Build Your Dream Horse - Ontario's KingRidge Stables has developed a successful breeding program based on embryo transfer.
by Christine Hamilton

Keep an eye out for horses with the “3E” designation in their names in North American jumping competition over the next few years. KingRidge Stables, under the leadership of owner Seymour Epstein and rider Hugh Graham, has a stellar fleet of home-breds coming of age and ready to prove themselves in the show ring. They all boast world-class pedigrees containing such names as Nimmerdor, Cor de la Bryere, Voltaire, Furioso II and Jalisco B, just to name a few. The 3E designation comes from Epstein Equestrian Enterprises, the parent company of KingRidge.

What makes this handsome group of youngsters unique? They were produced through embryo transfer, the process of taking an embryo out of its genetic dam and transferring it to a surrogate dam to carry to term. KingRidge Stables boasts what may be one of the biggest herds of embryo transfer foals to be produced by a single breeding farm — a fact certainly true in the breeding of show jumpers.

From the very beginning, Seymour Epstein has seen the benefits of incorporating embryo transfer into a commercial breeding program. As Graham puts it, “He’s the driving force behind it”. Using the same forward-looking perspective that made his high-tech companies a success, Epstein has put the “high-tech” of equine reproduction to work in the business of producing foals.

In fact, he believes it’s the best way to make high-calibre stock available to any breeder.

Horse Sport spoke with Epstein to ask him about his horses, his goals and his unique vision for the future of breeding world-class show jumpers. Here’s what he had to say:

HS: How has embryo transfer affected your breeding program?

SE: It was the reason we decided to become a business. I felt that, certainly in North America, the problem of trying to [breed] in the jumping world was truly a lot of hit and miss. A performing mare simply wasn’t available.

What attracted me [about embryo transfer] was that you could operate a business using the show horses as show horses and at the same time retrieve embryos on a regular basis. The show horse continues to perform throughout the period, [without losing] the best part of two seasons [having to carry a foal].
[With embryo transfer] we could have three, four, five, foals a year from the same stallion and mare and, in effect, a system’ that could concentrate on turning out the best combinations.

Every year, we’ve been able to work with better and better combinations of stallions and mares. So that’s the kind of crop that we’re getting now, last year we had about 20, and they are just outstanding horses.

HS: You’ve had great success in getting embryo transfer foals. Has it always been easy?

SE: Over time and working with [facilities] with good techniques and lots of recipients … we were able to get our success ratio up …. The costs are still high and I don’t want to pretend that they’re not, but they’re not prohibitive. And for the quality of the animals that we’re getting, it’s absolutely the way to go.

The problem, of course, is that you have to be very patient. We’ve been at this now for over ten years. And we’re only now starting to market horses.

HS: How are you marketing the horses you produce?

SE: Our main thrust is to train them, bring them along, put them in the ring and show what they can do and then look at selling them. We have significant crops now of four-year-olds and three-year-olds that will be available to market over the next year or two.

Our website [www.kingridge.com] is a work in progress. One of the nice things about the internet is that it’s convenient for the territory in which we operate — Mother Earth. The show jumping business really doesn’t know any borders.

The Europeans don’t at the moment think about coming to North America to buy horses. We’d like to change that over time. I think that if we’ve got horses that are absolutely top calibre, people from all over the world will buy them. We just have to let them know about them.

Of course, to do that, we just have to get them into the ring and get them winning. So we have put more emphasis on a program to have these horses showing.
 
HS: How do you decide which horses to sell or which to keep?

SE: It’s our view that basically every horse that we own is for sale. I probably would say no to a couple of our stallions because we’ve got such a major investment in their progeny. But our view is all the horses have to be for sale. We can’t hide the best ones for us.

My view of success is [I want] the guy who buys a horse from me [to] sell it for twice as much a year later. Because then he’s going to want to come back to us for more horses. So, hopefully, a lot of people will make money on us.

HS: Are you focusing on the Canadian Sport Horse?

SE: This may sound a bit strange, but I’ve been trying to encourage some of my friends and fellows in the sport to become more aggressive and get involved in the embryo side, [in order to produce more quality horses]. And we’ll help them in any way that we can.

The more we create an image that says, ‘Canada can breed some great horses’, the better it is for us. We’re hopefully putting the name, Canadian Sport Horse, on a lot of these horses as a means of building a brand.

The reality is our buyers [are] much more interested in the hereditary lines than they are whether you call it a Canadian Sport Horse or not. When you look around, you might see a Dutch Warmblood, but you check and you find out that virtually 100 per cent of its ancestry is German. But the image is very good. And that’s what we’re trying to do, is to help create a good image.

HS: We noticed on your website that you are making your mares available for hire, in order to produce embryo transfer foals for other breeders. Is that part of creating that “good image” goal?

SE: We will make a mare available for breeding to someone else’s stallion. We’re in a position where we have enough mares that we can breed several more foals a year than we budget for. If you want to make the dream horse and you can get access to [our] mare and to a stallion service, we would be prepared to act as the organizer … and give you your dream horse.

[In addition,] we think that there are going to be people to come by and say ‘I really want to [combine] that stallion and that mare’ and [King Ridge] could contract with the various parties to do it.

I think the days of … buying a horse off the track and turning it into a jumper are over because breeding is so important.

If you have all of the grandparents, or better still, all of the great-grandparents as recognized, successful jumpers or hunters, you’re going to expect to get a high quality jumper. It is in the breeding. If we didn’t know it, certainly the Thoroughbred world has proved it many, many times over.

What exactly is Embryo Transfer?
In an embryo transfer, the genetic dam is called the donor (the mare “donating” the embryo). The surrogate dam is called the recipient (the mare “receiving” the embryo).
For the procedure, the donor is bred as usual, with shipped or fresh semen. Seven days after she ovulates, or releases an egg, her uterus is flushed to retrieve an embryo. The embryo is then transferred to a waiting recipient’s uterus, usually non-surgically through her vagina. The embryo can also be packaged and shipped to a recipient at another location.

Four to seven days after being transferred, the embryo can be seen on an ultrasound. The recipient carries it naturally to full term.

The result is a foal with not one, but two very special mothers.

Success is a group effort
KingRidge attributes much of its program’s success to the people that have handled the mares’ breeding and the embryo transfers. Constant communication between the stable’s home base outside Toronto, its farm in Ocala, Florida, and the embryo transfer facilities, keeps the operation running smoothly.

Since 1996, many of the farm’s embryos have been shipped to the large recipient herd at Royal Vista Equine, Inc. in Fort Collins, Colorado. Owned by the husband/wife team of Vaughn Cook and Jill Thayer DVM, Royal Vista Equine has offered embryo transfer services to North American breeders for more than ten years.

Currently, the farm’s Florida embryo transfers are handled by EquiGen LLC of Archer, Florida. Owned by Heather Greaves and Vickie Meisenburg, the facility performs transfers on site as well as ships embryos to larger recipient herds. It has been in operation since 1998.

In Ontario, KingRidge uses Armstrong Brothers, run under the direction of Dr. Moria Gunn, which has a full service embryo transfer program.

For more information on these facilities, contact:

Royal Vista Equine Inc.
Vaughn Cook or Jill Thayer DVM
970-226-4747
www.royalvistaequine.com

EquiGen LLC
Heather Greaves or Maria Cadario DVM
352-495-5040
www.equigen.net

Armstrong Brothers
Dr. Moria Gunn
Box 1000
Inglewood, ON
L0N 1K0
905-838-2235

Horse Sport February, 2003