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At the Al Shaqab facilities in Doha, Qatar, breeding and showing prized Arabian horses is a science unto itself
July 12, 2011 | 9
A view of the manicured greenery outside of the Al Shaqab buildings. The entire complex nests within and around a horseshoe-shape design. It includes an equine exercise area, stables, a breeding center and veterinary facilities....[More]
Several horses can train at once on an indoor track that features engineered "dirt" made with wax. It feels soft and slightly slippery to the touch but clumps like real earth....[More]
Beside the walking track is a treadmill for the horses. The entire facility is air-conditioned. In the summer, temperatures outdoors can reach (and did reach, while I was there) 116 degrees Fahrenheit....[More]
Show Arabians need to have strong muscles and endurance. This lap pool helps with both. Observers can watch the horses from above (view shown) as well as from below, through underwater windows.
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After a good workout, horses, like human athletes, hit the showers. At the far right is a heat lamp to help dry off those tired muscles before an outside walk back to the cooled stables.
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The heads of Arabians have a characteristic seahorse-like dish shape, and they appear readily over the stable wall for a patting or a carrot. The Al Shaqab stables are spotless and nearly odor- and dust-free....[More]
This year, 55 foals were born at Al Shaqab. Technicians use embryo transfer for each one. Standard breeding and bearing is too risky for horses worth $100 million apiece....[More]
Semen is collected from stallions in this area; fertile mares are often present for "inspiration." After analysis and separation in the lab, each ejaculate yields seven individual samples, which are frozen in nitrogen until needed....[More]
The lab at Al Shaqab. A silver nitrogen tank is at right, for freezing stallion semen. Eight days after a mare is impregnated with a sample, the embryo is collected....[More]
On the front of each stall is an information plate with the horse's name and progenitors. This mare, like most horses at Al Shaqab, will never bear a human rider.* That's not to say there is no riding....[More]
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9 Comments
Add CommentThank you for the slide show, but there was no science -- or even any new information -- for those of us who have been involved with breeding or training horses in dressage, show jumping, or endurance, for any length of time. Artificial insemination and host mares? Engineered surfaces? Artificial insemination? Semen collection? Host dams? Treadmills? Equine hydrofitness pools? Dustfree stabling? All well-known for at least the last 20 years in the US, and (based on my experience) have little to do with science.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI would like to know what the writer meant by "This mare, like most horses at Al Shaqab, will never bear a human rider—many are shown only in dressage". Dressage requires a rider.
What I expected to read was
1. how Al Shaqab was using performance data to match mares with sires based on performance characteristics, and the outcome.
2. I would have also expected something on the influence of the foster mother (host dam) on fetal and subsequent development. This is an ethical experiment, in the equine world. In other words, taking eggs from a mare, and either implanting one (or more) blastocysts in different host dams, while allowing another blastocyst to come to term in the donor.
I don't think Ms. DiChristina did enough research to understand what dressage is.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisi guess what i'm getting out of this is that it's a beautiful, well-thought-out facility... and yet i was also hoping for a little more substance in the article! arabians have always fascinated me.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThese horses are not bread or born in a natural way. The mares are artificialy inseminated, have fertilized embryo's harvested and those embryo's are then implanted into host mares. These procedures are not without considerable pain. The mares who are fertilized have one pregnancy after the other which are then basicly aborted so she can become pregnant again asap. The mares who carry the foal is given hormones to make her body receptive at the same time as the inseminated mare's embryo is ready to be harvested. Because they have no genetic worth they have one foal after the other. Basicly, this is a puppy mill for high end horses.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhile it's possible an Arabian served as Genghis Khan's steed, it doesn't seem very likely. Weren't Horses first domesticated on the Eurasian Steppes? Don't Mongolian horses show some of their species greatest genetic diversity even today? I think the author should be careful when making statements like this even if it is just in the introduction of an article as it casts doubt on the rest of his statements. We as scientists try to avoid such statements.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"The mares who are fertilized have one pregnancy after the other which are then basicly aborted so she can become pregnant again asap."..."Basicly[sic], this is a puppy mill for high end horses."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe fetus is transplanted, not discarded. The dam invests very few resources into a blastocyst, and so loses little when utilized in such a manner. If she carried one pregnancy to term after another, THEN it might be compared with a puppy mill, where the dogs do exactly that without reprieve.
To my knowledge, when the originating mare is allowed to carry a foal to term, she is given a break wherein she might simply be used for eggs or embryos until her body is suitably recovered.
In agreement with the first poster, I'm not at all involved with the industry and was already well aware of the facilities and features of high-end stables. Downright envious, one might even say :)
It'd be a good thing if the reporter had done a little research into current methods of horse breeding. Like maybe talked to a few horse breeders in the USA or elsewhere. We have had AI and embryo transfer etc for quite a while now.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnd it would also be a good thing if she had talked to someone who knew about the various horse sports and how they are done. Dressage has been a ridden sport for about 600 years. Arabians are rarely used in dressage anyhow, they are mostly found in endurance riding.
It's great to see info about horses in a magazine such as Scientific American, but it's be so much nicer if it had been done by someone knowledgeable about horses.
MW
Please, please leave the equine journalism to someone with a clue about the animals, industry and sport(s) involved. Start there and then maybe advance to the real science. This article would have been rejected by the neighborhood saddle club newsletter, and it doesn't belong in Scientific American. You can do better.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs someone who knows very little about the breeding of horses, I thought it was very interesting to find out a little about how <a href="http://www.sterlingbloodstock.com">Arabians</a> are bred in such facilities. Now, however, I am interested in finding out more detailed information.
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