Mares’ midnight miracles

Working from 6pm and through the night, Lisa Roach keeps watch on pregnant mares at New Zealand’s most prestigious stud nursery in the Waikato, tending to them and helping them give birth.

Roach spends her nights walking around the “nursery paddocks” at Cambridge Stud making sure all is well as members of a new generation of champion race horses are born.

“You treat each one like they’re carrying a future Melbourne Cup winner,” Roach said of the mares brought to the farm to foal.

Cambridge Stud is responsible for the most influential staying blood introduced to the Southern Hemisphere in the past 40 years.

It was sold in November for the first time since it was established in 1976 by Sir Patrick Hogan.

Roach can have up to 50 mares in the paddocks at a time, and the most foals she’s ever helped birth in a night is eight.

It’s more common to see between four and six born, and some nights none arrive at all, she said.

“The hardest part of my job then is staying warm and awake.”

Roach’s husband works days and she works nights, but she says her job has always slotted in well with the rest of her life.

“I’ve always just loved horses. Always wanted to be around them,” she said.

“I love being out with them.”

Pictures / Alan Gibson Lisa Roach works her magic to calm a mare as she begins to experience the pain associated with delivering a foal and (above right) plays the waiting game.

A mare writhes (above) as she begins to experience the pain associated with delivering a foal and (above right) the team swing into action in tending to the newborn.

A mare gets to know her new arrival after delivering a foal in one of the nursery paddocks at the prestigious Cambridge Stud in the Waikato.