VARIOUS top speakers from around the world took at the stage on the second day of the Irish Equine Reproductive Symposium at the Cliff at Lyons on Sunday. The symposium, organised by veterinary surgeon Niamh Lewis ran over two days at the Kildare venue.

The opening day was for veterinary surgeons, while the second day was for sport horse breeders.

Every angle of reproduction was covered from Tullis Matson addressing how to collect the best quality semen, to veterinary surgeon Karen Wolfsdorf explaining various veterinary procedures to help improve reproductive health in mares.

With an extensive range of topics covered breeders had an educational and insightful day, as well as having the opportunity to challenge and debate different issues over the course of the day.

It is often very challenging to gain an outside perspective at an equine-specific conference, however, Lewis managed to do just that by inviting Stephen Troup to speak. Troup has worked in human embryology for over 30 years.

He was Scientific Director of Liverpool Women’s Hospital Hewitt Fertility centres, one of the UK’s largest providers of assisted conception and Troup is now the President of the UK’s Association of Clinical Embryologists (ACE).

His connection to equine fertility and reproduction comes from his supervision of the development of the equine ICSI lab at the University of Liverpool.

During his presentation he went through some of the various human IVF options available and the processes which take place in the lab. Through his work with the development of the equine ICSI lab he was able to point of some of the differences and similarities between human and equine assisted conception.

VETERINARY surgeon, reproductive expert and organiser of the two-day symposium, Niamh Lewis asked the same questions on both days of the conference – is it time for frozen semen to be regulated and is one straw of frozen semen enough?

On Saturday Lewis raised these questions to an audience of veterinary surgeons, causing some debate.

The following day she posed the same questions to sport horse breeders. Her reasons for asking the question centred around the lack of information regarding what is in each straw of frozen semen and the possible implications of medications, especially those used during a stallion’s competition career and the impact such medications can have on a stallion’s breeding career.