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NEWS ABOUT THE EQUINE PROGRAMS
Our undergraduate
student enrollment has almost doubled, to about 160 students, in the last 10
years, which coincides with the rebirth and growth of our equine programs.
This relationship may be just coincidental, but it has resulted in changes
in our curriculum, to our extra-curricular activities, at the Witter Farm,
and to our faculty workloads as we are now each advising about 40
undergraduates, which translates to 55 students each while Stokes is on
sabbatical leave. The following article is reprinted with permission of the
Bangor Daily News and appeared in their special Horse Farms insert in
conjunction with Open Farm Days at the Maine Standardbred breeding farms in
October of 2007.
By Debra Bell, Special Sections Writer
Tucked less than a mile from the University of Maine’s Orono
campus, the J.F. Witter Farm holds a secret. It’s that there is “life after
the track” for the standardbred racehorse.
“We say that ‘after the finish line they’re not finished’,”
UMaine Adjunct Professor Nonni Daly explained. “A lot of people have this
belief that the horses are dragged off to the glue factory or to slaughter.
They aren’t… They’re here.”
Or they’re in barns and stables across the state of Maine
living their post-track lives as pleasure horses and breeding stock.
According to Daly, who works with the equine science program at UMaine,
standardbred horses make the best pleasure horses. She owns two
standardbreds: Bruizer’s L’il Star, a gelding currently racing and
Hemi, who was deemed not fast enough for prime time on the track and who
is being trained as a pleasure horse in Massachusetts.
Standardbred horses are considered intelligent, versatile,
friendly, and above all horses with huge hearts. And because the harness
racing industry has strong ties to Maine, the university has a lot to gain
by studying them, retraining them, and creating an unbreakable bond between
research and the track.
Where science meets
harness racing
The retraining program began in 1998 when the Witter Farm was
renovated. The Witter Center is a 400-acre working farm and part of the
Maine Agricultural and Forest Experiment Station. Daly notes that what was
once strictly a research center has become far more — it’s a place for
students to gain hands-on knowledge while also advancing research into a
breed of horse that’s integral to Maine.
In 1998, an 18-year-old standardbred stallion named Pedrine
was the first donated racehorse. Facilitated primarily by the U.S. Trotting
Association and the Standardbred Pleasure Horse Association of Maine, the
goal was to retrain Pedrine for use as a pleasure horse. Since then, the
farm has taken on “UMares” donated by breeders within Maine for retraining
and reproductive research. The profit from mares retrained and sold for use
as pleasure horses goes back into the Witter Farm program.
And the horses educate the students as well. “Both of our
veterinarians here are breeding specialists or theriogenologists,” Daly
said. “In February we’re hoping to stand a stallion for a well-known Maine
breeding farm -- to do collections, and distribute the semen for them, which
allows us to earn additional funds to support the equine programs.”
Currently, UMaine receives donated semen to breed the UMares
from breeders around the state. Daly said that the breeders who donate semen
to UMaine’s UMare program do it because they want to support the program and
the breed.
According to Daly, the Animal and Veterinary Science program
is one of the fastest growing programs in the university, yet it’s virtually
unknown to the outside community. “It’s a jewel in the crown of the
university except not enough people know about it,” Daly said.
Students who work at Witter Farm and who take classes in
equine science also get a chance to:
• Help retrain the retired
standardbreds;
• Learn the dynamics of
gait and how major muscle groups work;
• Gain hands-on training
handling large animals;
• Participate in barn
chores;
• Learn basic horse care;
• Learn about semen
collections and how to impregnate a mare;
• Learn about care for
pregnant mares and for newborn foals; and
• Learn cutting-edge
techniques veterinarians use to care for the animals.
Witter Farm offers breeding services to owners and breeders
across Maine as a way to earn money and to benefit the harness racing
community. Providing breeding services, Daly said, “is another way to get
our name out there and let breeders know that they can rely on us for
quality service.”
In addition, Daly notes that “anytime we breed our own mares,
we try to breed with a stud standing in Maine so we can sell the foal with
sire stakes potential and you never know where that will take you.”
Moving students into the
limelight
The implications reach far beyond benefiting breeders though.
According to UM instructor Melissa Spencer, an equine trainer and owner in
Maine who owns a retired standardbred along with her Morgan horses and
teaches at Witter, the standardbreds make UMaine students a valuable
commodity for veterinary school.
“The standardbreds make it so easy because by the time [the
students] apply to colleges, they’ve taken blood, given shots, and so much
more,” she said. “You just don’t see that in many undergraduate programs.
Maine’s really getting known for that -- our students are getting noticed at
veterinary programs like Tufts because they really know their way around a
horse.”
According to Spencer, the programs at Witter Farm help train
the students who want to be trainers or vets as well as the students who
just want to have some one-on-one time with horses. In fact, any student can
take an equine science class for credit. “We don’t turn anyone away,” she
said. “Students can get internships, work studies, and even work in the
student equine trainer position.”
The Farm is currently working on putting together a
three-person student marketing team — made up of a business major, an
agribusiness major, and a equine science major — to advance the horse sales
work at Witter. Sarah Manning, who served as the marketing student for
Witter last year said that she “learned so much about the industry” from
promoting the farm and putting UMares up for sale.
Students will also have an opportunity to work for the farm
when the stallion arrives. “In the spring when we will be standing the
stallion, we will be hiring two to three students to call mare owners and
ask ‘when will your mare be ready to be bred’ and to make the arrangements.
It’s a great opportunity in the equine community as well,” said Spencer.
But as if that wasn’t enough, Spencer said that this past
summer, she and Dr. Jim Weber took in outside mares and inseminated them to
earn extra money for the Farm. The money earned from the breeding will pay
for two student positions working with mare owners this spring. “We’re not
taking money from the university to support this,” she said.
Taking Witter Farm one
step further
And the farm has many additional goals they would like to
achieve. According to Spencer they would like to expand services to breeders
including embryo transfers and additional breeder services. Additional
services also provide the farm a chance to showcase different aspects of
breeding to students. Upgrading diagnostic testing for the harness racing
industry is another possible application for this program.
And other colleges are taking notice. A group of Tufts
students will be attending UMaine this summer to observe and learn about
large animal care in a hands-on environment. Another college in Unity will
be visiting Witter Farm to watch the vets in action and learn about care of
large animals for their potential careers in wildlife ecology or as
zoo-keepers or animal facility specialists.
“Where can you go to school and watch a mare give birth,
learn about breeding and more?” Manning said.
Among the largest goals Witter Farm has is the creation of a
large indoor livestock arena to be shared by the horses, cattle, and sheep
UMaine owns. It would also pave the way for competitions and shows to be
held plus could benefit other UMaine researchers. The research on racetrack
surfaces and how they affect the horses’ legs being spearheaded by Dr.
Michael Peterson focuses currently on thoroughbreds but could be applied to
the standardbred racing industry. “It’s cutting edge work”, Daly said. “He’s
doing for track surfaces and horses what [Dr.] Habib Dagher is doing for
wood composites and military applications.”
Regardless of the challenges ahead, the focus now is on
studying the retraining and reproductive health of standardbreds, focusing
on ways to improve services to breeders and racing owners in state, and to
provide badly needed services to advance the harness racing community.
The Equine Program Welcomes Its New Racehorse!
It was a bittersweet time at Bangor Raceway on July 4th
when the program official retired its racing mare, ONE VINE LADY. She is
ten years old and the stresses and strains of racing were beginning to tell
on her legs and feet. She had earned time off and a chance to become a
pleasure riding mare.
Through the help of graduate and racing trainer, Valerie
Grondin, the program has acquired a beautiful five-year-old gray roan, named
PEMBROKE WHITEOUT. She is a very competitive girl with a 1:58.1 life mark
on a half-mile track and should be a standout for the blue-and-white in the
2008 racing season.
She came to live at Witter Farm on November 17 and will stay
with the mare herd and learn some racing lessons from LADY until it is time
to go back to the race barns and train down in late winter. Stay tuned and
we’ll keep you posted on her season! A “Welcome to Maine” party with a
Drill presentation on the Mall is planned for April of 2008.
UMaine Welcomes a New
UMare
In
October, well known Maine standardbred breeder and equine program supporter
Donald Marean of Hollis, gifted the program with its newest UMare – a
three-year-old Maine Standardbred named DAISY TO GO.
She
becomes the fourteenth “girl” in the UMare herd, ready to be saddle broken
and retrained as a pleasure horse and evaluated for breeding potential as
she lives with us. Shown here with sophomore Equine Business Management
major, Rebecca Powers, DAISY is an example of a standardbred that shows the
strong Morgan Horse influence on the breed.
UMaine Equestrian Team Has Success in Fall Shows
The Equestrian Team, composed of eleven undergraduates,
competes in IHSA Shows across New England, against 8-10 other schools like
Dartmouth, New Hampshire, Vermont, Colby-Sawyer, and Mount Ida. In two
shows this fall, Maine accumulated 17 placement ribbons, which are proudly
displayed in the new case on the wall of the warm room at the farm. Riders
competed in several classes from Novice on the flat and over fences to
Advanced Walk/Trot/Canter Equitation.
HAPPY HOLIDAYS
Our
very best wishes for a happy holiday season to all our friends, alumni,
emeriti and supporters wherever you may be. We hope you will have a
successful and rewarding 2008.
ALUMNI CORNER
Amanda Dicentes,
BS 2004, AS 2005 (Veterinary Technology, UMA). Amanda studied for both her
BS and AS degrees in her senior year at UMaine and was licensed as a
veterinary Technician in June 2005. She works for Dr. Joe Nesin at the
Chester Animal Hospital and is also the Animal Control Officer of
Millinocket. She was busy in her senior year as she also married her
husband Sam just before his tour of duty in Operation Iraqi Freedom. They
purchased their first home last November at: 204 Maine Avenue, Millinocket,
ME 04462.
Sam
Foster, BS 2006,
has also moved: 12 Scotsdale Road, South Burlington, VT 05403. Sam survived
her first year of grad school at UVM (biochem and cellular biology) and
feels she was well prepared at UMaine, for which she sent us a big “THANK
YOU”.
Dr.
Robert Cushman,
BS 1988, was the only respondent to our plea in the August 2007 edition for
information on our alumni who went on to grad school. Bob received his MS
from UConn in 1992 (reproductive physiology and endocrinology) and his Ph.D
from North Carolina State in 1998 (physiology with a minor in
biotechnology). He is now a Research Physiologist at the USDA, ARS US Meat
Animal Research Center in Clay Center, NE and is an adjunct professor in the
department of Animal Science at the University of Nebraska. He has
published 21 peer-reviewed manuscripts.
Jennianne O’Connor, BS 2007, said that she has been busy this fall with her vet
school applications and working at Angell Animal Medical Center in Boston.
She has heard from one school so far (but didn’t tell us what they said) and
she has an interview at the Ontario Veterinary College (Guelph) in March.
She said that she really misses Maine and everyone there. Every time she is
stuck in traffic going to Boston (which is pretty much everyday!) she wishes
that she was back in Maine!
DEPARTMENTAL NEWS
In
our December 2005 issue of Mainely Progress we welcomed Dr. Scott Haskell as
our extension veterinarian and director of the Maine Diagnostic Laboratory.
Scott initiated some important improvements to the Diagnostic Laboratory but
left us in July of 2006. We interviewed four excellent applicants in
December to refill that position and hope to offer the position to one of
those veterinarians in January 2007.
We
will also have another vacancy in the new year. After almost ten years with
us as a student or as an employee at the Witter Center, Marsha Hamilton, our
Livestock Program Manager and Assistant Farm Manager will leave us on
February 1, 2007 to manage, with a view to eventual ownership, the 500 cow
dairy owned by Lowell and Karen Piper in Embden, ME. Marsha and her husband
Matt are very excited about this opportunity to move closer to their dream
of owning and managing their own dairy. This is a bittersweet decision for
Marsha however, as she has so many wonderful memories of UMaine and of
Witter. She learned a lot in that ten years and has been an important part
of teaching our students the science and skills of dairy farm management.
We will all miss her and wish her and Matt the very best in the coming
years.
Since Question 2 on the November ballot passed by a small majority, $50M
will be available competitively for proposals to increase research,
development, and economic activity in Maine. We will be writing a proposal
for several million dollars to build a new necropsy facility that will allow
us to necropsy large animals such as cattle, horses, deer and elk. This
will include a carcass rail to a refrigerator for storage and some type of
carcass disposal system, which could be an incinerator or a chemical
digestion system. We will also include preparation and sampling
laboratories, an infection room where we could keep infected research
animals or fish, with changing and shower facilities for staff. Thanks for
voting “yes” on Question 2. |
