Some racemares in heat suffer from moodiness and occasional discomfort, but problem heat cycles are not the norm

KICK, STRIKE, BITE, and run around late at night.

That's the old horsemen's rhyme about a mare in heat, and the situation can be doubly perplexing if that mare is a competitor whose racing performance is affected by hormones and sometimes discomfort.

Sweet Catomine, who received the 2004 Eclipse Award as the best juvenile filly in North America, was seemingly en route to a showdown with this year's best three-year-old males in the Kentucky Derby (G1) when she turned in a fifth-place effort in the Santa Anita Derby (G1) that trainer Julio Canani and owner Marty Wygod attributed, in part, to her coming into season. Since then, the daughter of Storm Cat has been retired and scheduled to be bred to A.P. Indy.

Racing Hall of Fame trainer Jack Van Berg recalled a mare named Hasty Rose, who was bred by his father, Marion. Hasty Rose won the Ak-Sar-Ben Lassie Stakes and was second in the Ak-Sar-Ben Futurity in 1964. "When she was in season, she wouldnÕt outrun a fat man,'' Van Berg said. But the hormonal mare redeemed herself in the breeding shed by producing Grade 1-winning mare Krislin.

"Some of them will walk down the shedrow and kick at anything they can kick at,'' Van Berg said about mares in season. "We had a mare called Henny Penny, who was as bad as they come about that. She killed about four or five goats.''

The hard-knocking mare's performance never suffered, though. She raced from 1943-51 and amassed a record of 31 wins, 22 seconds, and 11 thirds in 122 starts for earnings of $61,460, a tidy sum during the Roosevelt and Truman administrations.

Syrian Sea, an older full sister to Secretariat who was one of the most precocious fillies in the country in 1967, was notorious for her temperament.

"She would mount the other mares, and we had a tough time with her until she got into the role, so to speak,'' owner Penny Chenery told Thoroughbred Times Bloodstock and Sales Editor John P. Sparkman. "She was very aggressive. You didn't get friendly with her.''

After winning the Selima, Astarita, and Colleen Stakes as a two-year-old, Syrian Sea won only an allowance race in her sophomore season before being retired to the breeding shed as a three-year-old.

Trainer Laura de Seroux, who campaigned Azeri to Eclipse Awards as Horse of the Year and champion older female in 2002 and champion older female in '03, said racemares that are greatly affected by heat cycles are not the norm.

"If [racemares] do come into season, it doesn't have a profound effect on all of them completely taking their mind off their job,'' de Seroux said. "And they also come into heat in varying degrees. Some experience subtle heats, and for some it's very obvious. So it's different with all of them.

"Thinking back to Azeri,'' de Seroux continued, "she cycled asymptomatically and never was obvious all squirty and kind of swoony. She never did that. There was only one time when her exercise rider, Nuno Santos, looked at me and said, 'Something's wrong with Azeri! She feels sore behind the saddle.' And she was probably a little crampy.''

De Seroux believes that mares, like women, can have painful menstrual cycles, and this might cause alterations in behavior and performance.

"Some of them can get little ovarian cysts, and you think there's something wrong with them behind,'' de Seroux said. "You might think it's something skeletal when actually it's just muscles, the same as women having menstrual cramps.''

Michelle LeBlanc, D.V.M., an internationally acclaimed reproduction specialist at Rood & Riddle Equine Hospital in Lexington, said mares might experience discomfort during ovulation, but the condition cannot be characterized as menstrual cramps because, unlike women, horses do not slough the lining of the uterus (the endometrium) each month. She theorized that a large, soft follicle could be to blame.

"That probably could cause discomfort because their ovaries are large and they are up next to the body wall, and if the muscles around them are stretching, it could be an uncommon feeling that could possibly be discomfort,'' LeBlanc said.

LeBlanc recalled being asked to examine a much-heralded mare four days after she turned in a lackluster performance in the 1989 Breeders' Cup at Gulfstream Park.

"She had a huge granulosa cell tumor. It was the size of a cantaloupe,'' LeBlanc said. "I was surprised she ran as well as she did. If you put that into perspective, she was raising her hind feet and really stretching all those muscles. The rider said she was not right behind.

"I think that, just hormonally, we definitely know there is a change in attitude and a change in temperament. Is that discomfort? Is that anxiety? I can't answer that. But what you just heard [from de Seroux] is not an uncommon remark, and I think the exercise rider was correct.''

Distraction for colts

Not only can overt heat cycles have a detrimental effect on mares and fillies at the racetrack, but all that estrogen can make colts a little crazy, too.

"Most definitely!'' de Seroux said with a laugh. "Some colts are [more easily aroused] than others. Some don't even notice, and some do and can spot [mares in heat], and you have to keep them out of their sight. It's a logistical problem that is very solvable.

"If the fillies are walking, we keep them outside, and the colts are in their stalls. And we have a large enough [walking] ring that I just separate them. Obviously, you wouldn't tease the colts by walking [the fillies] in the shedrow in front of their stalls.''

Some racemares such as Azeri and Sweet Catomine occasionally compete against males, which potentially could cause problems in the post parade if a mare were profoundly in heat.

"I can't honestly say that I've witnessed such a scenario,'' de Seroux said. "There are all sorts of ways to take a filly that is seriously ovulating and mitigate it, and I'm sure any trainer, and all trainers, would employ those tactics instead of going ahead and running one. You're not going to want to send one out there in the post parade that's going to be discharging. You just wouldn't do it.

"And I'm sure Sweet Catomine was safely out of that stage of ovulation when she raced. Knowing the professionalism of Canani and Wygod, I'm certain that she felt very asymptomatic by the time she raced.''

Medication for the problem

In her experience, de Seroux said she has never had to alter a racemare's training schedule because of problems associated with coming into season because most mares take heat cycles in stride.

"They usually don't have those overt symptoms,'' de Seroux said. "For the most part, symptoms are subtle, and you just let nature take its course. But, as with women who sometimes have painful, heavy menstrual cycles, sometimes you have to help them with some medication. But for the most part, I just leave it alone and let it be a natural cycle.

"If they come heavily into season when they are discharging a lot and acting swoony, I think it would affect their racing performance,'' de Seroux said. "I would have to say that it would make me think twice about running. But that's the exception, not the norm.

"We put them on Regu-Mate, and that seems to take care of it. But it takes a few days to kick in.''

John Steiner, D.V.M., a practitioner at Hagyard Equine Medical Institute in Lexington who is board-certified in reproductive medicine, said Regu-Mate, which contains progesterone, is just one solution.

"Progesterone is a hormone that gives them more of a calming effect, and their progesterone levels are extremely low when they're in heat,'' Steiner explained. "So not only does Regu-Mate keep them from coming in heat, it provides a calming effect.''

Another solution is to insert a glass marble into the uterus, which is a growing practice in show horses and Standardbreds. "Nobody knows exactly how it works,'' Steiner said, "but, apparently, it mimics pregnancy so they don't come back into heat. It works in about 60% of the horses it's done to.''

But Steiner cautioned, "It has to be done with a certain-size glass marble that has been sterilized in an autoclave, and it has to be done by a veterinarian under sterile conditions, otherwise, it will introduce infection into these mares, and you'll have more of a problem than you had before.''

Steiner also cautioned against using progesterone implants designed for use in cattle to keep them from coming into season. "It's certainly been tried in horses, and it doesn't work very well,'' he said.

Horsemen in eras not too long ago used to put pennies in a mare's water bucket, Van Berg said. "It worked on some, but of course, it didn't work like modern-day medications,'' Van Berg said.

"Pennies would be a copper source, but I don't know what that would do,'' Steiner mused.