Absolutely Fabulous Foals

Dave and I took the boys to Asheville for the weekend as we do every fall, so I had to miss yet another day with Skye this week.  I did want to see her today though, even though I did not really have time. When I got to the barn, for the very first time since I have kept Skye at the barn, it looked like there was no one there. Then I parked and saw that there were three people and two horses, none of whom I recognized, up near the barn. Because people come out at all times of the day, I'm kind of used to meeting new people out there, but the two horses were so spectacular that I knew they were from somewhere else as I would have been fawning over them before this. And since I am drawn to spectacular horses (and also not-so-spectactular horses), I hustled right over to meet them.

It turns out that the folks were three women from the donkey farm that abuts the barn land. Erin had told them they could come over to expose them to the new environment. The women had adopted foals from a local place that adopts out nurse mare foals and foals produced from the demand for pregnant mare urine by the pharmaceutical industry. Nurse mare foals are foals who are taken from their mother so that the mother can nurse another, more expensive foal. The foals from pharmaceutical industry are usually destined for slaughter. I don't know much about this problem, but what I know appalls and saddens me. So meeting these nice people and seeing these gorgeous and obviously much loved horses is just great.

Here is Chance:

Chance, a two year old rescued as a foal from the pharmaceutical industry

I know. Gorgeous doesn't quite do it, does it? He's a Belgian draft cross. They usually don't know the exact lineage because the goal is to get the mare pregnant with no regard for the resulting foal. My guess is whatever was mixed with Belgian was something incredible, because I'm telling you this horse is impressive. He is just two years old, and they are starting his under saddle training, and brought him over to the barn to let him see a different place.  He was a little antsy, very alert and looking around, but while he needed to be watched, he was very polite to the woman handling him even when he was a little distraught when his buddy was led away to explore the barn.

Here is his buddy, Blaze:

Blaze, a gorgeous gray something also rescued as a foal

Equally impressive. They didn't have any idea what this boy was made of, but like Chance, he was something special. A really beautiful color and a nice calm disposition. Very self-possessed 2 year old. This horse had such an intelligent expression, and seemed very connected to people intellectually. (If you can use intellectually with a two year old horse. Which you obviously can, since I just did. So there.) Anyway, the woman I spoke to the most was so very nice and so excited about having these horses. Of course, I knew that anyone responsible for saving the dinkies  and Mistletoe had to be okay in my book.

I did end up bringing Skye in for grooming and a brief bit of listening practice in the round pen. She only came a few steps (about 10 feet) toward me today, which bummed me out a little, but she was a good girl in the round pen, and sweet to me while she was being groomed. She walked away from me pretty quickly too. Hopefully next week I'll have more time to get on her back again. She is still limping a little, but I've been told to expect a little of that.

On the other hand, my gray paint sweetheart didn't want me to leave.

He makes it pretty hard to drive away.