition of ‘Only 1 grant per mare per season’.
For Stallion owners, a new and generous Offspring Reported Births Grant ‘For UK registered, licensed stallions that have not previously sired a foal, covering pure bred UK registered mares….. higher grants for the registration of initial offspring, viz:
£300 for 1st Registered Foal
£200 for 2nd Registered Foal
£100 for 3rd Registered Foal
(see: Suffolk Horse society grants for 2019, p.8, The Suffolk Horse Magazine, Spring 2019)
This grant hopefully will help increase genetic diversity by encouraging the use of the younger stallions who are not yet in the category of ‘Elite Sires’. This has been a major problem for many years as Figures 1,2 and 3 show.
SPARKS and its value to Owners & Breeders
The new availability of the SPARKS analysis to all mare owners is an important innovation . This:
‘calculates Mean Kinships for every known pure bred Suffolk Horse registered in the Stud Book. This is a measure of how related an individual is to every other living Suffolk Horse’ (in the UK).
‘It also calculates the Co-Ancestry coefficient of the progeny of mating with the named mare …… It is in fact the inbreeding coefficient of any progeny of mating this mare and this stallion’.
(for some history of the SPARKS analysis going back to 2005 see: https://www.chronofhorse.com/article/sparks-shining-light-cleveland-bays) and http://www.clevelandbay.com/downloads for examples to view which shows the Cleveland Bay 2019 SPARKS Tables and the SPARKS Explanation sheets 2019.
See also Dr Andy Dell’s RBST PP presentation: https://suffolkpunchaustralia.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/RBST-Equine-Breeders-Seminar-2.pdf
And instituted last year, the welcome five-generational pedigree for all registered and licensed stallions, available on the Suffolk Horse Society as a download, and incorporated into each listed stallion’s information on the website. What would be useful would be the resumption of progeny details against each stallion, eg ‘Colts: xx, Fillies: xx’.
Pleasing news too of tertiary students (and the younger generation) from Writtle University visiting Rossdale and Partners, to hear first hand from Suffolk Horse Society Board Member and Equine Reproduction Veterinary Surgeon Fred Fred Barrelet ‘discuss the current breeding schemes of the Suffolk Punch. …. during which he outlined that in 2017, a mere 38 coverings took place with 26 pure bred live foals from a breeding population of 190. These staggering figures related to our 3rd year assignment (to propose a new breeding scheme for a breed of our choice), examining the constraints faced by breed societies when trying to implement change.’
The students also spent time with Nigel Oakley at Rede Hall Farm and having the benefit of his experience with the Suffolk Horse, its unique attributes, harness and implements. Warming to read the students’ concluding words: ‘It is our duty as emerging equestrians to continue the tireless work of Fred, Nigel and everyone at the Suffolk Horse Society. We would like to thank each one of them for their time and a truly insightful day.’
And what of ALL the Suffolk Punch mares in the UK?
In 2018, the Suffolk Horse Society sent out survey material to UK SHS full registered mare owners within the UK. According to Heavy Horse World, 199 surveys went out, ‘Returned forms covered 139 mares … 60 failed to return them’.
Of the returned surveys, 18 owners said they would not breed, for various and valid reasons, but the owners of 72 mares ‘said they would consider breeding in future. Many asked for more information, and details about the breeding process, the stallion list, and available grants were sent out’
The SHS is to be commended on the new measures, some of which are mentioned above, that have been put in place to aid owners to breed their mares.
There are of course UK SHS registered and ASHA, American Suffolk Horse Association registered mares in the UK. The former recognised fully by the Suffolk Horse Society, but the latter not, despite the growing opinion of owners, breeders, and would-be breeders, that they should be.
It is not clear just how many ‘Anglo-American’ breedable mares are still extant, but if we assume there are something like 24 viable mares, then added to the RBST estimate of 80, that immediately gives potentially 105 breedable Suffolk mares
To paraphrase from https://suffolkpunchaustralia.com/index.php/clock-ticking-part-2/how-far-have-we-got-considering-our-options-in-securing-the-future-of-the-suffolk-punch-in-the-united-kingdom/ these are an indisputable resource for incorporation into the UK breeding herd … … … this could buy some time as we hurtle towards 2027 (genetic extinction of the Suffolk in the UK, see other assorted articles on this website). It would be also far less expensive than employing Equine Assisted Reproductive Technology.
These ‘Anglo-American’ mares were excluded in 2018. The final tiny total of foals registered is 25 or 26 eligible for the full UK Stud Book and two foals for the International Register of the SHS Stud Book. (The 2018 SHS Stud Book is still to be made available as at 14th March 2019.)
Revisiting the invisible elephant …
ASHA instigated DNA testing and Parental Verification procedures as a vital and necessary requirement in January 2003; several years later the SHS followed. Genetic analyses reveals that the registered Suffolk Horse wherever globally located is one and the same. If the Suffolk Horse Society believes to the contrary, perhaps they should publish their reasons. If the SHS believes the breed standards between native born Suffolks and overseas originated Suffolks have substantive divergence, perhaps these disparities might be published as well.
When the International Register was launched in January 2006, it was a de facto grading up system, only for mares and fillies. As defined in all subsequent SHS Stud books, registration for colts was limited to the International Register. (See latest published SHS Stud Book, Volume 94, 2017)
‘Alternatively owners may choose the Section X Register for colt foals or the Grade Registration for filly foals.‘
Colts out of Grade mares are ineligible for the Grade register. They may be registered as part-breds or in Section X
The process of grading up required a filly to achieve Grade D – 87.5% UK Suffolk blood, before she could be entered in the ‘Pedigree register following inspection.’
This appears to have been quietly modified, however, to possibly a Grade C – 75% ‘English’ Suffolk blood.
‘In September 2018, a panel of Suffolk Horse Society Judges inspected 2 Anglo American Grade C (75% Suffolk Blood) mares with a view to including them in the Stud Book for 2018. … both mares … met the criteria based on breed standards … veterinary inspection where they were checked for heritable disease and general conformation ….the Suffolk Horse Society are taking a steady move forward to ensure that we go in the right direction with the bloodlines of the Suffolk Horse’ The Spring 2019 SHS Magazine, p.30
Not mentioned are the results of the DNA testing.
Another area which age-specific ‘Anglo-American’ fillies and mares could fill the breach
In 2017, Dr Sarah Blott identified a gender imbalance in foaling numbers. For the three years 2014-2016 colts outnumbered fillies. Taking a horse generation of seven years, a disparity over three years in such a small population is significant.
Using available ‘Anglo American’ mares and fillies born during 2014, 2015, 2016 could support the small breedable population particularly during in 2019, 2020 and 2021 and onwards, as well as adding genetic diversity to the UK Suffolk herd. The Writtle University student article in the Spring 2019 issue, quotes Dr Fred Barrelet:
‘He also provided insight on how the Society intends to save the endangered breed, with approximately 500 registered horses (66 mares in foal each year and around 21 stallions.’
Interesting the ratio of UK Suffolk fillies to colts over eight years, shows a 8% swing towards females. If this trend continues, it would certainly help with mare numbers to achieve ‘66 mares in foal each year’.
In many mammalian species, the gender ratio falls close to 1:1, but not always, and it is not surprisingly that equine gender ratios vary.
The Paper: Maternal Lineage of Warmblood Mares Contributes to Variation of Gestation Length and Bias of Foal Sex Ratio (Kuhl J, Stock KF, Wulf M, Aurich C. . PLoS One. 2015;10(10):e0139358. Published 2015 Oct 5. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0139358) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4593555/ discusses this and raises some intriguing concepts, for example:
Considerable variation has also been reported for the fetal sex ratio in the horse, with both environmental and genetic influences. Differences in nutritional status can shift the percentage of male foals from as low as 3% in mares losing body condition at the time of conception to 80% when mares gained weight at conception. …
…. in the present study, in maiden and aged mares the sex ratio of foals markedly deviated from the expected 1:1 ratio with a higher percentage of female offspring in these two categories. Hence, breeding maiden and aged mares should not be done with the aim to produce male offspring because the sex ratio might be female-biased in these mares. …
In the horse, the uterine environment at conception and during early pregnancy has a pronounced effect on sex ratio of the offspring at birth . Findings of the present study are thus in agreement with the hypothesis that the early female horse conceptus has mechanisms that counteract its death under detrimental uterine conditions … (all emphases added)
From an equine assisted reproductive technology stance, the stallion is also able to contribute to varying the gender ratio. Early in 2018, Stallion AI Services announced the availability of sexed semen at their company. On their Facebook page, they commented:
The main motivation for us to launch this service has been due to our heavy involvement working with critically endangered rare and native breeds in the UK. When so few foals are being born for a breed each year, it can be catastrophic when nearly all are the same sex …… To make this service available for rare breeds it also has to be commercially available to all breeders, otherwise it would not be financially viable. https://www.facebook.com/stallionai/photos/press-release-equine-sexed-semen-has-arrivedweve-all-been-there-youve-selected-y/2099185920136762/
Still not known – Frozen semen collections for 2019
Frozen semen collections, both for export quality and Gene Bank Storage, are being explored by the Suffolk Horse Society for 2019. It is to be hoped that export quality semen meets the requirements for Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the USA. And importantly that the small number of Suffolk Punch semen collections – only possibly six or seven out of the minimum 25 – is rapidly added to.
© Eleanor Yvonne Hatch, Australian Suffolk Punch Registry & Grading Up Registry 2019