A last-minute change in the program for the monthly meeting of the Kentucky Thoroughbred Farm Managers Club had everyone focusing on this year’s incidences of mare reproductive loss syndrome on the evening of May 7. A panel was put together to discuss the various aspects of the disease this year, the recent study by the University of Kentucky correlating Eastern tent caterpillars and their frass (excrement) with early fetal loss, and possible management measures that could reduce the incidence of MRLS.

On the panel were Dr. Bill Bernard, an internal medicine specialist with Rood and Riddle Equine Hospital in Lexington, Ky., and the current president of the Kentucky Association of Equine Practitioners; Dr. Stuart Brown, a reproductive veterinarian with Hagyard-Davidson-McGee in Lexington and a member of the Equine Industry Task Force; Dr. Lenn Harrison, director of the University of Kentucky’s Livestock Disease Diagnostic Center (LDDC); Dr. David Powell, an epidemiologist with the Gluck Equine Research Center; and Dr. Lee Townsend, a PhD in entomology at the University of Kentucky