Surprise mother delivers the goods
PRIMARY school teacher Claire Paisley landed the top spot in BE90 section B with Donna Keiseada (Cassie), a sevenyear-old daughter of Lux Z who unexpectedly dropped a foal soon after she arrived at Claire’s yard.
“It has been a long road to get this far — and not for a reason I ever anticipated,” said Claire, who bought Cassie from Ireland as a four-year-old. “I got her in April; by mid-July I had a ‘buy one, get one free’!
“I’d been pottering about with her at home and had taken her out cross-country schooling when I felt something move under my right leg,” she explained.
A subsequent veterinary inspection confirmed the news that Claire, by now, suspected.
“She’s quite flirty, so I expect she jumped in with a stallion when she shouldn’t have done,” she continued. “She carried the foal very high, so never really looked pregnant.”
The result — now a strapping three-year-old gelding called Archie — is still with Claire.
“I have no idea who the dad
might be, but he’s a bit heavier than Cassie,” she said.
Small animal and equine vet Mary Pearson took the honours in novice section D aboard her own Je Taime Fandango.
Mary, whose grandfather is a cousin of Eglinton’s long-standing organiser, The Hon Heather Galbraith, trekked several hundred miles from south Wales, where she now works, back home to Scotland to support her old local haunt.
“A lot of my family is involved in running the horse trials, so I took some holiday from work and travelled back home for the week,” explained Mary, who also finished third in the BE100open on her exmounted games pony, Largy Lady.
Eglinton has been forced to cancel for the past three years due to wet weather, but bringing the date forward a month from July to June seemed to do the trick this time and the organising team were blessed with glorious sunshine for their 60thanniversary event.