The return of Foreplay

Exciting young stallion Foreplay, thanks to a progressive stem cell treatment on his troubled fertility, has been able to return to commercial breeding, reports a Woodside Park media release.

Victoria’s Woodside Park today announces that Foreplay (pictured at Woodside Park) will stand the 2010 breeding season at its Tylden farm at a fee of $16,500 (inc. GST).

Foreplay’s first-crop foals, after standing four seasons at Yarraman Park, Scone, include: the brilliant colt Decision Time, runner-up in the 2010 Group 1 Golden Slipper and recent winner of the Listed Heritage Stakes (1200m) at Rosehill; the very promising dual-city winner Shiny And New; and the eight-length debut winner at Eagle Farm, Havatryst.

Foreplay, with five winners this season, currently sits second on the Second Season Sire List with earnings of $213,000. Decision Time has been set for the Group 1 Coolmore Stud Stakes (1200m) at Flemington on Derby day.

Unfortunately, Foreplay’s fertility, after covering 108 mares in his first season for 75 foals, gradually regressed to the point where he was virtually taken out of service last season after covering two mares. The stallion has 57 two-year-olds and 24 yearlings.

Woodside Park’s bloodstock manager Dean Harvey said Foreplay’s fertility had improved dramatically under the radical stem cell treatment conducted by Melbourne-based stem cell pioneers, C4M Laboratories.

“He has undergone the stem cell treatment, and then spent a month under the care of fertility expert Dr. Angus McKinnon at Shepparton, where further treatment continued and his fertility was monitored regularly,” Harvey said.

Harvey said Foreplay had been at Woodside Park for about five weeks. “His has been a terrific horse to work with, and his libido his great,” he said. “We bred 15 test mares to him in September, and we are pleased to announce that the first of those was tested in foal today.”

Harvey said that Foreplay was a magnificent horse that had caught the eye of everyone that had visited Woodside Park in recent weeks. “We had one breeder book six mares into him after he was paraded recently,” he said.

C4M laboratories chief executive Brett Langan said the treatment given to Foreplay had previously provided positive results for humans. “It’s purely his own cells that have been pinpointed, cultivated and injected back into him.

“The treatment that the horse has been given is Peripheral blood stem cell culturing and Autologous blood therapy. Basically stem cells have been pulled out of the blood and cultured, and his blood has been conditioned,” Langan said.

Woodside Park is standing Foreplay alongside resident young sires Econsul and Grey Swallow – both stallions’ first crop foals are two-year-olds this season.

For information regarding Foreplay, contact Dean Harvey on 0408 641 424.