PrintEvery first-time breeder must learn the same valuable lesson: a watched mare never foals.
Forecast: Batten down the hatches [tonight]. A strong storm system across the Southeast may produce damaging wind with gusts over 60 mph and thunderstorms, as well as one-inch hail, isolated tornadoes and lightning.” (Actual forecast from WBIR news in Knoxville, Tenn. for the night of April 2, 2009.)
“I’ve been conned,” I kept thinking the closer the clock got to 3 a.m.
I was lying in the gooseneck part of the dressing room in my trailer atop three layers of foam egg crates. My armor against the cold was a down comforter, an electric blanket set on “high” and my horse’s wool dress sheet. Even fully dressed, I was still cold.
My cat and dog were somewhere in the layers as a storm rocked the trailer back and forth. I couldn’t sleep because the rain sounded like cannon fire on the uninsulated aluminum roof just above my head.
“Just how did I agree to this?” I grumbled. “I was suckered, that’s how.”
My new mare, Libby, was due to foal in three days, so I was on foal watch. My house is too far from the run-in shed where I set up the foaling stall, so I was camping in the trailer to be closer for those every-two-hour checks to see just how many sets of legs were in the stall.
This was the first time that I ever had a mare of my own foal. No one is more surprised by that fact than I. And no, it’s not that I didn’t know she was pregnant—I actually paid for the vet and stud fee to the Trakehner stallion Hennessey to make sure she was. What I mean is that I always swore that I would never put myself through all the effort, money and aggravation of foaling.
I was tricked. This was not my fault.
Last year the vet advised me out of the blue that I may never be able to breed one of my lesson mares, who had a long medical history. I had never considered breeding that little lesson horse or any of my horses before, and driving home from the clinic I was now disappointed. It was a classic tale of wanting something simply because you’re told you can’t have it.
The vet had to be in on this con. It was her fault that I was feeling like I was missing an opportunity.
I realize now that it was on this drive home that I was most vulnerable. A friend of mine who was going through a divorce called me while I was still driving. She asked if I wanted a broodmare of hers, an Anglo-Trakehner mare by Schonfeld E. She couldn’t afford so many horses and needed to reduce her herd.
She went on and on about the pros of breeding—lots of money from selling the foal or being able to train my next horse the perfect way. Little rainbows were bouncing around the phone as she talked. So I agreed on the spot to take the mare, Libby, and breed her. What was I thinking?
Somehow my friend must have bugged the vet clinic and my truck to know just when to go in for the kill. What did I ever do to her to deserve this torture in the trailer at 3 a.m.?
Three’s Company
This first night on foal watch, my dog, Katie, and my cat, Vinnie, wanted to join me in the trailer. I figured it would be warmer with the extra bodies. What I didn’t count on was all the hair.
Katie, a white mutt with black ears, was splayed out next to me chasing bunnies in her sleep. The cat, Vinnie, an almost identical twin with a white coat and black ears, was curled up purring on top of the wool dress sheet. I was petting both of them counting down until the next scheduled check on Libby.
