Media Contact:

Diana Orban Brown

Director-Marketing & Communications

Rutgers Equine Science Center

732-932-9419 or Orban@aesop.rutgers.edu
 

 

ANNUAL AUCTION OF NAERIC YEARLINGS SET FOR APRIL 25, 2004;

EVENT RAISES FUNDS FOR EQUINE RESEARCH AND TEACHING

 

NEW BRUNSWICK, NJ (February 26, 2004) --  The annual auction of yearling fillies participating in Rutgers equine research and teaching will take place at 1 p.m. Sunday, April 25, 2004, at the Round House on the Cook College campus, west of Route 1 in New Brunswick.

 

The sale will feature 12 crossbred yearlings and, for the first time, five adult mares. The mares include three Belgians and two draft-crosses.  The horses will be available for preview at the annual Ag Field Day on Saturday, April 24, and again starting at 11 a.m. on the day of the auction. Col. Dennis Cassidy will be auctioneer. Students enrolled in the Ag Animal Fitting and Handling course will show the yearlings in hand at 10 a.m. on Ag Field Day. Students who have been working with the horses all year will handle them at the auction.  Proceeds from the auction benefit equine research and teaching at Cook College and the Rutgers Equine Science Center.

 

The yearlings and the mares came to Rutgers from a ranch in North Dakota where collection of pregnant mare urine provides for the synthesis of hormone replacement drugs.  The yearlings, sired by Quarter Horse or Paint stallions, are out of draft or draft-cross mares and are registered in the North American Equine Ranching Information Council (NAERIC) Incentive program. Through this program, NAERIC will match cash prizes that the horses may win in future years at NAERIC-approved competitions. This is the fifth year of the auction, and horses from previous years have gone on to such disciplines as driving, jumper, hunter, dressage, western pleasure, trail and some non-traditional careers such as vaulting and track pony.

 

The horses arrived on campus last fall and were assigned to students, who learn about training young horses and help with the research projects.  Many of the students from the equine science program go on to veterinary school, so the large-animal and research experience is invaluable for their later education. Research focuses on nutrition studies, including this year’s investigation of the metabolic responses to high sugar versus low sugar hay. Three of the research projects this year were designed and implemented by George H. Cook honors students for their senior theses.