'WHEN LOVELY FILLY STOOPS TO FOLLY'

Did the equine VD, which now threatens the bloodstock industry in Ireland and Great Britain, originate in this country? PAMELA READHEAD reports on the history and financial repercussions of the disease that has swept the paddocks.

IF ANYTHING was calculated to cause a furore in Ireland it must be the danngerously heady mixture of horses and sex. Jubilee clap, as the irreverent are calling it, has turned the lush pastures of Kildare and Meath into a battlefield worthy of Cecil B. de Mille.

The prime target is the disease itself, less colourfully known as contagious metritis 1977, which unchecked could seriously change the face of the lucrattive bloodstock breeding industry the world over. On the sidelines, however, the skirmishes involve British accussations of an Irish cover-up, Irish hints of British industrial sabotage in the laboratory, and a lot of strong talk of equine brothels.

The epidemic of contagious metritis first attracted public attention in May this year when the British National Stud was forced to close, half way through the five month breeding season. Eightteen to twenty other studs in the Newwmarket area were affected, with the result that at least 200 mares contracted the disease and many more could not be covered. The loss of next year's crop of quality foals, the yearlings of 1979, has been estimated at £10m.

The figure is difficult to calculate beecause not only is there the direct loss of stud fees, which can be as much as £15,000 a mare, for up to 40 mares a season, but also many of the top British stallions will be completely unrepreesented in the valuable two year old races of 1980. On top of this there are insurrance losses which according to the indivvidual policy selected, can cover everything from stud fees to the keep of a barren mare until the next breeding season ~ this alone could be £30 a week with no return.

More recently, the epidemic has led to a ban on imports of British and Irish bloodstock to the United States, Canada and Australia, imposed just after the timely arrival in America of that 9 million dollar property, The Minstrel, two of the top French stallions,and a planeload of fillies.

Although the ban has since been modified to allow yearlings in, its extennsion could have a dramatic effect on the December sales of mares and fillies when many of the highest prices are paid by overseas buyers.

The costly repercussions of metritis have caused a great deal of bitterness in the horse world. For apart from the immediate effects to the stud business and the export trade, which alone hit a long line of people from breeders to transport companies, agents, and even the grooms ,who receive a £100 escort fee for a trip to Australia, there are wider long term effects which will innvolve every farmer who keeps a spare mare in the front paddock.

The most dramatic accusation has been that although the disease first reached epidemic proportions in Newwmarket this year, it had been found in Ireland in 1976. but not disclosed. As in anything horsey, rumours reach fever pitch swiftly, and as any reader of Dick Francis will know, spread largely amongst stable lads who travel with their charges.

What is certain, however, is that Irish vets did come across sporadic outbreaks of metritis in 1976, but were able to contain it by the use of antiibiotics, without really knowing what they were dealing with. In isolated cases it simply occurred as just another "dirty" mare, which returned from a stallion with a profuse discharge and not in foal. It was not until metritis reached the highly concentrated and promiscuous environment of Newmarket, where 2,000 mares are covered in any season, that the implications of the disease were really felt.

The National Stud in Britain first noticed that an unusually high number of mares - 60 per cent instead of 10 per cent - were being returned to the stallions as barren.

A committee of enquiry was set up, and swiftly came up with the answer that.an entirely new bug was involved, the character, and behaviour of which, is to this day not perfectly understood.

The announcement of the isolation of the bacteria behind contagious mettritis yielded yet another drama. As a background, the occurrence of a commpletely new disease is extremely rare. Professor Sir David Evans, formerly head of the National Institute of Biollogical Standards, who has been working on metritis in the Department of Pathhology, Oxford University, is unable to think of another case. Most so-called new diseases are,in fact,already found somewhere in the world, and are simply new to an area.

The isolation of a truly new bug is therefore an event of considerable scientific importance, and a jealously guarded honour. So much so that an Irish vet, who is also a doctor of meddicine, has violently accused the British scientists of "industrial sabotage". Dr. John ODriscoll, of Kildare, claims that he is about to publish the "first full description of the condition," based on his research since 1976. The disease first came to his notice, he told Magill, when a French mare displayed symptoms at a local stud last year. Dr. 0 'Driscoll says he analysed the bug "in three days", allegedly through his brother at Holles Street maternity hospital, and has since become a figure of controversy because of his reluctance to share his findings with his profession. What is known is that his opinion on the subject differs widely from those of all other workers in the field.

But whatever the exact origin of the new bug, and its microbiological desscription, its effects are clear enough. Without proper control it could devasstate the highly popular and lucrative bloodstock business. It could wipe out generations of top class foals and deeplete the quantity of quality race-horses -for which these islands are famous, ruining, not just the pleasure, but the liveliihood of thousands of people.

The main problem is that metritis is much more contagious than any other bug known, except, perhaps, gonorrhea in humans. It shows no symptoms in the male, and is difficult to handle in the laboratory taking up to 100 hours to grow in a culture. Idiosyncratically, it appears to be intolerant of oxygen, yet there have been cases of it spreading from mares to maiden fillies through handling. Being completely new, it is unknown how it could affect unborn foals and whether there are any other stages of the condition, as in some forms of human venereal diseases. What is more, detecting it in stallions in the laboratory can be unreliable, so that some studs have already decided that the only way is to try them with rough old mares before putting them to thoroughbreds.

In Ireland there are about 3,200 owners of bloodstock, producing nearly half the outputof foals in the British Isles. Most owners have no more than three mares, and a great many are farmers with just one mare as a symbol of dreams and hopes rather than a business proposition. Nevertheless there are always enough stories of "Ballssbridge bargains" turning into glamorous scene stealers, to keep the dreams alive.

At the other end of the scale, the ten top stallions are owned by only a handful of 'studs, increasingly backed by syndicates, and unvolved in a multiimillion pound business. As an example, one leading breeder has earned over £850,000 in the last four weeks of yearling sales. A few others have three or four stallions capable of earning up to £600,000 a year in fees.

The contagious metritis bug is no respector of rank, however. It can be carried as easily by top class stallions as by the cheapest (at around £100 a mare). So everyone who owns a breedding animal has to take a very serious view of the disease.

Already the National Stud in Newwmarket has announced ,a code of pracctice which will in effect place a "cordon sanitaire " around the area.

This means that mares will have to stay at the stud much longer than before. Traditionally, mares have been covered often on a "walk in" basis, which means staying an hour or two at the stud before going home. Then, if they failed to conceive, they returned when they come in season again.

Walking in is now recognised as the best way of spreading the disease and has already been banned in Newmarket. II). Ireland, a code of practice to be pubblished in November, is also likely to come out strongly against it. Instead, mares will be expected to stay at a stud until they are certified in foal, usually at 42 or 63 days after being covered. On top of this, mares will not be accepted at stud without three negative swab tests at weekly intervals.

The immediate effect of these regullations will be to make breeding more expensive. Studs charge £30 - £35 a week for keep, compared to the £15 or so it costs to keep a mare at home, and vets' fees are punishing. The typical small breeder will therefore be faced with additional expenses of at least £200 per mare, and often much more if she fails to conceive and has to spend three or four months at the stud.

On a national level, laboratories will have to be expanded to cope with the testing under stringent conditions. But the immediate concern in the industry is to set up the machinery to control metritis well before the start of the next breeding season, and thus in time to see export bans lifted before the December sales.

The result may be that the small breeders, the backbone of the Irish bloodstock industry, could well become discouraged. It would be a major disaster, for without them there might never be another Arkle, Captain Christy The Minstrel - Safe in the green fields of Amerikay or Rheingold.