Saturday 22nd September was a very busy day for me with the arrival of not one, but two foals. I had been keeping a close watch on both the mares for several weeks. At 4am on Saturday morning I was woken by the sound of Josie’s horse, Doc, neighing. Thinking one of the mares might be foaling, I quickly dressed and went outside in the dark to investigate. It was hard to see but I didn’t take a torch as I didn’t want to disturb them if they happened to be foaling. Most mares deliberately wait to foal in darkness so that they can be assured of some privacy.
Both mares had taken to standing in the corners of their paddocks, facing each other across the laneway for company, but Bickham wasn’t in her usual place. I was giving Jess (Summer Eclipse), a scratch and a pat when through the darkness I heard a special little nicker from Bickham. I recognised it straight away as the nicker that she reserves for her foals. I have never heard her use it at any other time but for a foal. I ran back to the house to get a torch and sure enough, running beside Bickham, coat shining bright and creamy in the torchbeam, was a rather large palomino foal. I went back inside to wake Josie and together we admired the foal for a while. In the dark I couldn’t tell if it was a colt or a filly but we soon established in the daylight that she was a filly. We have called her Cadence, after Erica’s dressage horse from the Riding High books.

Then, at 5.30 that same afternoon, I saw Jess lying down in the paddock and raced over to see her foaling. This time it was in daylight. It all happened quite quickly. We have named Jess’s little chestnut colt Jaspar, which means special. He is very special because Jess had already lost two foals, born much too early to survive, before we finally had some luck with this one.