'Teasing can be frustrating and thankless but he takes it in his stride' - meet Chasemore's much-loved multi-purpose resident

Good Morning Bloodstock is Martin Stevens' daily morning email and presented online as a sample. 

Here, Martin speaks to Orbital Veterinary Services' Pat Sells about a very special member of the Chasemore Farm team. Subscribers can get more great insight from Martin every Monday to Friday. 

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If I were to ask readers to name the most valuable horse currently stabled at Andrew and Jane Black’s Chasemore Farm in Surrey, the majority response would likely be Eartha Kitt, the high-class daughter of Pivotal and Ceiling Kitty whose first runner is unbeaten Gimcrack Stakes winner Noble Style, while another black-type scorer, Boomer, and her dam Wall Of Sound would probably also be popular choices.

Those mares are undoubtedly worth fortunes, but the team on the stud might argue that the correct answer is actually the teaser, if you interpret ‘most valuable’ as also meaning ‘most useful’, or ‘most important’, and maybe even ‘most beloved’.

In Good Morning Bloodstock’s latest veterinary special, Pat Sells – whose Orbital Veterinary Services is based at Chasemore – explains how Rerouted, a 15-year-old who was a Group 3 winner and Frankel’s supposed pacemaker in the 2,000 Guineas, serves more than his primary purpose of preparing mares for cover, and why he is therefore so priceless.

“In 2017 our old cob teaser sadly passed away, so we were on the lookout for a replacement,” says Pat, describing how the son of Stormy Atlantic arrived at the stud. “The National Stud team kindly alerted us to Rerouted, who had been retired from racing and was looking for a new home. 

"I was cautious at the prospect of a thoroughbred teaser from a size and temperament perspective, having mainly worked with Welsh ponies and cobs. But I went to check him out, and realised at once he had the temperament of a lamb. 

“He was also a stunning physical, not that that mattered. Or did it? Do thoroughbred mares tease better to their own type? Six years on and I now know the answer to be a resounding yes. I also took a blood sample to make sure he was suitable for his second job – that of plasma donor, and thankfully the cross-match test came back good.”   

Pat first explains how Rerouted’s role of testing broodmares works, and why it is so important in the breeding process.

Rerouted: Group winner and Frankel's pacemaker has a new calling in lifeCredit: Mark Cranham

“From December onwards, when the dry [maiden or barren] mares are brought in under lights, Rerouted, or Red, as we call him, joins them in the barn,” he reports. “Although they are all in separate boxes, his scent and sound are potent in stimulating their sleepy ovaries into action, just as they would in the wild.

“When a thoroughbred mare is sent to a stallion she has to be in season in order to be covered. If she’s not in season, she will not be compliant, and may even hurt the stallion. There are two tools we use to make sure the mare is ‘on point’ for her trip to be covered, one as important as the other.

“The first is the vet’s ultrasound scanner, which tells us, among other things, the size of her follicles and the second is the teaser stallion, who stimulates a response when he is allowed to approach the mare under careful restraint. This is done either over the stable door with the mare loose, or in a lunge ring or yard with the mare controlled with a bridle.

The mare’s response is either hot (receptive, in season), cold (unresponsive, aggressive, not in season), or somewhere in between, depending on her stage of oestrous.”

Pat adds: “Red also ‘bounces’ the maidens when they are in season, meaning he is allowed to mount them while wearing a protective bib, so he has no chance of actually covering her. This gets the maidens used to the process, so when they visit their proper mate there is less chance of a panic response.  

“Finally, he ‘teases off’ the mares – this means we continue to use him to tease the mares after they’ve been covered, until they are fully out of oestrous. Teasing and exercise have been proven to be the two most important factors in clearing uterine fluid, which can accumulate post-cover. Red therefore plays a big role in keeping our fertility rates up!”

Rerouted’s second job on the farm is, as Pat mentioned earlier, a blood donor, and he has given very nearly an armful many times over.

“I harvest blood from Red every couple of months,” says Pat. “It’s a straightforward process – he stands quietly under the solarium lamps while the blood is taken from his jugular vein using a catheter, flowing through a drip-line into sterile bags.

“The bags are then hung overnight in a fridge, allowing the red blood cells to settle at the bottom. The next morning I can then syphon off the plasma, full of antibody, into a separate sterile bag, which is then frozen down in a chest freezer ready for the foaling season. I take eight litres at a time (less than 20 per cent of his total circulating volume), enough to make four litres of plasma.  

“Although frowned upon these days, therapeutic ‘bleeding’ is an age-old therapy that vets and doctors have used down the years, probably because it causes a systemic raise in EPO – think Lance Armstrong – and kicks the bone marrow into making more stem cells.

"Obviously, we’re not doing it for his own benefit, but he does get a noticeable boost from it in the subsequent days and weeks, developing a gleaming coat and joie de vivre.”

Rerouted’s donated plasma is of utmost importance when this time of year rolls around; so much so it is known on the farm as liquid gold.

Some of Rerouted's donated plasma, also known as liquid gold at Chasemore

“In utero, the foal’s placenta allows nutrients and waste products to pass back and forth from its dam during pregnancy, but there is a very effective safety net: a filtration system that stops bigger molecules such as harmful bacteria from passing through," says Pat.  

The cost of this is that antibodies, which are also large molecules, can’t pass either. Effectively this means that, unlike many other mammals, foals are born immunologically naive. One hundred per cent of their antibody has to be obtained from the dam’s colostrum, in the first 18 hours of life – after this, the foal’s intestine isn’t able to absorb the large antibody molecules.

“In some cases, the foal doesn’t end up with the antibody it needs to fight off infection during that vulnerable stage of life: either the mother hasn’t produced enough in her colostrum, or the foal hasn’t absorbed enough in time, or the foal has absorbed the antibody but it has been consumed in defence of an attack, for example sepsis.

“Every foal born at Chasemore receives a litre of Red’s plasma intravenously in the first 36 hours of life in order to cover for any of these eventualities, with the mantra that ‘more is better’.”

The farm’s private supply of plasma, courtesy of Rerouted, has both financial and medical advantages.  

“Hyperimmune plasma, as it’s known, is commercially available to buy frozen, which is generally what most vets have in stock for the foaling season,” says Pat. “There’s one key difference here though, apart from being considerably cheaper: Red’s immune system has been primed to the exact population of pathogens that the foals will encounter at Chasemore.

“His antibodies are tailor-made to give them a robust defence in the environment they grow up in. Plus, he’s vaccinated for everything under the sun. It seems to work well, with very low rates of scour, joint ill, pneumonia and so on in our population.” 

As if playing a crucial role in getting the Chasemore Farm mares ready for cover, and then protecting their foals once they are born, wasn't enough it turns out that Rerouted, or Red, also happens to be an all-round loveable character. 

“He’s an absolute gentleman,” reports Pat. “As Frankel’s lead horse and a Group winner, he’s something of a celebrity in his own right, but beyond that he’s just a pleasure to be around. 

"Teasing mares can be a frustrating and thankless job for a stallion, especially with aggressive maidens on a freezing morning, but he just takes it all in his stride. He’s a big part of the team and we all love him to bits. I’d trust him with my four-year-old daughter.” 

Even better news, Rerouted has been granted the chance to cover a mare himself. That might be no bad thing, considering he was pretty talented, and hails from the outstanding family of Group/Grade 1 winners Best Solution, Brian Boru, Flute, Qualify and Workforce. 

Haras du Logis’ resident teaser Tiberius Caesar, another Group 3 winner and by Zieten, famously came up with Grand Prix de Deauville winner Tiberian to show it can be done.  

“Watch this space,” says Pat. “One of our clients fell so in love with him that they sent a mare last year. She’s in our foaling unit carrying a colt and is due any day now. The story of Tiberius Caesar is very much at the front of our minds. Rerouted is registered with Weatherbys and available to breeders at a private fee.” 

Thanks to Pat for another enlightening veterinary bulletin. As we know from previous Good Morning Bloodstock emails, he is not only a vet and patient elucidator of complicated subjects for vexatious journalists, but also a cider maker, topographical map producer and trailblazer in using technological innovations. 

To that long list we can also add a handy breeder, as shown most recently by Final Decision, who was beaten just a length into third in a Thurles bumper for Anthony McCann last month.

The four-year-old Iffraaj filly’s dam Adjudicate is, like Rerouted, a Juddmonte-bred, in her case being a Dansili full-sister to Australian Group 2 winner Permit from the further family of champion Xaar. 

Pat says: “I got lucky buying my first couple of mares from a closing Newmarket stud farm for £1 each in 2008 while I was an intern at Rossdales. Both gave my family and I great fun and several winners, and one of them, Chapel Corner, even turned out to be the dam of a Grade 1 winner, in Cornerstone Lad. 

“A few years later I co-bred a multiple Group-winning two-year-old called Prom Queen with my mate Rodney Schick in New Zealand. The problem was, having moved back to the UK before she hit the track, I’d given my half away. By the time she turned three they’d turned down offers of NZ$1 million! 

“In 2017 Andrew and Jane Black kindly let me come in on one of my favourite mares on the farm, Adjudicate. I’ll always have a soft spot for Dansili mares and old Juddmonte families after my time at Banstead Manor Stud. 

“Through her I’ve become an accidental National Hunt breeder once again, although we are steering her determinedly back towards the Flat: she was covered by Pinatubo last week.” 

After all that I don’t know who’s more multi-talented: Pat or Rerouted.

What do you think?

Share your thoughts with other Good Morning Bloodstock readers by emailing gmb@racingpost.com

Must-read story

“The runner-up at that sale was a three-day eventer, if not for Tom Costello intervening and buying him, he’d have been going off to event,” says One Man’s breeder Hugh Holohan as he recalls the great warrior 25 years after his Champion Chase victory.

Pedigree pick

Masked Queen, trained by Sean Woods for his family’s Brook Stud, has an interesting pedigree that entitles her to run a big race on debut in the mile maiden at Southwell on Thursday (3.00).

The three-year-old is from the sole British-conceived crop of Coral-Eclipse and Dubai Sheema Classic winner Hawkbill out of the quietly influential Kris S mare Cephalonie – dam of eight winners including Listed scorers Arctic Gyr and Festivale, Joel Stakes runner-up Tell and Sirenia Stakes third Simple Magic.

Cephalonie’s other daughters have also produced last year’s Sun Chariot Stakes third Grande Dame and 2,000 Guineas fourth Eydon, so whatever Masked Queen achieves today and in future she makes plenty of appeal as a broodmare in the longer term.

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