It isn’t often that a small group of horse owners institutes revolutionary changes in breeding management. Yet within the past year, the Cleveland Bay breed organizations have managed to do so not just once, but twice.

As a result of urgings from a devoted group of Cleveland Bay supporters, the U.S. Department of Agriculture changed part of its importation protocol in May regarding the testing for contagious equine metritis, a required procedure for any foreign breeder shipping stallion semen to the United States.

The USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) now allows managers to collect from their stallions during the month-long quarantine process as long as the first set of CEM specimens culture negative.

The wording change in the federal policy is slight, but it allows stallions to complete the quarantine two weeks faster, thereby decreasing the cost by 25 to 30 percent for not just Cleveland Bay breeders, but all breeders wishing to import semen to the United States.

“It seems like it wouldn’t be a big deal, just rewriting a sentence or two,” said Christine Miller, stallion services manager at the Equine Medical Center of Ocala, Fla. “But it’s really had an impact on the cost of quarantine. The implications of this are tremendous, and it’s going to be a financial benefit to any breeder, but especially to the breeders of rare breed horses.”

This new regulation comes on the heels of the SPARKS program (Single Population Animal Records Keeping System), which the Cleveland Bay breeders implemented in 2004. It’s the first technologically based equine breeding management system, and it brings new hope to preserving this endangered breed worldwide.

Big Change For Owners

In a move that will affect stallion owners in 20 different countries, the Cleveland Bay Alliance, with the support of the much larger Cleveland Bay Horse Society and Cleveland Bay Horse Society of North America, has successfully changed the semen importation protocol of one of the most restrictive countries in the world.

Miller, whose facility in Florida receives semen from many British stallions for the U.S. market, knows of many European breeders who froze their stallions’ semen for exportation to countries such as Australia, New Zealand, Zimbabwe and in Europe, but not for the United States because they couldn’t validate the extra cost.

The root of the problem largely results from the extensive testing for CEM that most countries require stallions to undergo in quarantine before the horse’s semen can be shipped. Testing for CEM–a highly contagious venereal disease that’s difficult to control because horses can carry the infection without showing symptoms– involves multiple swabs from the stallion’s genitalia (under the supervision of a veterinarian) and multiple cleanings and packings of the penis. Furthermore, many countries require the stallion be bred (live cover) to two mares while in quarantine. The mares are then tested for the disease.

“In the past, a stallion had to complete a series of swab tests for CEM that took over three weeks to conduct, and the owners weren’t allowed to collect off their stallion during that period,” explained Scott Smith, who with his wife, Stephanie, breeds Cleveland Bays at Peters Creek Farm near Madison, Ga.

“It was a financial disincentive for breeders overseas because routine quarantine is about four weeks, but the U.S. wanted them there for seven to eight weeks. The change in protocol allows owners to recoup some of the cost of quarantine by collecting their stallions during the remainder of the testing period.”

Quarantines take place at federally approved facilities, and a stallion must undergo the process each time his semen is shipped to a foreign country.

“This protocol was really one of the stumbling blocks for breeding Cleveland Bays,” said Tessa Clark, who runs West Kingston Stud, the largest ministry-approved collection facility in England.

Clark’s yard in Wiltshire (near Bristol) currently houses 300 stallions whose semen awaits exportation. It was during a visit there that Smith and other members of the Cleveland Bay Alliance had the idea to challenge the United States’ regulation.

“We talked a lot about what could be done to reduce the cost for owners wanting to ship to the United States,” she continued. “Scott and the Cleveland Bay Alliance have reduced the time of quarantine from a minimum of six weeks to a minimum of four weeks, which means that before, it would cost between $10,000 and $12,000 for the quarantine process. Now it costs between $5,000 and $8,000 for the owners of rare and native breeds in the U.K.”

Clark sends much of the semen she collects at West Kingston to Miller in Ocala, who acts as a marketing agent for the frozen genetic material. Currently, Miller stores frozen semen from only one Cleveland Bay stallion, Borderfame Prince Charming, whose owner could afford the old protocol measures because the British government, as part of its effort to preserve rare indigenous breeds, subsidized part of the quarantine fee.

But next year, Miller expects to receive semen from two more Cleveland Bay stallions, Cholderton Yobi and Pembridge Midshipman. The rule change makes sense, she said, considering the regulations were developed back when there were a lot of problems with semen shipped from Europe. Some semen probably did arrive with CEM, she said, and these laws were written to keep people in line at the time. Now, however, times have changed.

“Everything is wasted while you’re just sitting there paying bills,” Miller said. “It makes sense to go ahead and get the semen you need while the testing is taking place, then when you get to the end of the CEM testing and you’ve got the amount you need to ship, you’re finished.”

Driven To Fight Regulation

Any other determined individuals could probably have pushed through the sensible change to the federal regulation, which makes it more affordable for foreign stallion owners without compromising the integrity of the CEM testing. But the Cleveland Bay Alliance had a more compelling reason than most other large breed organizations; with 500 purebred Cleveland Bays extant in the world, and only 122 of them in the United States, the luxury of breeding domestically is not always an option.

Late last year at the annual general meetings (in England and the United States) of the Cleveland Bay Horse Societies, breeder Andy Dell introduced a breeding management tool called SPARKS that has the capability of increasing the genetic diversity of the endangered horses.

SPARKS is a genetic management software program that tracks the diversity of critically endangered populations living all over the world and makes yearly recommendations as to what horses, specifically, should be mated to strengthen the population.

Yet after rejoicing over SPARKS’ potential to revive the small number of pure-bred Cleveland Bays, Smith and several other owners realized the biggest glitch in following the program’s recommendations was in the stringent U.S. importation regulations that deterred many British breeders from freezing semen for the United States.

Because most Cleveland Bay pure-bred stallions live in England, Smith knew that to fully implement SPARKS-compliant breeding, they would have to find a way to make it economical for English breeders to ship semen.

“What we found was a terrible inequity for a stallion owner outside the country who wanted to ship to the U.S. market,” Smith said in December while discussing the obstacles to implementing SPARKS. The affable businessman researched the issue with other members of the Cleveland Bay Alliance, a private organization launched about a year ago to help market Cleveland Bays.

“We repeatedly petitioned Freeda Isaac [senior staff veterinarian at the National Center for Import/Export] at the USDA, who said she was going to talk to the scientists about allowing for collection during the CEM testing. If it didn’t interfere with the tests, she thought it would probably go through,” he recalled.

But the greatest difficulty, was getting through the bureaucracy and to the right person. Smith had the research to back up the formal request, as well as funding and strategic support from others at the CBA. Marilyn Webster, Merry Fowler, Kevin and Margaret Johnson, Stephanie Smith, as well as British Cleveland Bay breeders Dell, Nigel Cowgill and Colin Green all supported the effort, but Smith still didn’t receive any replies. Undeterred, he continued to politely walk through red tape and political barriers for several months until Isaac responded.

Then, on May 16, Smith opened a casually worded three-paragraph e-mail from Isaac: “I just wanted to let you know ? collection of the semen can begin after the first negative culture result. Please let me know if you have any questions. ?”

It was a seemingly simple response, but on that day, Smith said, about eight people in the world were really, really happy.

“We changed federal regulation, and it’s going to affect stallion owners in 20 other countries,” he said excitedly. “I feel like we changed the world a little bit. But the people who are really going to holler and scream are the people in Europe who now have a bigger market [to which they can afford to ship semen].”

Achieving A Milestone

If you read the literature on the history of Cleveland Bays, or talk to any owner, the stereotypes tend to hold true: aside from the traditional coat color of the purebreds and their sturdy, warmblood-like conformation, the horses are revered for their sensible minds and strong-willed natures.

Similarly determined are their human counterparts, who banded together to not only implement the first technologically based equine breeding management system, but to also change a regulation that discouraged breeders of Cleveland Bays and other foreign horses from profiting in the United States.

For Smith, the satisfaction is as much in the act of changing federal policy as what it means for the future relations of the various Cleveland Bay organizations.

As often happens in small organizations of strong-willed people divided by an ocean, the Cleveland Bay Horse Society (in England), the Cleveland Bay Horse Society of North America, and the new, smaller and privately funded Cleveland Bay Alliance (in the United States) at once experienced fractured opinions.

But with the CBHS introducing SPARKS, the Single Population Animal Records Keeping System, and the renewed efforts to compromise, Scott Smith, a Cleveland Bay breeder based in Georgia, said members have progressed from discussing how big a star could be on a Cleveland Bay’s forehead to actually endorsing methods (such as the use of computer software) that will help save the breed.

The CBA’s push to change the U.S. regulation should now make SPARKS-compliant breeding between nations more affordable and accessible.

“The British showed us how to reboot the breed,” Smith said, clearly pleased with himself and the efforts of his fellow Cleveland Bay supporters. “This is the Americans’ way of returning the favor.”