That large hole…………

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If you’re a horse person, or a horse parent, or a horse spouse, you probably know exactly what I’m referring to………the hole…………

You know.

That big hole in the ground horses that we throw money into…… every extra dollar….

And some that aren’t extra.

So here’s a truly Bad Eventer style story about that…………………

hole in the ground that I love to throw money into.

I had a lovely, sound, pretty, well bred mare…………

who would rather do pretty much anything besides be an event horse.

After finally giving up on eventing her, I decided to breed her to a top stallion and start with a fresh mind. I thought if I could get that kind of athletic ability, soundness and movement with a little more trainability……… I could breed a Rolex winner…………..

Yes, I see pink unicorns on a regular basis too………
But…….can you hear it???

That noise………….. is that hole in the ground getting bigger……………

So I purchased a breeding to a super nice stallion.

And right before we bred her, she got sick.

Very sick.

Let’s just say I could have bought an awefully nice horse……………………

………something that had done Burghley probably for what I spent saving her.

But that’s what you do, when you’re a vet………………

You try everything………………………

Even the magic wand (one of my Doctors bought this for me – Don’t Ask)

So here I am last year………….my lovely mare lived, she’s happy……..but now I can’t breed her and I still have this breeding…………………….

Do you hear it?? (The hole is definitely getting bigger……….)

Any sane person with a calculator would have moved on with their lives at this point and chalked it all up to bad luck…………….

FOR THE RECORD:

Eventers

Are Not

Sane People

So I bought another mare.

A Super Star no less.

Did you hear it??

This is when the story becomes even more absurd, and if I actually gave you ALL the details you would say I was making it up.

Here’s the shortened version.

I had a nice mare I decided to breed, she got sick and couldn’t be bred, but by then I’d already paid for the breeding, so rather than lose the breeding, I bought another mare. It had to be a nice mare of course, so it cost a bit of money. I get this nice mare and I have her checked out to make sure she’s in great shape to breed, when she is checked out they missed a 45 day pregnancy……….

Yeah, you caught that part didn’t you??

So I ship the nice mare off to the breeding farm, and they learn fairly quickly that there had been a 45 day pregnancy in there, that someone, well…. messed up. This mess had to be treated and now the mare can’t be bred anytime soon, but they decided to try, seeing that this is the second mare for this breeding and you can aways hope for a miracle.

Did you hear it???

Without giving you a full equine repro lesson the short version is….. if a horse loses a pregnancy after 30 days they usually can’t be bred again for over 100 days. 100 days is a long time………………

So mare number 2 is now not breedable, and I still have the breeding. The repro farm gives up on breeding mare #2 and ships her home, where she promptly tries to get everything on my property to breed her.

Surprise!

In spite of all the bumps in the road, all the stars align at that point…… I call the stallion owner who drives 100mph to FedEx to get the semen to me on time, we get it in the mare, and 20 days later when I take her in, shazam, Pregnant!!

BUT!!!

Yeah, this is Bad Eventer…………………..

you knew there was a hitch right?

Twins

For any that are unaware, twins in horses does not usually end up like the lovely photo above. Most mares with twins abort them late in gestation and it’s not unusual to lose Mom and both babies.

Having Twins was bad.

I couldn’t believe it. We’d come so far, and now we had twins.

After much fretting, once again the stars aligned and she absorbed one of them on her own and now I FINALLY had a mare safely in foal, and the year long wait began…….

But now, the wait is over.

She had a beautiful, and I mean beautiful foal. It was all worth it…………….

For a few days anyway…………..

Foals are precious delicate little things and 5 days later  (after much heroics) he passed away from a terrible illness.

Did you hear that hole getting bigger??

All that super human effort, by so many people, and in the end, no foal.

And once again…………..

any sane person would give up…………

But eventers are

not

sane

people………………

So I’m trying again……………

Bad Eventer just can’t seem to stay out of trouble…………..and that hole just keeps getting bigger…………………..

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