During the Stallion Show 2024 in Leeuwarden, respresentatives of our Breeders Group met with Scott Kelnhofer and Angie Depuydt of the Fenway Foundation. It was a productive and interesting meeting. We have agreed to keep each other posted and share data.
The Fenway Foundation's goal is to preserve and enhance the longevity and quality of life of Friesian horses by accruing pertinent Friesian information to educate the public and offering assistance to Friesian horses and their owners throughout North America. The Foundation is directly involved in scientific research in Kentucky into the genetic background of connective tissue diseases in Friesian horses.
Cooperation
Breeders Group Health in Progress and the Fenway Foundation had an introductory meeting at the stallion inspection in Leeuwarden. Angie and Scott specifically want to ask breeders to provide data for their research. The Fenway Foundation makes financial support available for autopsies of Friesian horses (also in The Netherlands) and asks owners of horses who have had problems with gastric impaction or gastric rupture, aortic rupture and esophageal dilation to have DNA (blood samples) taken from their horses and sent to them, together with the clinical findings of their veterinarian. This will help the scientific investigation in a major way.
Outcross?
'Health in Progress' is of course highly interested in the genetic research that the Fenway Foundation conducts and finances. We agreed in Leeuwarden that we will keep the Foundation informed of our findings with the introduction of foreign blood into our Friesian horses. The Fenway Foundation is very interested in the expanded Friesian breeding as we envision and the data that can result from it.
Assist in the research!
Together, we hope that many breeders will participate in Fenway's research by submitting DNA material from their sick or deceased horses and having an autopsy performed in the event of gastric rupture, megaesophagus or aortic rupture. The more data, the faster the research can progress and the faster a genetic test for connective tissue problems can be developed. That is of course in everyone's interest!
You can watch Angie Depuydt's presentation (held during the Stallion Inspection 2024) below:
