Owners are often faced with the decision of whether or not to castrate their colt or stallion when the animal is very young and before the animal has had a chance to prove itself as a performance horse. There are many times when these now geldings grow up to be highly successful in their disciplines and could be marketed successfully as breeding stallions…. If only they hadn’t been castrated.
At New Bolton Center, we now offer our clients a way around this problem. At the time of scheduled castration, our reproduction specialists can work with our surgeons to obtain the testicles immediately after they are removed and flush the attached sperm storage duct (the epididymis) to obtain large numbers of good quality sperm. The sperm can then be processed, cryopreserved and stored indefinitely to serve as a genetic bank should you or anyone else ever want to breed a mare to your gelding.