We talk to owners who’ve bought mares with an unexpected extra
Finding out that your new mare has an unexpected extra on board can be a stressful prospect for many horse owners, while others view it as something of an added bonus, finds Jo Prestwich
‘I rang the vet who said, “Oh she won’t be foaling in the day,” and I’m yelling “But I can see its feet!” ’
Y OU’VE bought your new horse and thoughts move to the future. Schooling, long hacks and the upcoming show calendar are all in the mix and the world looks wonderful. And then the doubt begins to set in — that mare, she’s just beginning to carry a bit of extra weight isn’t she? In fact, she’s looking positively fat, or I should say pear shaped... She couldn’t be pregnant, could she?
Some ring the vet, others take to social media; either way, for the majority, it’s a case of wondering what we do now, because, let’s face it, few of us have practical midwifery skills.
C HARLOTTE LAWSON’S 2014 Badminton grassroots championships ride Obsidian III (Doris) arrived with an unexpected guest on board.
“I got her in the October, hunted through the winter and started getting her ready to event,” explains Charlotte. “I was struggling to get the weight off her and she wasn’t getting any fitter, so I got the vet out to see if he could shed any light on the matter. He reckoned she was four or five months off foaling!”
It transpired that the deed had happened when she and a bunch of mares had been in with a stallion — by mistake and only very briefly, but, as it turned out, for long enough.
“I carried on riding her and did do an event in the April before I turned her away to foal. Foxtrot popped out on the first of July,” says Charlotte. “I’ve ridden Foxtrot’s full brother (having worked for the breeder, where she first rode Doris) and Foxtrot himself won at Bramham in-hand as a three-year-old, but, in the end, I sold him as I didn’t have the time for another. I have since had a planned foal from Doris, who is now a two-year-old, but he isn’t quite the quality of the BOGOF.”
If that wasn’t enough, Charlotte inflicted the same fate on Elaine Campbell without knowing.
Elaine bought a coloured mare, Beckhouse Lil, from Charlotte in the March of the same year, and spent the first few weeks getting to know her.
“She arrived hunting fit and I thought it was the lack of work and all the grass that was causing the ‘belly explosion’ and the swelling udder,” says Elaine, who lectures at Lincoln University on Equine Exercise Physiology. “I discussed the situation with the other lecturers who all came straight out with the in-foal diagnosis, but I was in denial.”
Elaine had only six weeks from buying her “singular” horse to get her head round the impending arrival and having two horses to look after.
“Luckily, I had my own land, although it wasn’t set up for foaling. I had small stables, so I left her outside,” she said. “I was the archetypal pathetic owner and decided I’d better sleep at the field in case of trouble, but in the end it was only for two nights. I went to sleep to the sound of steady munching and woke up to discover she’d just foaled.”
Elaine narrowed the sire down to a coloured cob or a driving horse but, either way, her BOGOF Beckhouse Monsieur Leroux, aka Louie, is the spitting image of his mother
and, six years on, he’s turned into everything she could have wanted.
“Obviously, having two has doubled my costs, so some things have been put on hold,” says Elaine. “Louie is now on livery while I’m getting him going, so the next thing is transport and then I can get out competing.”
FOR Georgina Lindley, discovering that her mare was in foal was a nightmare.
“I burst into tears when the vet told me,” she recalls. “I just wanted to get on and ride and this bombshell was going to spoil all my plans.”
Georgina bought Tassyreagh Sunrise as a seven-year-old in the July and was soon out on beach rides, farm rides and local shows, and was getting fed up with the, “Is she in foal?” remarks.
“I got the vet out just to shut everybody up,” she admits. “‘Connie’ was a big mare and this tiny vet arrived and proceeded to give her an internal. She had a feel and felt nothing, stood right on her tip toes, felt again and said, ‘Yes, she is’. We had no idea when it was due and, on 30 October, I went to the field, turned out, mucked out and then there she was fussing at the gate to come in, running milk. I put more straw down and she was straight down foaling. I rang the vet, who said, ‘Oh, she won’t be foaling in the day’, and I yelled, ‘But I can see its feet!’
“He arrived with a whinny, ready to take on the world. I sold him as a weanling, having started riding Connie with him dive-bombing us from every which way. He went on to be a good all-rounder and Connie did the same for me — she won at county level, evented; in fact, she did everything I could have asked of her.” For Elaine Shelley and her daughter Lauren, the sleepless nights waiting for the foal to arrive were neatly sidestepped. The first indication that Echo IX (aka Olive), had a foal in the offing was a phone call from the yard as the mare had foaled overnight.
“It was a huge shock,” reflects Elaine.
“In hindsight, she had a bit of a ‘grass belly’ on her, but there was nothing else. She was supposed to be doing
Pony Club camp the following week, so we’d been working her accordingly, but, luckily, she and her foal suffered no ill effects.”
At the time, details were fairly thin on the ground, although the previous owner was keen to buy the foal. With a bit of judicious
digging, Elaine discovered that the mare had been incorrectly scanned not in foal to Cardinar (with the previous owner).
“We moved them to a local stud, so the filly grew up with other foals to play with and both mum and daughter have been eventing,” adds Elaine. “They are similar, although I think the foal, named Cardinar Surprise, takes more after her sire.”
The foal has certainly proved to be a good surprise. She has qualified for a BE100 grassroots regional final and the upcoming Riding Club Championships, where she will try and emulate her mother, who won at the Riding AVOIDING the situation is not as simple as it may seem, as vet Paul Thomason of Thomason, Ritchie and Harding explains.
“A standard five-star vetting does not cover maternity,” he says. “From the buyer’s point of view, you have only the history of the horse as the vendor tells you, and that boils down to whether you trust them.
“Blood tests are not foolproof because the stage of the pregnancy determines the type of blood test performed — what you’d test for in the early stages is not what you’d test for at four months. In terms of vetting a horse, a vet will not look for a potential pregnancy unless specifically asked to do so. In a normal five-stage vetting, this would come under additional procedures, as would X-rays and suchlike, in which case, an ultrasound scan is the most reliable tool.”
Club Festival of the Horse.
The BOGOF scenario has certainly brought about some entertaining anecdotes. But the one about the foal being born at the Flint and Denbigh Hunt branch Pony Club camp could trump them all.
Picture the scene, one rather fat looking 14hh trotting round in a ride... So fat, in fact, that the instructor Debbie Miller queried if it could be in foal. The owners had had the vet out to check the mare, but the verdict was that grass was the culprit — and the child was given the “If you’re not careful, she will get laminitis” spiel.
On the third day of camp, all the mares were turned out together for the night, as per usual. The following morning, there was some fair excitement when the children went out to catch the ponies, only to find the new arrival cantering around.