Breeding Exceptional Warmblood Sporthorses
for Hunters, Jumpers, Eventing & Dressage

***Warmblood Fragile Foal Syndrome (WFFS or FFS) is a newly discovered recessive gene that in very very rare cases causes a foal to be born with skin so thin that it cannot survive. Because it is recessive a foal can only be affected by getting the gene from two carrier horses (stallion and mare) and then there is still only a 25% chance. Carriers are listed as N/WFFS which means they carry one clear gene and one carrier gene. A non carrier or clear horse is listed as N/N. So a carrier stallion bred to a clear mare cannot produce an affected foal. A carrier stallion bred to a carrier mare can produce a clear foal (25% chance), a carrier foal (50% chance) or an affected foal (25% chance). Horses that are carriers are not affected in any way as riding horses and the only way to know is to test and the only reason to test is if you want to breed.  In fact this was first seen over 70 years ago in Europe but it was so rare (only 4 documented cases) that no one tried to discover what it was. All of our stallions were recently tested and all are clear except for Bliss MF. In over seven years of breeding (and 296 foals on the ground not counting this years crop) we know of no affected foals by Bliss MF. It can also cause late term abortions but the foals are clearly affected and we know of none. Regardless 'knowledge is power' and if you would like to breed to Bliss MF we suggest you have your mare tested first. Here is a link to the test site: https://www.vgl.ucdavis.edu/services/horse.php. It is very easy to do as it only takes hair pulled from your mares mane with the root attached to do the test. It costs $40. If your mare tests as a carrier and you have bought a breeding to Bliss MF we will gladly switch to any of our other stallions if you wish.