Reflections on 2012
Once the breeding season is over one hears some lovely stories from our owners. Dr Angie Raith is the owner of a very nice mare which she had every reason to hope would do well at dressage but early in 2011 the mare, a Hanoverian called Wiebke, was suffering from severe back problems; veterinary advice was that she should be given a full year off. For some injuries a year off can be an opportunity to breed a foal but the advice on this occasion was that she should not under any circumstances carry a foal.
Angie was very depressed especially as there was no certainty that the year off would work. She had never bred a foal before but took the plunge and sent Wiebke to Twemlows Stud where she was inseminated with semen from De Niro.
The breeding cycle of two Twemlows recipient mares were synchronised and seven days after the insemination an embryo was successfully flushed and transferred into Tilly, one of the recipient mares.
Before coming to Twemlows Stud as a recipient mare Tilly had had a foal two years previously when she needed time off following a fracture of the navicular bone; she was sent to Mill Law who was standing at Twemlows Hall and had a very nice foal but the 12 months “rest” had not done the trick and she was still not sufficiently sound to do ridden work. Her owner had liked the look of Twemlows Stud and offered Tilly as a recipient mare for the embryo transfer work.
Tilly produced a lovely foal which looks just like her biological mother. She appears to have inherited Tilly’s wonderful temperament, the only trait that a recipient can pass on to “her” foal. Tilly and “De Votion” went to several shows in the summer of 2012 including the regional breed show where De Votion qualified for the Nationals; she came third at the Hanoverian UK National Foal Championship which was a most exciting conclusion to the story of her life so far.
Meanwhile the year’s rest has done Wiebke an enormous amount of good and she has returned to dressage. Angie gives much of the credit for Wiebke’s rebuilding of her muscles and return to the dressage arena to Equine and Canine Solutions.
At Twemlows we are delighted to be associated with such a happy outcome for Wiebke, De Votion and their owner Angie Raith who says “Thanks to Twemlows Stud Farm we had the best possible experience in breeding my first foal”.
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