Word: cem
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...when spring came North again this year, it brought the threat of disaster to Kentucky and its $1 billion race horse industry, the world's most celebrated. The danger: a newly discovered venereal disease known as CEM (for contagious equine metritis), which infected at least 21 mares and five top stallions, created bitter dissension among the tight clan of owners and even caused federal and international repercussions...
...story began last June when the U.S. Department of Agriculture began picking up reports of CEM afflicting breeding, first in France, then in Ireland and England. The disease, which can also be transmitted by handlers, makes it difficult for a mare to conceive and carry a foal for the full eleven-month term. Still, neither the British nor the Irish made too much of the malady when the USDA inquired. Neither did the French. According to Ralph Knowles, the department's chief staff veterinarian, the French told the U.S. that the sickness was not highly contagious and that they...
...Northern Dancer. Just before the deadline, Spendthrift Farm, stud managers of Nashua and Majestic Prince, flew in the stallion Caro from France. Both horses arrived with French certificates of health and passed the standard USDA tests. Moreover, both Caro and Lyphard were cleared by a specific test for CEM conducted in midwinter by the anxious USDA, which feared that some horses imported before the embargo might have been infected...
Even so, when CEM showed up in Kentucky in early March-the first outbreak of the disease ever in the U.S.-it was quickly found in Caro and Lyphard. A frantic search also detected CEM in three other stallions at Gainesway and 21 mares on various other farms. The state banned any movement of horses from one Kentucky farm to another and stopped all shipments of horses out of state. Gainesway Farm's John Gaines and Spendthrift Owner Brownell Combs II shut down breeding operations altogether. Since he has 33 stallions, valued at $57 million, Combs was losing hundreds...