Horse emergencies come in all sizes and shapes.

This weekend Bad Eventer had a bit of an unusual emergency………………

The Princess has a date this year with her own personal Prince Charming.

Mind you “he” will come in a large expensive thermos, and there won’t even be dinner first……… but we’ll call it a “date” anyway.

However……….

Over the winter her tummy area seemed to be getting bigger……

and bigger……

I was getting a bit worried that the date with Prince Charming had been……

replaced by……..

Prince Mini…………

or

possibly even Prince Donkey……….

Us eventer-types don’t typically import mares from Ireland………… to breed them to minis………………. 

My worry was growing………

and breeding season is upon us, so I decided to have her checked to make sure that all was in order.

The only available appointment was very late in the day…. and while I was waiting for the words “When did you breed her?”

I hear these fateful words instead.
How soon can you get semen???

WHAT?!!

Let’s talk about the LAST time this happened.

I was breeding a super fancy mare that every single thing that could go wrong….. did.

We had actually given up on breeding her that year because she wasn’t cycling. I brought her home defeated…….. and the next day she was teasing to everything on the property.

The breeding farm just couldn’t believe the timing…..they’d been checking her for WEEKS!!

This….. is…. Bad Eventer’s kind of luck.

I decided to have her checked JUST IN CASE, and when I arrived in the late afternoon at the vet, they stuck an arm in and said these fateful words, “How soon can you get semen here?”

I remember the conversation like it was yesterday…… I called the stallion owner.

Bad Eventer: Any chance I can get semen tomorrow?

Stallion Owner: Are you CRAZY? I’m in CAAAA…NAAAA….DAAA. There’s this whole customs / border / issue.

Bad Eventer: OK, it was worth a phone call, the vet says it won’t last after tomorrow.

Stallion Owner: Well….. we had such a good collection this morning I do have an extra dose left over, but it’s just one dose……

Repro Vet: We only NEED one dose.

Stallion Owner: <screaming now> OH MY GOD IT’S 4 O CLOCK, GIVE ME THE ADDRESS IT’S AN HOUR DRIVE TO THE CUSTOMS AGENCY!!!!!!!! THEY CLOSE AT 5!!!!! GIVE …..ME……THE…….ADDRESS!!!!!!!

An hour later, semen had cleared customs and was on its way…..

It was miraculous.

The MOST interesting part of the story is my 14 yr old niece had just flown in to visit for 2 weeks.

She’s rather…….um…… sheltered………… (well…at least she was….)

And the first 24 hours of her visit I was completely obsessed with, “Where is the semen? Is the semen here yet? Did the mare ovulate? Is it going to be here in time?”

On day # one, I got the question, “What’s semen? What’s ovulation?…… Well then…..how do they GET the semen?”

I’m a veterinarian….. I’m incredibly qualified to answer these questions.

All I could think of was “her parents are going to kill me”…….. as I explained all those

A-TION words.

You know the ones I’m talking about.

Here I was again hearing those same fateful words.

How quickly can you get semen???

A phone call verified there was no fresh semen that could be here in time, but……frozen semen is stored at a farm just down the road.

The QUEST to get the frozen semen began. We had 24 hours. No problem.

I’m sure that my activities for the last 24 hours could be considered harassment.

We called (every 20 to 30 minutes) they don’t have voice mail.

We TEXTED.

We FAXED.

We EMAILED.

It’s frozen semen. It’s in a tank. Someone just had to pull the right straws out for us.

It seemed pretty simple to me….. and the repro vet…..

But after 30 phone calls, 4 text messages, 2 faxes and 2 emails, our

WINDOW OF OPPORTUNITY…….

expired.

The Semen Emergency ended in a total fail.

What will BAD EVENTER come up with next??