Tom Thornbury said he isn't sure how many foals he eventually will lose at his Oakland Farm in Versailles, Ky., due to the mystery syndrome that is causing mares in the Bluegrass State to spontaneously abort their foals, but he fears the worst.

Of the 35 mares bred at his small Central Kentucky operation, 11 have already aborted their foals and it's too early to tell what will happen with the remaining 24. Thornbury is not sure any will deliver a healthy foal.

	“	For the industry, the loss will be $100 million, $200 million maybe. No one is quite sure, but it's going to be a major hardship ... Everyone in Kentucky is going to feel it. ”
		— Ray Paulick, The Blood-Horse magazine

As he surveys the damage, Thornbury can't help but look toward what are sure to be several bleak years to come, not just for him but for the state's $900 million thoroughbred breeding industry.

At his small family-run farm, he breeds mares of his own and boards still others for clients, receiving a fee for housing the mares and a commission when their foals are sold at auction. But several of his clients are taken their mares out of the state as a pre-emptive measure, and with it goes much of his livelihood. He expects things will get worse next year when he'll have fewer horses to sell at the sales. Unlike some of the blue-blood operations that dot the Kentucky landscape, Oakland Farm isn't big enough or rich enough to take a severe hit without devastating consequences.

"I think we will survive, but it's going to be a tremendous strain for us," he said.

Thornbury's story is far from unique. The problem, officially known as Mare Reproductive Loss Syndrome, is expected to affect virtually every facet of the racing industry, from breeders like Thornbury to sales companies to insurance companies to the racetracks, which will have fewer available horses to fill their racing programs in the years ahead.

Even the Triple Crown races could be affected. A sport already struggling to develop stars capable of capturing the public's imagination will have a watered down talent pool available for the Triple Crown in 2005, the year in which horses conceived in 2001 will be three and eligible to run in the Kentucky Derby, Preakness and Belmont.

"A lot of people haven't sat down yet to see what the costs are going to be, but we have," said Ray Paulick, editor-in-chief of The Blood-Horse, an industry trade magazine. "It's going to be devastating, especially for people with small farms who might have eight to 10 horses and have lost everything. For the industry, the loss will be $100 million, $200 million maybe. No one is quite sure, but it's going to be a major financial hardship. It will hit everybody, from the stallion owners to the mare owners to the guy selling hay. Everybody in Kentucky is going to feel it."

The problem first surfaced shortly before the Kentucky Derby on May 5 when farms began to notice two problems. An inordinate amount of mares that had been bred in 2000 were giving birth to stillborn foals. At the same time, mares bred this year began to spontaneously abort their foals in unheard of numbers.

With thousands of mares still not far enough along in their pregnancies to suffer from the problem, which usually hits when the equine fetus reaches 60 days old, no one knows how devastating the final numbers will be. However, several industry leaders have estimated that upward of 25 percent of the mares bred this year in Kentucky will lose their foals. Kentucky, the leading breeding state in the country, normally produces about 10,000 thoroughbred foals a year, roughly 30 percent of the entire North American foal crop.

Though armies of scientists, veterinarians and breeding experts have worked tirelessly to pinpoint the causes of the problem, no one yet is quite sure what's behind the syndrome. Most theories center around a form of natural contamination in the grass in pastures where mares graze. Abnormal weather conditions in Kentucky this spring, during which there were unusually dry, warm conditions in March and April that were followed by a sudden cold-snap, may have led to an increase in an estrogen-like mold called fusarium growing on the grasses. Mares grazing on those grasses are thought to now be suffering the effects of toxicosis.

Each day, another two dozen or so aborted or stillborn equine fetuses are turned in to the University of Kentucky's Livestock Disease Diagnostic Center, which, as of Tuesday, had seen 468 such fetuses. And with every new case, industry leaders add up the damage. David Switzer, the executive director of the Kentucky Thoroughbred Association, an industry group that promotes the Kentucky breeding and racing industry, estimates the economic impact to the industry from the losses in 2001 foal crop will add up to $50 million. He estimates an even more grisly loss of $136 million from the losses in the 2002 foal crop.

	“	We have been through a silent storm. We don't know where it came from, and the effects are still being tallied. By sifting through the debris, I hope we will find some answers and avoided further exposure. I suppose that is all we are left with -- hope. ”
		— Tom Thornbury, breeder

In a few months, the horse auction industry will begin to take its first hits. Keeneland, which operates the most prestigious horse sales in the industry, annually auctions as many 1,600 mares in foal at its November Breeding Stock Sale. There simply won't be as many in-foal mares around, which will have a negative impact on the sale. Eight months later, Keeneland will take its next hit when it will no doubt have fewer prospects to sell at its July Selected Yearlings Sales.

"Our November sale will be interesting because it will be the first chance we'll get to see how the marketplace has been affected," said Keeneland's assistant director of sales Geoff Russell. "But right now, our concern is not for ourselves but for the industry. We'll worry about us when the time comes. We want the industry to be able to find the cause of this problem and we will do everything we can to help."

Insurance companies will not escape, either. Stallion and mare owners often take out policies protecting them against loss.

"I think the insurance marketplace is going to take a tremendous hit in this," said Clinton Glasscock, a senior vice president at Old Colony Insurance Services. "The industry recently had to pay out $45 million for Dubai Millennium (a top sire who died due to problems unrelated to Mare Reproductive Loss Syndrome). We could take a bigger hit than that."

Hoping to convince legislators to come to the aid of the Kentucky breeding industry, Tim Smith, the National Thoroughbred Racing Association's CEO, was in Washington earlier this week seeking relief from the federal goverment.

"This is no different than having wheat farmers lose their entire crops," Paulick notes.

But The Kentucky Thoroughbred Association's Switzer said it won't be an easy sell.

"I hope they realize that we represent a lot of people who are not a William T. Young or a Bill Farish," he said, naming two of the wealthiest breeders in Kentucky. "That's the image that people have of the Kentucky breeder. But that's not the reality; we are talking about hundreds of small, marginal operations."

Thornbury's Oakland Farm falls into that very category. He is anxiously keeping an eye on the 24 mares who have not yet been evaluated, hoping to salvage something from an otherwise disastrous breeding and foaling season.

"We have been through a silent storm," he said. "We don't know where it came from, and the effects are still being tallied. By sifting through the debris, I hope we will find some answers and avoided further exposure. I suppose that is all we are left with -- hope."