Many hands on deck for extra-special foal
A group of Waikato equine students have some big decisions to make shortly as part of a New Zealand-first project.
They will have choose a name for the foal they are helping to raise and at the moment Dawn, Destiny and Bloom are the frontrunners.
The foal is special because it is the first standardbred to be born from a frozen embryo in New Zealand, using technology by Equibreed at Roto-o-Rangi, near Cambridge.
A standardbred horse is bred to race as a trotter or pacer, or as a sports horse.
Equibreed is the only centre in New Zealand which specialised in the type of technology used to produce the foal.
It cannot be used for thoroughbred horses, where foals can only be the result of natural mating.
Equibreed offered the animal as a special project for equine students to manage at St Peter’s Cambridge.
The foal will live at the school for the next 12 months, right up until it starts a career possibly as a harness racing horse or sports horse.
The school’s director of equestrian, Pete Hammond, said there was nothing like a cute foal to engage students.
‘‘The students are really invested in the foal. Taking it from when it’s weaned, to it’s broken in and getting ready for its career, it’s a chance for the students to be around everything that’s involved in that process.
‘‘They’ll be able to learn about its nutrition, its care, its handling and eventually its training.’’ Hammond said the project would also showcase career possibilities in the equine industry. A stallion, two mares and technology at Equibreed were involved in producing the foal. Frozen sperm was taken from a standardbred stallion Mr Feelgood, at a stud in Australia. It was inseminated into Imsmartenough, a successful standardbred mare in New Zealand.
The embryo was later transferred into surrogate mare Ferrero Rocher, which carried the foal to term in October 2017.