Jo McKinnon Column

‘Tis the foaling season

Observing plump, healthy thoroughbred broodmares in the paddock is mesmerising. They carry so much hope in their bellies.

Will it be a colt or a filly? Could it be the nation’s next champion racehorse?

Finally, after 11 wondrous months, a foal is born and the breeder’s dreams become a reality, with the young horse taking its first tentative steps in a long and challenging journey to the racetrack.

A world-renowned reproductive veterinarian, Dr David Pascoe, who owns and runs the Oakey Veterinary Hospital on Queensland’s Darling Downs as well as nearby Plaintree Farms with his wife Heather, has overseen countless foalings.

And, after 44 years in the business, he still gets that magical feeling when a thoroughbred foal first hits the ground.

“I get a huge thrill out of just watching the whole process naturally when you can see everything is correct and going and you watch the foal slide out.

“It might have its back legs still inside but it sits up and whinnies and says ‘hello world I’m here’ and then to watch the mother turn around and acknowledge and say, ‘yep you’re mine’, it’s amazing to sit back and just watch the beauty of nature,” said Pascoe.

Occasionally, in the quiet still of night, he’s witnessed some incredible sights.

“Some foals are up and about quickly on their feet. Our record is seven minutes and straight away you think to yourself that the foal has everything going for it to make a racehorse because it’s up and at it and within ten minutes trying to canter around the foaling yard. You think, ‘wow, that’s pretty amazing’.

“But there aren’t very many that do that but the ones that do can generally race. Their intelligence and athleticism is there in one little package straight away and then you see some that flop around for 45 mins and say, ‘I don’t know how to do this’.”

During the past week, many Australian stud farms have been sharing imagery of first-born foals on their social media feeds and, just like proud parents, these babies are the apple of their eye.

All legs, and so fresh and innocent, so much lies ahead before they prove themselves as an equine athlete. But, according to Pascoe, an astute judge of horseflesh can tell pretty early whether or not a foal has the physical and mental attributes to make it.

“We basically work on a principle of three weeks, three months and three years. What they look like in those early stages is how they will probably look later,” he said.

“Many yearlings and two-year-olds look gorky and gangly and not what I saw as a foal but it means that you just have to give them extra time and they will come back to that.

“It’s one of those things that you learn over time with knowledge.”

The next crucial part of the whole process is how they are nurtured. Not only by their mothers, but eventually humans. 

You just need to take one look at the way Pascoe’s hand gently and instinctively guides a young foal to see that, after a lifetime spent with horses, this comes naturally to him.

“It’s all about whether the foal trusts the people around it. If people are kind and gentle to them they will see people as a friend and not an enemy. All our own foals when they are weaned would camp in your pocket if they could. 

“We want to become their friends and become just another horse in their tribe. It’s important to establish those relationships with them and we do that right from the start when they are born,” he said.

The art of observation is also key. 

“The thing that is important with the newborns is to watch them all the time. If you can keep on top of any illness within one hour or less of it starting then you have a great chance of saving them. People that have stockmanship can do that. 

“To me, on a big farm it’s the people feeding them who are your front eyes of the whole operation and if they are observant they will pick up those things straight away. They are your first line of defence.”

He says watching the foals closely as they get older and more active in the paddock also offers plenty of clues as to what the future might look like.

“From a young age you can see if they want to be alpha horses. We watch our weanlings and who wins the drag races and who doesn’t. We recognise characteristics in them. 

“One of our fillies used to drag race with the colts and they would bash each other all the way and that’s the sort of confidence they need. 

“She ended up winning a black-type race and won it coming through a narrow gap on the rail and the caller said you don’t often see a filly take a gap like that and go hard. 

“Until we split the colts and fillies she always dominated.”

Nutrition is also paramount to development and, with the drought now having well and truly broken across Australia, this year’s foal crop is set to thrive in a lush natural environment. 

“It should set it up pretty well because one of the things you get with green grass is you get plenty of soluble vitamin K in the grass and if they are eating a lot of pasture then your bone density should be good, whereas in a drought it’s not.”

Ultimately, nature will take its course and genetics, along with the quality of the season and human hands in which a young thoroughbred lands, will go a long way to defining its future on the racetrack.

Win, lose or draw, from the emotion-charged moment a gangly bundle of horse arrives it brings immense joy and hope to everyone from the bleary-eyed person who’s been up all night on foal watch duty, through to the breeder and owner. 

The possibilities are endless and exciting. 

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