We spent the weekend at Hartpury College in the company of Jos and Kathy from Equine Reproduction LLC in an effort to gain our DEFRA AI Technician accreditation. Very much looking forward to it, we set off around 7:30pm, tired after a week at work but buoyed by the prospect and making good time on the drive to Gloucester. That is, right up until the moment when an audible pop, the temperature gauge soaring into the red and steam issuing forth from under the bonnet necessitated an emergency stop on the hard shoulder of the M25 to see what had happened.
Oh dear. The hose that connects the engine to the radiator had come off and the radiator was steaming. Luckily for us we had a toolkit in the back of the LandCruiser containing a pair of pliers, which we used to reattach the hose. Less fortunately we had no coolant on board - that was still in the Volvo back home which we were initially going to travel in except for the fact that the exhaust manifold was "unwell" and it was sounding (a) very much like a tractor, and (b) in danger of imminent termination. So instead we used our supply of water and limped along to the next exit to find a garage, where we purchased the requisite supplies, topped up the radiator and went on our way, thinking that would be it.
But no. A few miles down the road it overheated again and once more we were forced to pull onto the hard shoulder, not a pleasant place to be at the best of times and particularly when you really have to be somewhere. Hmm. We limped along a bit further until we found another garage somewhere near Bracknell, and called the AA, where we had a pleasant 40 minute wait for the man with the van. By this time it was getting on for 11pm. The AA man arrived and could find little wrong with it after running it for a while, so followed us for about 15 mins or so and looked at it again, whereupon that same hose had gone completely flat, it was starting to overheat again and an issue with the water pump diagnosed, necessitating a tow home. Argh. Argh. So he put in a call to base to order a tow truck, his not being man enough for the task of towing a large LandCruiser any appreciable distance, let alone the 80 odd miles back home. ETA for the tow truck? 1:30-1:50am. Marvellous. So we spent a pleasant couple of hours awaiting the tow truck, which eventually arrived at 2am. Our relief however lasted only as long as it took the driver to inform us that he wouldn't be able to take us all the way home because he was nearly up to his legal driving hours limit, so he had to drop us off at Clacket Lane services. Argh.
It is quite difficult to get any sleep in the back of a tow truck, especially when all you can think about is how in hell you are going to get to Gloucester for 8:15am next morning. On the plus side there was another tow truck awaiting us at Clacket Lane, so the car was transferred and off we went on the next leg of our epic journey back from whence we had started. We finally arrived home about 3:45am having snatched at best 30 mins of sleep in the back of truck, and having calculated that we wouldn't have time for even an hour's kip before setting off again.
Obviously the ovlov was out of the question and that left only (a) hitchhiking, or (b) Sid's REX, which was as dead as a dodo from not having been used all winter and had to be jump started. We transferred our weekend chattels to the rex, drank one very strong cup of coffee and prepared to set off once again, but not before I went flying on the yard having tripped over a battery, wrenched my back and got a pretty gravel rash on both palms. Which was nice.
Needless to say, one is not at one's best at that hour of the morning, which might explain why somehow, we managed to leave the oil cap off the engine, a fact which we only discovered when we stopped at a services for supplies of espresso and Red Bull. ARGH! We did the only thing we could do, which was to fashion an oil cap out of some duct tape that we blagged from the service station (there being none for sale, of course), and continue on our very weary and beleaguered way.
Eventually we made it to Hartpury College with our eyes somewhere around our knees and navigated our way to the stud, which lies at the end of a long road positively awash with speed bumps, most of which caught the bottom of the rex with a butt-cramping scrape no matter how slowly we went over them. Argh.
We made it through the first day of lectures only because of Jos's excellent and engaging lecturing style and our level of interest in the subject matter, but even then it was a real struggle. I can say with some authority that the hours we spent through the night attempting to reach our destination were possibly the worst ever preparation for delving into the specifics of the reproductive cycle of the adult mare, short of death, war or pestilence. That night we ate early, were in bed by 7:30pm and asleep moments later.
Day 2 included some practical components after we had gone through the theory of artifical insemination, including the examination of a real reproductive tract taken from a mare and the technique to use when inseminating. We were using only an extender for the practical component but the technique was the same. There's a huge amount of information to absorb, but also a lot of it is common sense. Very important to have that guidance on exactly what to do, and the mare was very patient!
We did have to dash off at lunch time to a local breaker's yard for a replacement oil cap, and also determined that the car had sprung an oil leak unrelated to the presence of absence of the oil cap. Wahhh.
That evening we all went out for a meal and had a fab time. It was great to be able to discuss these things with professionals at the top of their game and without any of the sort of innuendo that invariably follows if you mention AI to anyone who isn't involved with horses.
Day 3 was about the stallion. Jos and Kathy have excellent advice on the handling of stallions and I am sure they are doing great work bringing enlightenment and the possibility of a different way of thinking to those who insist on treating stallions as Beelzebub on hooves. It is so refreshing and is clearly born of years and years (about 30 all told) of experience, with examples and stories of stallions they have worked with in the past to illustrate their points. We also covered (sorry) semen collection and handling techniques before evaluating samples for sperm count, motility and progressive motility, and a clear idea of what we will need for our own lab. We finished off with the exam - and now we wait until we get the results!
It was an EXCELLENT course and I would not hesitate to recommend it to anyone who is involved with AI. We also got a very comprehensive view of our responsibilities as AI Technicians and the regulations surrounding the exemption.
I'm just glad we managed to get home in one piece notwithstanding the oil leak.
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