A total of 2,351 equine veterinarians–a record attendance–descended on Lexington for the 41st annual American Association of Equine Practitioners convention. Committee business dominated the day on Dec. 2, with 21 of the association’s 40 committees meeting to discuss topics of concern and offer recommendations to the board of directors for action. A record number of exhibitors also were in attendance, with 1,069 registered. The 616 registered guests brought the convention total to 4,036.

On Sunday, veterinarians had a choice of attending concurrent sessions on either equine reproduction or joint disease in the athletic horse. In the reproduction section, Mary Scott, DVM, of the University of California, Davis, discussed sperm transport to the oviducts: abnormalities and their clinical implications (see The Horse of June 1994, page 8). This research, conducted with Irwin K. M. Liu, DVM, PhD, and J. W. Overstreet, MD, PhD, indicated that abnormal sperm transport patterns in subfertile mares and stallions might be due to a delay in sperm arrival in the oviducts. She noted that the caudal isthmus was the oviductal region with the most significant differences between normal and subfertile stallions and mares. This region, she noted, has been identified as a site of sperm storage prior to ovulation in other species. She found that mares susceptible to chronic uterine infection had fewer sperm in the caudal isthmus, and fewer of the sperm were motile. In looking at fertile and subfertile stallions, the research pointed out that motile sperm were recovered from 92% of the oviducts for fertile stallions, but for subfertile stallions, motile sperm were recovered from only 25% of the oviducts.

Juan Samper and his colleagues at the College of Veterinary Medicine, Washington State University, reported on the use of sperm and oviduct cell coculture as a field test for stallion fertility. In normal breeding, sperm atta