Thank you to all who participated in the 2008 Test Breeding. It was a great success. Sinclair B will be expecting 14 foals for the 2009 breeding season. Breeding results will be posted here as they are born.

There is more evidence as recently as September 2008 pointing to environmental factors causing the heart defects in Sinclair's foals stillborn in 2007. A large number of calves were stillborn and were found with the same exact heart defect in the fall of 2008 in Orange County Virginia. Sadly this means that the cause of this pathogen is still present in our area; however, it also means that Sinclair's DNA is NOT at the root of the problem. For this reason we feel comfortable offering Sinclair B to the public for the 2009 breeding season; however, we will delay the opening of his book until May 15th so that a large sample from his Test Breeding 2008 will be on the ground. Sinclair B will be offered at a very special reduced Re-Introductory Rate. See Breeding Fees for more details....

As many of you know, we had a very disappointing first foaling season with Sinclair B in 2007, when half of his foals were born with a lethal heart defect. The foals were born, took one breath and then perished; the way their hearts were formed prevented their survival for any period of time outside the womb. The only foals that were afflicted were out of mares which were located in our local area. The foals born outside of Virginia were completely normal and one foal born in Virginia was also normal. At that time, in May of 2007, we were told by 6 veterinarians that the problem was most likely genetic and the problem was with Sinclair B. We were devastated.

We tried to make the best out of a bad situation. We stopped all breeding to Sinclair B for 2008, refunded all Booking Fees to mares not already bred and refunded breeding expenses to persons who lost their foal from this heart defect in 2007.

In the late fall of 2007 the veterinarian who had first done the necropsies on the Sinclair B foals called to tell us that many calves, some llamas and more foals had been born with the exact same heart defect as the foals he had seen sired by Sinclair B. He said it was showing up primarily in a 4 county radius to our area and that they were now pretty confident that the heart defect was caused by Environmental factors and was not a genetic problem with Sinclair B as at first thought.

We have done more research, talked with more veterinarians and have had three out of three healthy, normal foals sired by Sinclair B born in 2008. (All foals for 2008 are alive and accounted for). All research indicates that the heart defect is not related to the stallion, but is caused by something to which the mare is exposed (what the experts still do not know).

We are confident enough in the evidence pointing to environmental factors to restart our breeding program with Sinclair B. We plan to breed 5 of our own broodmares to him for the 2008 breeding season.