No idea if this has been mentioned or not, so my apologies if this is a stupid question…
When mares are in foal and they reach the automatic retirement age, does the foal still eventuate? So say hypothetically I have a 1994 born mare and she’s due to foal on May 15. April 12 comes round and the mare is retired from breeding. Can I still expect a foal too pop into the barn around May 15?
I believe the way this is handled is if the mare is within a certain point of foaling, then there’s a chance the foal will be born pre-maturely when the mare retires. If the foal doesn’t get born pre-maturely, then it dies in utero as the assumption is this is the age that the mare’s reproductive organs fail. Shanthi coded this all, but I think that’s what she decided on doing.
Pretty much, yeah. 
Sweet, thanks guys. Don’t have any mares that old yet, but I was just thinking random things… 
What is the retirement ages. Like what year retires this year?
There was a thread recently (not going to bother searching for it, but you should) discussing the fact that horses now retirely randomly throughout the year so there is no “year” that retires currently. You could have a 9yo mare or stud retire or the horses could be fine until they’re in their late-teens or early twenties even.