Fabricating foals

On August 4, a foal named Mira was born. But Mira is no ordinary horse — her mother Rebaqua died almost a year ago. To preserve the legacy of the champion barrel racer, veterinarian Sylvia Bedford-Guaus of the Cornell Hospital for Animals scraped immature oocytes from Rebaqua’s ovaries within hours of her death. Nine oocytes were recovered and shipped to another veterinarian, Katrin Hinrichs, at the Equine Embryo Laboratory at Texas A&M University, who incubated the oocytes, inducing five to reach maturity. The lucky five were then given to veterinarian Young-Ho Choi to fertilize with frozen-thawed sperm from another barrel-racing champion, Frenchmans Guy. After seven days in culture, two fertilized eggs developed into embryos and were sent to veterinarian David Hartman at the Hartman Equine Reproduction Center in Whitesboro, Texas. Hartman transferred the embryos to a surrogate mare, who was later purchased by Rebaqua’s owner, Kristin Contro. The mare was shipped to New York to meet her new owner and give birth to Mira, an equine miracle.

So now, a year after her death and four veterinarians later, Rebaqua has a daughter. How much did this all cost, and is it really worth it? Contro obviously thought it was. What about you?

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