Foreplay back in breeding barn

Foreplay has returned to the breeding barn at Woodside Park in Victoria.  The former Yarraman Stud resident had been taken out of service due to decreasing fertility last year.

Foreplay (Danehill) had 75 foals in his first crop and they included brilliant colt Decision Time.  He was runner-up in the G1 Golden Slipper and resumed to win the Listed Heritage Stakes at Rosehill recently.  

Foreplay also has 57 current two year-olds and there are 24 yearlings in his third crop.  His fertility gradually regressed to the point where he was virtually taken out of service last season after covering two mares.

Foreplay’s fertility has improved dramatically under stem cell treatment conducted by Melbourne-based C4M Laboratories.  “He has undergone the stem cell treatment, and then spent a month under the care of fertility expert Dr. Angus McKinnon at Shepparton,” Woodside spokesman Dean Harvey said this week.  “We test bred 15 mares to him in August and the first of those has been tested in foal.”

C4M laboratories chief executive Brett Langan said the treatment given to Foreplay had previously provided positive results for humans.  “It’s purely his own cells that have been pinpointed, cultivated and injected back into him,” Langan said.

“The treatment that the horse has been given is Peripheral blood stem cell culturing and Autologous blood therapy.  Basically stem cells have been pulled out of the blood and cultured, and his blood has been conditioned.”

Woodside Park has announced Foreplay will stand the 2010 breeding season at its Tylden farm at a fee of $16,500 (inc. gst).  He is based at the Tylden stud alongside Econsul, Grey Swallow and Helenus.