Blighted Spring in the Bluegrass

A little-known disease endangers the Thoroughbred industry

There is no surer or happier sign of spring and the surge of new life. In the lush bluegrass pastures of Kentucky, new foals test their spindly legs behind those famous white rail fences. In another annual rite, the great stables breed Thoroughbred stallions and mares imported from around the world.

But when spring came North again this year, it brought the threat of disaster to Kentucky and its $1 billion race horse industry, the world's most celebrated. The danger: a newly discovered venereal disease known as CEM (for contagious equine metritis), which infected at least 21 mares and five top stallions, created bitter dissension among the tight clan of owners and even caused federal and international repercussions.

The story began last June when the U.S. Department of Agriculture began picking up reports of CEM afflicting breeding, first in France, then in Ireland and England. The disease, which can also be transmitted by handlers, makes it difficult for a mare to conceive and carry a foal for the full eleven-month term. Still, neither the British nor the Irish made too much of the malady when the USDA inquired. Neither did the French. According to Ralph Knowles, the department's chief staff veterinarian, the French told the U.S. that the sickness was not highly contagious and that they could certify horses sent to the U.S. as being free from the disease. Unconvinced, the USDA sent a team of inspectors abroad in early September and was alarmed enough by what it found to place an embargo, starting at 12:01 a.m., Sept. 9, on horses from Ireland, Britain and France.

But the damage apparently had already been done, although who, if anyone, is to blame remains unclear. On Aug. 28, Gainesway Farm, syndicators of such champions as Canonero II and Cannonade, imported a $6.6 million French stallion named Lyphard, son of Northern Dancer. Just before the deadline, Spendthrift Farm, stud managers of Nashua and Majestic Prince, flew in the stallion Caro from France. Both horses arrived with French certificates of health and passed the standard USDA tests. Moreover, both Caro and Lyphard were cleared by a specific test for CEM conducted in midwinter by the anxious USDA, which feared that some horses imported before the embargo might have been infected.

Even so, when CEM showed up in Kentucky in early March--the first outbreak of the disease ever in the U.S.--it was quickly found in Caro and Lyphard. A frantic search also detected CEM in three other stallions at Gainesway and 21 mares on various other farms. The state banned any movement of horses from one Kentucky farm to another and stopped all shipments of horses out of state. Gainesway Farm's John Gaines and Spendthrift Owner Brownell Combs II shut down breeding operations altogether. Since he has 33 stallions, valued at $57 million, Combs was losing hundreds of thousands of dollars a day. The farm's stud fees for a single breeding range as high as $50,000.

Despite Combs' obvious losses, he was accused along with Gaines of endangering the entire industry. Says Combs of his accusers, mostly Kentucky breeders, who are at once old friends and great rivals: "They haven't got to the stage of throwing rocks through our windows yet, but they sure are calling and holding lynch meetings. There's no way we would knowingly do anything that would be detrimental to the breeding industry. We've been condemned, and we shouldn't be."

Some angry owners blamed the USDA for not detecting the infected horses, and the department frankly admits that it did not have the proper technology to identify the disease. Says Veterinarian Knowles: "Pioneering is always difficult. We were pioneering in those days." USDA officials accuse their French counterparts of duplicity in not telling the world more about the disease early on. Says one: "I don't think the French played straight with us." The French claim that they followed standard procedures to control the disease.

The USDA now has sophisticated exams to detect the disease, and is in the process of retesting some 200 "high-risk" horses, which entered the U.S. before the embargo. But so far, the USDA has found no infected animals outside Kentucky.

By last week the epidemic of CEM seemed to be abating. Kentucky will lift its ban on the in-state shipment of horses this week, and the out-of-state embargo will expire on April 14. Tom Maddox, state veterinarian, believes that the breeders can make up for lost time and dollars by extending the season another two or three weeks. Most of the foals from those late-season unions, however, will be smaller and less mature than their rivals when they begin racing.

Still, so little is known about CEM that the USDA experts and some private vets warn that the disease could break out again. Thomas W. Swerczek, a veterinary pathologist at the University of Kentucky and the man who discovered the disease in the U.S., fears that a mare could deliver a healthy foal next breeding season, only to infect a stallion the following year. Says Ahmed H. Dardiri, a top USDA diagnostic researcher: "We simply have no experimental evidence yet on how long it takes to cure a horse of CEM."

One possible way to fight the disease would be through artificial insemination, but that practice is banned by the Jockey Club, which regulates breeding. Because thousands of mares could be fertilized by a single great horse, a few famous stallions would come to dominate the business with the inevitable result of inbreeding. What is more, those high stud fees could be expected to plummet, because the supply of sperm would be so readily available--and, like any businessmen, the Kentucky breeders are out to make money.

In the months ahead, Kentucky breeders may face the threat not only of CEM but other little-known diseases. More and more, top horses are flown from country to country for breeding, thus raising the risk of contracting illnesses. Without vigilance, there may be more blighted springs in the bluegrass country.

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