BIG TURNOUT FOR CBA SYMPOSIUM

By Lucas Marquardt 
Over 75% of North American auction revenue is attributable to members of the Consignors and Breeders Association (CBA), and yesterday, the organization held its inaugural Education Symposium in Lexington, Kentucky as a service to those members. The day-long forum was staged at Keeneland’s sales pavilion, and included no fewer than 18 experts presenting on everything from reproductive health, conformational issues and pre-sale vetting to Thoroughbred aftercare. 
“The challenge to any organization is to remain relevant to its members,” CBA President Craig Bandoroff of Denali Stud said to a crowd of roughly 300 people. “The purpose of this is to give something back to them.” 
The idea behind the symposium came from Paramount Sales co-founder and CBA board member Pat Costello. Costello was inspired by a similar event sponsored annually by the Irish Thoroughbred Breeders’ Association. “The CBA does a lot of great work, and I’m not sure people are aware of how much work it does,” said Costello. 
Despite the forecast for late-day ice and snow, a big crowd turned out at Keeneland, including CBA members that came from Maryland, Virginia, Florida and beyond. “And we signed up probably 35 new members just because of the symposium,” said the CBA’s Nicole Gibson, who did much of the legwork putting the symposium together. 
In addition to getting a chance to listen to the panelists, members were able to make contacts with the CBA’s “preferred provider retailers”–businesses that offer discounts to CBA members. The preferred providers had representatives at tables in the pavilion hallways. “I talked to the providers, and each one of them said they acquired new clients just today,” said Mulholland Springs’ Martha Jane Mulholland, another who sits on the CBA board. “We had two banks here that actually want to pump money into the equine industry–how’s that for a change?” 
CBA Treasurer Callan Strouss of Lane’s End Farm said he was struck by the outpouring of people. He said, “I’ve heard nothing but positive things about the quality of the speakers, and have had so many people ask if there will be a video of it they can watch on the internet.” 
There will, Strouss said. The CBA will post it on its site, www.consignorsandbreeders.com, in about a week. 
Mulholland said that the CBA hopes to make the symposium an annual event. “We want to bring in new speakers and address new topics, and be able to keep up with legislative events,” she said. “There are a lot of issues that will affect our sport going forward.” 
Stronger Than You Think… 
Damon Thayer, a Republican state senator in Kentucky and a longtime supporter of the horse industry, opened the CBA symposium with an overview of Kentucky’s racing and breeding sectors in relation to the state government. 
“We have a stronger voice in Frankfort than you think,” said Thayer, who noted the successes the industry has achieved in the state, such as reforms to raceday medication rules, sale integrity reforms, and the implementation of Instant Racing at Kentucky Downs and Ellis Park. 
Thayer said the establishment of the Kentucky Thoroughbred Breeders’ Incentive Fund, funded by a 6% sales tax on stallion nominations that previously went into the state’s general fund, has helped Kentucky compete with states with programs bolstered by slots revenue. “I think it’s our greatest success story,” said Thayer, who said the fund has thus far distributed $87 million worldwide. 
The Best Start to Life… 
In her presentation on optimizing a mare’s reproductive health, Dr. Kristina Lu, a specialist in Theriogenology who has been at Hagyard-Davidson-McGee since 2005, said it was important to understand and treat endometritis–an infection of the uterus that is a common cause of poor fertility; and placentitis–an inflamation of the placenta that can cause aborted, stillbirth, or weak or premature foals. 
She was followed by Dr. Jaye McCracken, a field care associate at Hagyard and an expert on Rhodococcus equi, the ubiquitous bacteria that causes pneumonia in foals. McCracken said it was important to screen for the presence of R. Equi in foals via ultrasound, saying it would, “give the foal the best start to life.” 
The lone study to examine success at the track for horses that were stricken with R. equi as foals suggested performance was not ultimately affected, but McCracken pointed out that time lost with a sick foal, and the cost associated with treating it, can have a detrimental affect on a breeder’s bottom line. 
“We’re trying to create a product who will present well at the sales,” she said. “If you have a foal that’s been sick for two months of his life, he’s not going to match up well with a foal of a similar age when he’s up here on the podium to sell.” 
McCracken said that ultrasound screening seemingly healthy foals at four, six and eight weeks can reveal lesions in a foal’s lungs that, if left untreated, can grow dramatically and make a foal sick. 
“A lot of foals will clear the lesions themselves, but it’s impossible to tell, when looking at an ultrasound [of two horses with similarly sized lesions], which one will be fine and which one will get clinically sick,” she said. 
McCracken said the disease is prevalent, noting that, from the eight farms she regularly visited last year, roughly 20% to 50% of the foals tested positive, depending on the farm. 
Adena Springs’ Eric Hamelback later asked if any correlation between spreading manure on fields and the prevalence of R. equi had been established. McCracken said she was unaware of any correlation, but said further examination would be beneficial. 
Bad Foot, No Chance… 
Angular and flexural deformities was the focus of a five-member panel that preceded the lunch break. Bobby Langley, a farrier with over 35 years experience, talked about the importance of corrective shoeing in a foal’s first 90 days, with an emphasis on a foal’s first 60 days. 
“You need to get the fetlocks where they need to be in the first 90 days,” Langley said. “From a farrier’s perspective, it will have the biggest impact on the rest of their lives. And not just for sale horses; for a horse’s ability to stay sound racing later in their careers. If a horse has a good foot, he has a good chance. If he has a bad foot, he has no chance.” 
Rood and Riddle’s Dr. Scott Morrison and Hagyard’s Dr. Bryan Fraley addressed using splints, toe and heel extensions, soft shoes, check-ligament desmotomy, and similar methods to correct limb deformation, showing examples of foals with bad conformational defects and the different methods that were used to help correct them. 
Hagyard’s Dr. Dwayne Rodgerson and Lexington Equine Surgery co-founded Dr. Wes Sutter spoke on angular limb deformities–horses that toe in or out, or horses that have offset knees–caused, Rodgerson explained, by discrepancies in growth at the growth plates caused by physitis (also called epiphysitis). “If you get a discrepancy at the growth plate, the angle of that leg is going to change,” said Rodgerson. 
Rodgerson went over options to address these deformities, including the surgical insertion of a single transphyseal screw into a horse’s knee. Sutter expanded on those options by comparing transphyseal screws with transphyseal bridging (screws and wires). The purpose of both procedures is the same–to inhibit growth on one side of the plate in order to let the other side catch up. 
What’s In a Throat… 
After an hour break for lunch, Rood and Riddle’s Dr. Scott Pierce offered insights on endoscopy–the examination of a horse’s upper respiratory track–and the different conditions that can negatively affect a horse’s throat. These include laryngeal hemiplegia, severe chondritis/chondroma and epiglottic entrapment. 
Pierce had several video examples of desirable traits, as well as a number of examples of those with structural defects. 
Pierce cited a survey that showed why scoping was important. The survey tracked the success of horses based on the throat grades they received. Horses that received scores of Grade I and IIA earned, on average, $68,231 and averaged $11,982 per start. Grade IIB’s earned $52,449 and average $9,202 per start. The best horse in IIB group was a Grade III winner, while there were, “numerous Classic winners and Grade I winners–numerous.” Horses with Grade III scores earned $24,603 with an average of $5,330 per start. 
Horses with better grades also made the races much more frequently. Only 13.13% of those with Grade I scores failed to make a start from two to four. Those with Grade III scores, by contrast, didn’t make the races 43% of the time. 
Dr. Deborah Spike-Pierce took the crowd through the ins and outs of radiographs. Through a series of slides, she showed normal fetlock (ankle) and carpal (knee) joints, and the different flaws–cysts, chips, lesions, lucencies, and spurs–that can occur. She noted certain injuries that were especially undesirable–flaws in the lower knee joint, for instance–while other flaws, like pastern cysts, that discount horses at the sales, but which may not have a considerable affect on performance. 
Pick of the Panels… 
A panel of sale company executives talked about the current state of the marketplace, the evolving trend in regional breeding, and about the auction selection process. Keeneland Vice President of Sales Walt Robertson and Will Mayer, who oversees Keeneland’s International Development Program, joined with Fasig-Tipton President Boyd Browning, Jr. and Vice President of Sales Bayne Welker, Jr. on a panel moderated by racing historian Edward Bowen. 
As things were winding down, Bowen asked the panel about particular horses or sale transaction they were especially proud of. Several panelists declined to pick out any one horse, but Browning had no reservations selecting the sale of Horse of the Year Havre de Grace (Saint Liam) for $10 million at Fasig-Tipton November in 2012. “We had a special relationship with her owner [Fox Hill Farm’s Rick Porter], and it doesn’t take a math wizard to figure out what 5% [sale commission] of $10 million is,” Browning laughed. “It isn’t every day you make $500,000 on a single transaction.” 
One of the highlights of the day was the bloodstock agent panel, comprised of Lane’s End Bloodstock’s David Ingordo, EQB’s Patti Miller, McMahon and Hill’s Mike McMahon and Maggi Moss’s bloodstock advisor Jim Schenk. Bowen again moderated. 
The panelists generally agreed they try to buy a horse for the person who will wind up training him or her. “John Shirreffs, for instance, likes one type of horse, while John Sadler likes a different type,” said Ingordo, who said that he and his short-list team look for top physicals first and foremost. “You can’t put tack on a pedigree page,” he said. 
Miller was among those who said she enjoyed buying at the 2-year-old sales. “The 2-year-old consignors, as a group, are very astute horsemen, and those horses are pre-selected and have obviously had a lot of vetting.” 
Schenk agreed. “The 2-year-old consignors are very good, but it’s gotten harder to buy them, because everyone’s buying 2-year-olds,” he said. 
McMahon said that, despite the recent growth and strength of the weanling market, he still finds value there. “And there is still a lot of room in the foal market,” he said. 
Postcards from the Edge… 
James Hastie, executive director of the Thoroughbred Aftercare Alliance, talked about his organization’s efforts to retrain and/or adopt out retired racehorses. The TAA both accredits aftercare facilities, and helps raise money to support accredited facilities. The TAA was recently honored with a Special Eclipse Awards for its work, and Hastie drew laughs when he explained that the TAA recently drew props from an unexpected source. PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals), which in the past has been extremely critical of Thoroughbred racing, sent a “thank you” card to the TAA, and flowers to The Jockey Club after it approved funding for the initiative. 
To conclude the day, Keeneland’s Vince Gabbert gave a legislative update. He said a decision from the Kentucky Supreme Court on the constitutionality of Instant Racing in the state is expected this spring, and could come as soon as the end of this month, and said that Keeneland continues to support the larger issue of expanded gaming in Kentucky only if a constitutional amendment guarantees a 10% share for the racing and breeding industry.