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A Nova Scotia horse breeder has won a bizarre claim against FedEx after the national courier failed to deliver a fresh batch of horse semen from B.C. on time.

In spring 2016, Chelsea McKendrick, who operates Owls Ridge Farm in Seaforth, N.S., had a mare she wanted to breed, and so she placed an order with Dreamscape Farm in Langley, B.C., for a semen sample from one of its stallions.

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Because horse sperm must be used within roughly 24 hours of production, Dreamscape staff turned to FedEx’s “Priority Overnight” service on May 2 to deliver the sample, which was packaged on ice.

Anticipating that the package would arrive in Dartmouth the next day, May 3, McKendrick arranged for a veterinarian to come and inject her mare with hormones to trigger ovulation. Timing was critical. Not only does horse sperm have a short shelf life, once a mare has ovulated, it has a short window of fertility.

But on May 3, after a series of frantic calls to FedEx’s delivery tracking service, McKendrick learned that the horse sperm had made it only as far as Mississauga, Ont., and wouldn’t arrive in Dartmouth until May 4.