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A Newcomer to Breeding a Foal - My First Experiences by Paula Claytonsmith

By the time you read this I will have survived my first six months of having foal, a six months I can honestly say that has been filled with tears of joy, frustration, laughter, sleepless nights, bruises and relief!

Let me first give you a bit of background; I have owned my black and belligerent maxi cob mare for nearly three years in that time not only has she helped me regain my confidence after some life threatening riding accidents but she has also taught me a huge amount about looking after your own horse – I should explain that I was one of those people that had a very well paid job and got other people to look after my horse. I say was, because I moved from Essex to Lancashire and she had to put up with my DIY skills including it taking me an hour and half to muck out each time at first – fortunately she taught me the errors of perfect banks by traipsing them down.

Anyway I digress, most of my horse owning life started after 30 and horses I’d had tended to be liveried at small local studs. So I’d seen stunning stallions, beautiful mares and angelic looking foals and to be honest being at studs meant I began to take a strong interest in different breeds and types. So unsurprisingly I started to think about having a foal myself, and started discussing it with my very close local breeder friend. “I’m a numpty” I said “I don’t know the first thing about having a foal” “What if I bring it up wrong? And it turns into Psycho foal” after much reassurance that I was neither incompetent or that my mare wasn’t a conformational freak I began to think about what stallion to use, or rather what was I looking for in my foal.

As a result of my various riding accidents resulting in an airlift on one occasion and more metal than the Forth Bridge put into my shoulder on another I am not a cross country fan, showjumping fan or anything marginally risky fan (watching is fine – thankyou very much!) however I am a closet Showing fan with some success with my maxi cob mare and I simply adore traditional hunter type horses.
Kilbricken is a chunky girl and at 16hh she is large too – all the better to intimidate people for food she often whispers to me. Being such a large type horse almost a Cob Normand type (although she is Irish) it was clear I would need to use a much finer type Stallion or I would be faced with a foal with 30” bone!

My foray into searching for a stallion wasn’t great, and after some rather sniffy remarks about her unknown breeding, I decided to use my best friend’s Wetherby licensed stallion and to be honest he has the most friendly personality – something I felt was important when crossing with my rather grumpy mare.

I was in China on business when the deed was done in April 2008 and then I nervously waited for the first scan result. “What am I looking for?” I asked the vet excitedly, “You see that mark there?” I didn’t but I said “ooooo yes”, “Well it’s not that, it’s that” and there a little white line was my foal. It’s amazing how some words come back to haunt you “It’s bigger than I would expect at this point” my vet said. “But don’t worry that doesn’t mean anything”………

So after that the foal was there, albeit a small white line and so Amazon and second-hand bookshops became my haunt – any books on foals, foaling, mare and foal, books with chapters on foals, articles on the internet filled my study although I wasn’t worried because I knew my mare and foal were safely liveried at my friends yard and her wealth of experience around breeding gave me a safe warm glow.

By the June my work had plummeted, being self employed is no fun as a recession starts – so it was agreed I would move from the posh part of Essex with its beautiful livery yards to Lancashire to live with my boyfriend. By the July my work was non existent, so in the August Kilbricken, my growing white line and I moved north to DIY livery and a home with no heating.

Moving Kilbricken north was no problem, we made sure her haynet lasted the long journey and she happily munched her way from south Essex to north Lancashire. I, of course panicked all the way about my precious cargo and the cargo in my cargo – I read extensively about all the things that could go wrong with travelling a pregnant mare of which none really applied.

The first three months of looking after Kilbricken were the steepest learning curve I’ve experienced and learning that OCD and mucking out aren’t a great combination. Everyday I would obsess about Kilbricken and the foal and when she started objecting to be ridden by the November it was a flurry of saddle fitter and back person to check her over. After Kilbricken informed me she no longer wanted to be ridden (done with a few unceremonious dumpings on my part), she thoroughly enjoyed the life of a pampered horse. Interestingly by the December she had gone from being my belligerent mare to actually be affectionate, I became closer to her during this time than throughout my ownership of her. She whinnied as I arrived in the mornings or evening – it was great.
By February I was beginning to calculate due dates, prepare a foaling kit (3 months early but I am if anything organised). I had meetings with yard about nightly watches when things became closer – in fact I think I panicked the yard owner so much she moved her holiday!

Of course not much happened from February to March, in fact I just continued to enjoy an unusually affectionate horse. April came and I was stressed, my poor horse had her back end checked daily, teat watch was obsessive “Do you think they’ve changed” I’d ask my long suffering boyfriend, “No” he’d sigh. So I’d be on the phone or reading forums “Why haven’t they bagged up?” “Well of course” my best friend said “some horses don’t until the day”. Oh my, I thought how will I know what happens if there are no signs. I had visions of her foaling in the field, of course horses have done this for thousands of years but I just thought of all the worst things.

By the end of April and a few nights sleeping in a shed next to the stable, no bagging up signs, and Kilbricken not seeming much larger than she is normally (she has always been a larger girl, if you know what I mean). I was starting to think “Is she pregnant at all” “Has she lost it”. I took annual leave around her due period, and spent it watching her teats and back end to no avail. And bless her, the day I went to a meeting in London I got a call around lunchtime to say the mythical wax had appeared. My boyfriend and I went straight up to the stables and looked at her teats, “Oh gosh I said, we have bags of milk and wax”. It was about 5pm “Let’s have a cup of tea” the yard owner said “Nothing much will happen”. Suffice to say on our return, I went into the stable and looked underneath her, milk was literally squirting out! “More Straw” I shouted at the top of my voice “NOW”. I must add at this point that in the week or so before the birth Kilbricken became really aggressive to anyone except me, in fact she kicked the yard owner this meant only I was in the stable.

And there I was frantically topping up the straw, only for her to lay down by the door. My mind was frantic with Oh dear, I don’t really want to be trapped in a stable with a horse giving birth – I did my best to squash against the wall with images of standing there for hours whilst she gave birth. Fortunately she got up and I’ve never moved so quickly to get out of the stable!

From a safe distance we kept an ear out, and then after some fairly anti climatic grunts, we could see a foal standing in the corner. Then the glorious image of loving mare and foal changed, to our horror she screamed and chased him round the box, pushing him violently against the wall – into the water. I called my breeder friend whilst we waited for the vet, we had brooms at the ready to separate if necessary – it was the most frightening experience and when the vet arrived she flew at the door knocking the foal to the floor. Not surprisingly he wasn’t keen on going in and the foal still hadn’t suckled. With reserved agreement and a slightly calmer Kilbricken, we left them alone till the morning, we returned at 8am fortunately to the sight of a calm horse and suckling foal – I cautiously got in the stable and put a headcollar on Kilbricken so that the vet could check them both.

Kilbricken defined new levels of foal proudness and again apart from me she would fly at anyone coming close – which is an odd compliment for a horse that treats me like a servant!

The photo you can see is proud mum the next day and after some coaxing to get her out of the stable – she was proud, she was protective and my foal was a dream.

Of course now my foal had arrived, I began a whole new level of paranoid thoughts and outpourings to my boyfriend, but as least Bailey was healthy, lively and friendly. Kilbricken? Well she remained affectionate and foal proud for 6 weeks and now she’s her old belligerent self – bless her.

Bailey is now 5 months old, and those 5 months have been a whole new learning curve of bruises, laughter and joy but I’ll have to leave those experiences for my next article. All I can say is that Bailey has his own level of character when it comes to a headcollar going on, lead rope training, trailer loading for futurity, playfulness! Oh and did I say he is huge, just huge…….