Nicole Schnell

Hey guys!  I've added pictures on webshots from the High Hope Steeplechase out at the horse park last weekend.  The event was a lot of fun, I've never been to a steeplechase before so it was fun to get to watch.  It's a lot different than regular horse racing, those horses definitely have some stamina to be able to race around that course 2 or 3 times and over all those jumps.  KEMI got to help volunteer at the event so we went out earlier in the week and helped set up some of the jumps and clean up the course.  Then on steeplechase day I ended up helping out at the children's activities area.  The steeplechase is a pretty big event here every year.  There were, I think, about 7 total races throughout the day, and there were also terrier races going on in between the horse races.  Aside from the races, there were vendors selling all sorts of things from Derby hats and jewelry to food and drinks.  There were a lot of people there, and guest celebrity jockey, Gary Stevens, actually did the announcing during the races.  It was a lot of fun.  I even got a short video clip of one of the races, so check that out too if you get a chance!

We've had an exciting past couple of weeks out at the farm.  We've had two difficult foalings recently.  With one, the foal had become hip locked in the mare, and it took our managers quite a while to get her out far enough for her to be able to expand her lungs and breathe.  Once she was completely free from the birth canal, she had a heart beat, but wasn't breathing.  We had to hook her up to the oxygen tank, and when that wasn't working, our manager had to give her mouth to nose.  She did start breathing on her own, and we took her over to Rood and Riddle to be treated and taken care of.  I rode with her in the back of the car to the clinic, and she was already trying to get up on the way there.  It was fun avoiding the flying hooves and keeping her quite on the way there.  Her burst of energy was reassuring since we were concerned about hypoxia issues since it took her so long to start breathing.  This happened Thursday night last week, and the mare and foal both came back to the farm Monday and seem to be doing very well.  The foal is being treated for possible brain swelling due to the lack of oxygen, but so far she's acting like a normal foal and gets to go out and plays and runs around like all the others do. 

Our other dystocia was Saturday, Derby Day, so I didn't get to the farm to see it, but what happened was pretty interesting from what I have heard.  During the delivery, the foal must have torn a hole in the mare's reproductive tract, possibly with its hoof, and the mare's intestines had actually started coming out of her vulva once the foal had been delivered!  Our vet came out and cleaned her up and sutured her vulva closed, and she was sent to the clinic where they performed surgery to repair the tare.  Our manager was telling me there usually is a very high chance of infection after such complications, but last I had heard, she was doing really well, and might be returning to the farm in the next couple of days!

On a happier note, I was able to help with one of our more normal foalings last week.  I had gone out to the farm one evening to help turn out the mares and foals, and we had a mare decide to foal, and I got to help with everything.  The mare didn't have very good colostrum, so we had to thaw some and bottle feed the foal at first.  All of our sick babies are all doing really well.  The couple rhodacoccus cases we've had seem to be clearing up really well, and it looks like everyone is getting better, which I'm really glad about.  It's never any fun seeing the babies sick, they just look miserable.

Aside from most of the normal farm activities, things have just been staying busy.  We only have 5 mares left to foal.  The last one isn?t due until the end of the month, so I?m hoping she foals before I have to leave.  We only have 4 more weeks left here as part of the internship, and I can?t believe it has flown by as fast as it has!  I?m definitely going to miss everything when I have to head back home.  

Until next time, be sure to check out the new pictures added!

Hey guys - Added my pictures from the Derby yesterday, check them out!  They're in the April/May folder.

Yesterday was a whole lot of fun!  It's definitely as crazy as it looks on tv, there were people EVERYWHERE!  I got to Churchill after 10, the first races started around 11, so I got to watch quite a few of the afternoon races.  I got a short video of one of the turf races that was run during the day.  It's really short, but it's a clip of the horses breaking from the gate and starting to run.  We attempted to go by the saddling paddock and see a few of the horses during prep from some of the afternoon races, but it was nuts!  There was a wall probably 5 people deep to the fence, so I couldn't even see into the paddock.  We got over there just in time though to run into the jockeys who were coming out of the jockey room and headed over to the paddocks.  So I caught a glimpse of a few of them as they rushed by and into the crowd, that was pretty exciting!

Our seats were pretty good.  We were in the grandstand bleachers right up from the starting gate for the actual Derby.  So we got to see the horses load into the gate and break, and then we saw them as they came around the final turn into the stretch, so that was really exciting.  You couldn't hear the announcer over the screaming, everybody was definitely getting into it!  And, yes it is true, everyone wears hats!  And they wear some pretty crazy ones too!  It was fun to see all the different outfits.  I actually saw this really tall guy dressed in jockey silks which was pretty silly looking.  But it was a really fun day!  I'm definitely glad we got the opportunity to go and experience the Derby.  I didn't win any money, but that's alright, I didn't lose too much either.  I'm kinda a wimp when it comes to betting, I don't like the idea of losing money, so I don't tend to bet too much. 

There's been a lot of stuff going on at the farm this past week.  I'll make another post soon and get you all caught up, but I just wanted to let you know I had Derby pics added.  We've got less than 10 mare's left to foal, so things are starting to slow down some, but there's still been a lot going on.  Enjoy the Derby pics!  I'll make another post in the next couple days!

Hello, hello...sorry for the delay in the post.  I've added new pictures on webshots for you guys to check out.  Only a little over 6 weeks left of the internship, and I'm getting a little sad it's all coming to close to being over.  Just to catch you up with what I've been up to the past few weeks...

Keeneland has been going on, and I've been able to get up there to watch the races a couple of different times.  I was able to make it up to see the big Blue Grass Stakes race.  I actually was able to fight the crowd and get a spot right on the rail to watch the race, so that was really exciting.  It was a really good race, 4 horses finished pretty close including a few of the top Derby contenders.  It was pretty exciting to get to see those guys close up.  I also watched a horse that was born on our farm that raced that day.  Midnight Lute, his dam is actually still a broodmare on our farm.  I gave her a pat for good luck that day, but Midnight Lute didn't live up to his favoring odds.  He finished 4th in his race that day.  I've got a few pictures posted of him as well.  Last Thursday we spent the whole day out at Keeneland as class time.  We met with a bunch of different people that day, trainers, jockeys, exercise riders, media personnel, and sales managers.  We toured the entire facility and got to stay to watch the races that day.  That was a lot of fun.  I even saw Gary Stevens hanging out around the track that morning while we were watching some of the horses work out.  He's the jockey who plays in the movie Seabiscuit. 

Back at the farm we've had a lot going on over the past few weeks.  We've started leaving the older mares and foals out at nights now.  The foals seem to be enjoying all the freedom, but they don't object too much to coming in in the mornings to eat.  We've had a couple of sick babies in the past couple weeks.  We have 2 foals we're currently treating for rhodacoccus, and we've got another couple who have had temperatures that we're monitoring.  A lot of breeding shed trips and grooming and pulling manes for shed runs.  I actually got to go on a run Sunday night to Darley, which was really exciting.  Darley is gorgeous!  It was later in the evening so all the stallions were up and in the barn and I got to walk around and see all the big guys like Bernardini, Holy Bull, Elusive Quality, Cherokee Run, and Street Cry.  Our mare was being bred to Henny Hughes who actually was bred by our farm.  His dam Meadow Flyer is still a broodmare on our farm.  Henny was a top sprinter and won quite a few races, so his momma's pretty valuable. 

We've had another wave of foals come.  They all seem to be doing really well, we had to give plasma to one who's IgG levels were a little low, but he's doing really well now.  We did lose another baby last weekend, and we lost the broodmare also.  It was a pretty bad dystocia from what I heard.  They couldn't get the baby out, and ended up having to euthanize both mare and foal.  That was sad.  It's really no fun when you lose one or the other, and it's definitely sad when you can't save either one.  I made it out to see part of a foaling last night.  The mare already had the baby halfway out by the time I got to the farm, but it was still fun to get to help out at the end.

I spent the day yesterday riding with our farm's vet.  That was a lot of fun.  It was cool to get to see what he does all day, and all the different farms that he visits.  He stays pretty busy during the breeding season.  At all the farms there were a lot of mares to palp and scan and it was fun getting to watch for the day. 

Derby is a week from Saturday!  We got our tickets at class Tuesday night, so I'm getting pretty excited about it!  It should be a lot of fun.  Again, I apologize for the delay in posting.  As things start to wrap up it?s getting even busier.  We?ve got presentations at the end of May that we?ve started working on, and our portfolios due about the same time, so besides working a lot, there?s been quite a bit of school work to keep up with too lately.  Take a peek at the new pictures.  I?ll post again soon.   

Few New Pics

Hey guys!  I've uploaded a few new pictures for you to see, it's finally green here and the farm looks so pretty!  Things are staying busy, we haven't had another explosion of foalings and the nights have been pretty quiet, but it's still yet to come.  We had a 24 year old mare foal out Saturday night, and unfortunately we lost her the next morning.  The foaling had gone well, but being as old as she was it seemed her body just couldn?t handle the stress and we suspect she might have hemorrhaged.  It all happened pretty suddenly, so thankfully she wasn?t in a lot of pain.  She seemed fine that morning, then right before lunch our manager checked in on her and she didn?t seem to be doing well, she died just shortly after that so there was no time to have anyone come out to check her.  The foal is doing really well though.  He?s a little guy, and he has a new adopted nurse mare mommy he seems to have become quite attached to.  He?s a very cute baby, and he?s pretty sweet, at least for now!

So we?ve had some pretty strange weather the past week.  It?s been back in the 20?s over night and in the mornings and on Friday it actually snowed here!!!  Yes, snowed, and it stuck to the ground!  I thought the saying was ?April showers? not ?April SNOW showers!?  But thankfully it?s supposed to warm back up for us the rest of the week which should be nice.  Our group of older foals and mares are getting ready to be left out over night soon if it will get warm and stay warm for them.  I can?t believe how fast they are growing.  The newborns look so tiny now, and the older ones are as tall as me if they stand with their ears pricked up!  Time really is flying! 

Last night we got to volunteer at the charity team penning event out at the horse park.  One of my managers road in the event, so it was fun to get to watch her and cheer her on.  Each team of two was given a jockey to pen with, so it was pretty funny watching these guys trying to herd cattle when you?re used to seeing them race lightening fast horses.  I also got to meet Robbie Albarado the jockey!  He?s riding Curlin this weekend in the Arkansas Derby, one of the Kentucky Derby prep races.  Another big race, the Blue Grass Stakes is this weekend up at Keeneland, so hopefully I?ll be able to get up there and see that.  Tonight is the Thoroughbred Farm Manager?s meeting, Todd Pletcher, the trainer who has several horses vying for the Derby is going to be speaking tonight, so that should be pretty cool.  I feel like I keep meeting all these local celebrities, it?s so cool!  And I?m learning a lot more about racing which has been fun.  I?ll post again soon!  Enjoy the new pics!

We had a pretty eventful night this past Monday I thought you guys might enjoy hearing about.  We had a mare that experienced a severe dystocia and we had to take her to Hagyard's to be worked on.  I got called out to the farm a little before 7 Monday night because one of our mare's was foaling, I was pretty excited when I got there because she only had a little of the front feet out so I was going to get to see the whole thing.  Well, the feet looked upside down, so our managers had checked the position of the foal and couldn't feel the head, they suspected it might be coming out backwards at first, and then determined the head was turned backwards towards its rear.  For the safety of the mare and the foal they decided to hook up the trailer and we'd take them to Hagyards.  This particular mare is a wobbler, she has pretty bad neurological issues so that was also a concern.  I got to go to Hagyards with my manager and the mare, and I saw the entire thing!  We got her there and unloaded her and she was taken into one of the exam rooms.  The veterinarian decided to put her under anesthesia that way he could work on her more easily because at this point she was having a really hard time standing and staying balanced.  They put her under and laid her down on her back with both her hind legs held up and the doctor got to work feeling inside for the positioning of the foal.  It took him quite awhile feeling around and moving things to get the head free and facing the correct direction.  Once he had gotten the foal's positioning right he started pulling the baby out, and I mean he was pulling hard!  They ended up using the chains on the baby's legs, and there were 4 grown men pulling the baby trying to get it free, but he wasn't budging too much.  At this point the baby had a heartbeat, and I even remember seeing it flare it's nostrils a couple of times, but the situation didn?t' look good.  One of his forelegs was bent at the knee in the wrong direction, which was suspected as a developmental issue, and it almost looked like there was a hock in the place of the knee.  The leg was so badly deformed there was really no hope for the foal, and the vet was still unable to get him free from the mare completely so the decision was made to euthanize the foal and cut him to remove him and save the mare.

            At this point it definitely got a lot more graphic.  The doctor placed the cutting wire into the mare and around the portion of the foal that was hung.  He had said one of the back legs had become hooked under the mare?s pelvic bone and this was the reason the foal couldn?t get out.  From here they proceeded to cut the foal, and remove all but the hind leg that was hung up.  (Sorry no pictures from this event, it really was like a scene from a horror movie at this point).  Once the majority of the foal was removed, the doctor went back in and freed the remaining hind leg.  The stifles of the foal were contracted, and this is what had caused it to get hung up and stuck inside the mare. 

            After the foal was completely removed the mare was placed in a sling for safety as she began to wake up.  There was a bit of concern regarding how she would recover from the anesthesia since she does have neurological issues, which is why she was placed in a sling.  We left the hospital before she woke up from anesthesia, but the doctor had called my farm manager over night when she did wake up and let him know she was doing ok.  She was taken out of the sling and turned out in a paddock and seemed to be doing well, so we got to bring her back to the farm yesterday afternoon where we turn her out in a small paddock with one of the maiden mares in the afternoons.  It was definitely an experience I was glad I got to be a part of, but everything about the situation was just so sad!  At least we still have the mare, and she is doing well, but it?s so sad that there was just no hope for the foal.  It was something I?m glad I got to see, but I sure hope we don?t have to worry with anything that terrible again. 

It has been a busy past couple of weeks!  Breeding & foaling season is definitely in full swing!  There are babies running around everywhere, and we've been busy checking mares in the mornings, grooming them, and sending them to the breeding sheds.  I've been on two more shed runs, once back to Stonewall and then one trip to Ashford.  Last Thursday night we had 5 mares foal!  That was really exciting!  We were getting a little behind as far as due dates, but one busy night caught us right back up.  Most of the new foals have been fine, we had one get a little sick early this past week, but she's doing fine now.  One of our older foals, who was born with a slightly crooked front leg had surgery recently.  She had a transphyseal screw put in her knee to help the joint grow straight as she gets bigger.  What happens is, the screws are put in on the side you want the joint to grow away from, and this encourages the bones to grow straight and align properly as the bone matures.  She is still on restricted turn out, but she?s been doing great post-surgery, and is still just as full of energy as she was before.  I feel so bad for her because she gets turned out in a little pen and everyday she starts bucking and cutting up, you can tell she just wants to go run around and play like all the other babies.

We've been doing a lot of really cool vet work in the mornings.  We've been ultra sounding our mares that have been sent to the shed and most of our barren mares are in foal.  On some of the older embryos you can actually see the heart beat on the screen!  That's really cool.  Our vet is pretty awesome; he's been letting me do a lot in the mornings when he comes out.  I've gotten to draw blood and give some of the injections.  He also let me cut open a few of the mare's caslicks!  That was really awesome!  Just today we had a different doctor come out and look at one of our older foals who's had a swollen hock.  X-rays of the joint hadn't shown anything abnormal, so this doctor actually ended up ultra sounding her lungs, and suspects she might have rhodacoccus.  One of the side effects associated with rhodacoccus can be swollen joints that don't really cause lameness, but swell up really bad in response to the disease.  To help further diagnose, today the vet performed a trachea flush where he put fluid into her lungs and then drew it back out so a culture could be done to see if any bacteria was present.  Then, he had to put the foal under anesthesia, and he flushed out the swollen hock joint.  This will get tested as well to help diagnose the exact problem.  But those were both really cool procedures to get to help with and watch. 

Our manager gave me a copy of the teasing chart they use for 4 of the mares on the farm, so I get to keep up with that throughout the rest of the time I'm here.  It has been cool to get to see how they mark everything down and how to decide when a mare needs to be palped, and how to get them to cycle if they're not, or even just looking at how each mare's cycle can be very different.  One of the topic choices for our next paper is actually about how to manage a teasing chart, so being able to do it on my own farm has been really helpful in class work assignments as well. 

This past Tuesday's class was back at Rood and Riddle.  We all had to bring in a placenta from our farms to dissect.  I think we ended up with about 8 different placentas so we laid them all out and talked about differences in each one, which ones looked normal, which ones didn't.  We also learned all about the different parts and the functions of the placenta.  This was one of my favorite classes we've had.  It was really interesting to learn about what you should be concerned with when looking at a placenta after a foaling and what may look weird, but is completely normal.  Class this coming up week is out at the Thoroughbred Training Center.

Last Wednesday on my day off I went out to KESMARC to shadow for the day.  That was really exciting.  Not only did I get to see all the different therapy methods in action and learn a lot about rehabilitation, but I also got to meet a local celebrity.  Jean Cruguet, Seattle Slew's jockey actually stopped by that afternoon and I got to meet him!  It was cool to get to meet him and talk to him for a little bit.  He actually still exercises horses some mornings out at the race track!  I've added a picture I took with him on the picture page.  He's a short little guy, but I guess they all are.  Anyway - at KESMARC I got to see them do all the morning treatments they have to do before the horses get to work out.  I watched them run the hyperbaric oxygen chamber on a dummy foal that came in that day.  I got to observe an equine physical therapist do laser treatment on one of the horses.  And I also got to go around with an internal medicine specialist who came in for the day to scope several of the horses for respiratory problems.  It was fun to observe the scopes; he passed the scope around and let everyone helping look and then he'd explain what was going on with each of the horses and what he suspected it might be.

I think that about catches you up.  Of course in-between all the excitement there has been a lot of the normal everyday chores;  dipping navels and giving enemas to foals, grooming mares, pulling manes, cleaning stalls, moving horses around to make room for all the new babies, and so on.  But the weather is getting so nice here!  It has been in the 70?s for over a week now, which has been really nice!  Not so great in the afternoons when the horses would rather stay out in the sun than come in when they?re supposed to, but it is definitely nicer than 20?s and snowing.  I?ve added a few new pictures, not too many though.  Racing starts at Keeneland next week!  Anyone keeping up with the Derby prospects?  It?s just over a month away; Derby is starting to become big talk around here, which is really exciting!  I?ll keep you guys posted, and I?ll post again hopefully sooner next time! 

Hey ya'll!  Sorry it has been awhile.  Not too many new pictures added, I'll start working on that for you though.  It's been really busy up here lately; we?ve started work now at 6:30 in the mornings to make sure we?ve got time to get everything done during the day.  It certainly makes for an early morning, but there?s always lots of stuff going on!  Lots of foals on the ground, and we've been moving horses around from barn to barn to make room for everybody.  I got to go through the yearlings with our farm manager and check over their Jockey Club registration papers.  It was interesting to learn how they classify different markings and describe them in writing.  Our vet comes out everyday, and the number of mares we have to check keeps growing.  He?s been palping a lot of our mares so we can make sure they?re timed right for a trip to the shed, and we?ve been ultra sounding some that we?ve already sent and have confirmed quite a few more in foal!  We've also been sending a lot of mares to the breeding shed, so there?s been a lot of grooming and pulling manes going on.  I actually got to go to Stonewall Farm today with two of our mares who were being bred to two different stallions who stand there. 

We had class this past Tuesday out at our farm.  That was pretty exciting.  We looked at a few different foals and talked about conformation and what to look for when they are that young that looks good vs. what could possibly pose a problem in the future.  Last Tuesday night was the monthly Thoroughbred Farm Manager's club meeting.  They had two speakers who talked about pasture management and weed control on farms.  This week's class, coming up, is about racing partnerships and syndications.  Oh, and for anyone who's interested in racing, the horse, Ketchikan, who came in 2nd in the Louisiana Derby last Saturday is a Trackside horse, or at least his dam is a Trackside horse, she's one of the broodmare's on our farm.  We just might have a Derby horse!!!  So that was really exciting!  I actually went up to Keeneland to watch the race and ended up winning like 2 bucks betting on him!  Keeneland?s racing season starts up at the beginning of April.  I?m pretty excited about that, the race track is right up the road from where I live, so it will be fun to get to go watch some of the races in the afternoons.

Aside from all the excitement on the farm we?ve had quite a bit of class work due here lately.  We turned in our 3^rd research paper last Tuesday, and this coming up week we have to have decided on our group presentation topic and turn in a brief synopsis.  A few weeks before the end of the program we all have to give a presentation, in a group of 3, about a controversial topic in the thoroughbred industry.  So it hasn?t been all play, we?ve been busy doing school stuff too!  I?ll work on getting more pictures up for you guys soon.  Sorry again it has been a while!  I?ll be in touch again soon!     

A lot more baby pictures added!  I got a chance to walk around during lunch one afternoon and get some good shots of the foals out playing in the field.  They love being outside, and they are so much fun to watch trying to play together and get into trouble.  Over the weekend we had one foal escape outside the paddock fence, and we had to catch him and lead him back in before the mare got too freaked out.  My manager and I were out checking fields and noticed something a little out of the ordinary when we saw a big black fence between a mare and foal.  We think the baby must have fallen asleep next to the fence, and in some spots, the fences are actually high enough that the smaller foals can roll over to get up and end up rolling out of the paddocks!  He cooperated pretty well though and let us catch him and take him back to his mom. 

I was called out to a foaling last week one night, and by the time I got to the barn we had two mares both in the process of delivering!  So that was pretty exciting to get to see.  I've added pictures of those new babies also.  One of the mares is on restricted turn out right now, her foal was born with really weak tendons in the back legs so they can't go out in a paddock yet until the foal gets a little stronger and can stand better.  We have to bandage the foal?s legs because her fetlocks hang really close to the ground, and this way she doesn't get any cuts or scratch the ground with her skin.  One of our mares who foaled Monday night is known to give her foals jaundice, so we've had to muzzle the baby and bottle feed him.  This mare is known for causing neonatal isoerythrolysis in her foals (aka jaundice) and what happens is her body makes antibodies against the baby once she becomes pregnant.  The mare's colostrum is full of her antibodies, and the foal is supposed to drink this within the first few hours of birth, but with a jaundice foal, if the baby drinks the colostrum it will cause the red blood cells to break down and the foal can essentially die within 48 hours if not treated.  So, since we know this mare has been known to do this, as soon as any of her foals are born they are monitored and bottle fed colostrum that we have stored at the farm.  They aren?t allowed to nurse her.  We also have to milk out the mare for the first few days to make sure all her colostrum is gone before the baby is allowed to nurse from her.

I also got to go on another breeding shed run Monday.  This time I went to Hill 'n' Dale Farm, but this breeding wasn't too successful.  We teased our mare that morning before we sent her to the shed, but when we got to the farm and she was teased there she didn't break down so the stallion manager wanted her to be jumped before the actual breeding.  When they "jump" a mare it means to get her ready and then let the teaser stallion mount her to make sure she will stand for him.  It's just a precaution for the stallion so if the mare isn't in heat and decided to act bad the million dollar stallion isn't the one getting hurt.  (Poor teaser guys huh?!)  So they tried to jump our mare, and the first time she swished her tail and ran out from under him, so they tried again.  The second time she gave him a good kick in the gut, and when they tried it once more, she bucked up and kicked him with both hind feet!  So needless to say, we didn't get to breed our mare that morning.  We took her back to the farm and had the vet palp her.  She still had a follicle, so she should have been showing heat, but the vet said the structure of her cervix wasn't consistent.  Still being early in the breeding season a lot of mares are still transitioning and it's harder to catch them always on the first time, or make sure that everything is working together.  The natural mating requires a lot of timing between the mare and stallion owners, sometimes it still amazes me that they can time everything just right and are so successful.  We've also started ultra sounding a couple of the mares that were sent to the breeding shed in the previous weeks.  We've got 2 that I know of, confirmed in foal so far, but there are a lot more still to go. 

Last week class was at the Jockey Club office.  We learned all about how to register thoroughbreds and the naming process and rules and restrictions and that sort of thing.  It was pretty interesting to learn about, and I actually got to go through with one of our managers just the other day at our farm and look over the paper work for some of our yearlings that were recently registered and are going to sale in the fall.  Last night was another Thoroughbred Farm Manager's Club meeting.  This week's topic of discussion was pastures and how to get the best quality pasture for horses on the area farms.  I never realized there was so much involved in growing grass! But there is, trust me!  And these guys knew all about it!  It was pretty interesting though.  They talked some about the endophyte infected fescue and how to manage it, and when it's ok and not ok to let mares graze on pastures with this fescue.  So that was neat to learn about.  Next week's class is out at my farm!  I'm pretty excited about that!  We're going to be talking about conformation in foals and limb deformaties that are commonly seen.  

I've loaded most of the new pictures I have.  Keep checking the webshots page, sometimes I get a chance to add photos and don't get the time to write a blog, but I try to at least up date one or the other every few days so I don't leave you guys hanging too long.  Enjoy the pics! I'll post again soon.

This afternoon was very exciting!  We had a mare decide to foal while outside at around 3:00 this afternoon.  My manager and I had noticed her acting a little funny when we were outside checking the fields this afternoon, but we just kept an eye on her on and off and she seemed to be acting fine.  Of course, when we had finished checking the fields and were in one of the barns with the vet this afternoon she decided to have it!  We were probably gone 20-30 minutes and in that time she had had the foal and was already up and licking her clean.  When we had finished up with the vet we were on our way over to feed the teaser stallion and our vet called my manager and told her we had a foal out in the mare's field!  She had seen it as she was leaving the farm.  The foal was already trying to stand, but we had to get her out of the pasture before any of the other mares tried to hurt her.  We had to roll her onto a blanket and carry her out, and she's a big baby, she was heavy!  We got the foal and the mare out and in minutes the foal was up and walking!  It's amazing how much faster they're able to stand up when outside, simply because the footing is so much better than in the stalls.  We got the foal inside, checked the mare's colostrum, dipped the naval, and gave the baby an enema.  The mare and foal are both doing really well.  It was an exciting suprise to the end of the work day though!

Other than that this week has been a lot of work as usual.  We had one of our maiden mares come in really lame one afternoon over the weekend.  She had some blood on the sole of her foot and it looked like she might have punctured it somehow, so we took x-rays and soaked the foot over the weekend.  But she's doing fine, nothing came up on the x-rays, and she seems to be a lot better.  I also made it out to another foaling last Thursday night.  By the time I got to the barn the mare already had 2 feet out.  This one took a little longer than the first one I had seen.  Apparently the baby was coming out upside down at first and so they had to get the mare up and get her to try to readjust the foal.  After that it was a normal foaling.  The mare is older and has had several foals, so she had a good idea of what she was doing.  I think we have something like 20 foals running around now at the farm!  It's so exciting, there's always something happening and the days are always super busy, but I love it!  The weather has been a lot warmer over the past week.  Well, by warmer I mean like high 40's and sun shine!  But it definitely feels a lot nicer than the teens.  I think the snow is over, finally.  I've posted a few of my pictures from last Wednesday at Rood & Riddle.  I'll take my camera with me to work the rest of this week and get some pictures of all the babies out playing in the fields.  They're too cute to watch playing around!  Until next time...

Today was very exciting!  Unfortunately I didn't get to sleep in this week on my day off, but it was definitely worth getting up early and spending the day at Rood & Riddle.  I got to see all kinds of neat stuff.  I got a pretty good overall tour of the entire clinic today I?d say.  I spent a little bit of time at each of the various buildings and specialty areas and got to see a little of what goes on at each of these different places.  I started the morning off in radiology where I got to help take x-rays.  I actually saw the first quarter horse I've seen since I've been here, and he looked so short after being around thoroughbreds all the time!  We also did x-rays on a yearling that had a hole in the bottom of his hoof.  He had originally had an abscess that had gotten really bad and ruptured and a hole had formed all the way up to the bone.  It looked like it hurt pretty bad!  After radiology I got to go into a couple of different surgeries.  One was an arthroscopy, where they use a scope to look into a particular joint by creating only a small incision.  By doing this they can easily detect the source of pressure or pain in a joint or area of the lower leg.  I also got to watch one of the doctors place screws into a horse's knee.  That was really neat, they actually use a drill to put the screws in, and it took no time at all!  After surgery I spent some time down in the podiatry area and watched a couple of horses have some really neat looking shoes put on.  At Rood & Riddle they actually have a whole section dedicated to horse?s feet.  Their equine podiatry specialists are also trained as farriers so they can diagnose and then treat with corrective shoeing methods as necessary.  I also spent some time in the reproduction area where I got to watch a stallion collection, and then went into the lab where the doctor extended the semen and checked its motility and morphology.  They actually have a computer at the clinic that hooks up to their microscope and it will circle and outline dead sperm so that you can get a better picture of what each sample looks like.  That was pretty neat to see, very high-tech!  I also got to watch a scope on a mare that was being checked because she has had trouble in previous years getting pregnant.  The doctor performed the scope to look at the inner lining of the uterus and then she did a uterine lavage to clean out the uterus in hopes of determining the underlying problem to the mare?s infertility.  Later in the afternoon I got to watch a couple of bladder scopes on two different geldings.  They place a scope up the horse?s urethra and are able to drain the bladder while watching from the inside to see what types of debris are present and what the inner lining looks like.  I also saw a doctor perform a spinal tap on a horse that was suspected to have a neurological condition.  Just as the afternoon was winding up an emergency colic was brought in for surgery and I got to go in on that surgery which was so awesome!  The doctor had the horse?s intestines pulled out and he was moving them around trying and feeling down into the horse?s stomach to find the source of the colic.  The horse was a broodmare that had foaled 4 days earlier and it was discovered that her cecum had become displaced or twisted the wrong way.  The mare made it through surgery fine, and it looks like she is going to be okay.

So today was a lot of fun!  I got to see so many different things, which was really exciting.  I got to meet a lot of different types of doctors and ask a lot of questions, so I definitely felt like I learned a lot!  Tomorrow it?s back out to work at the farm!  I?ll post again soon!           

Hello again.  I've added new pictures!  I got to go on a breeding shed run this morning with on of our mares to Overbrook Farm.  The trip was pretty exciting, but I did a lot of looking and watching.  Once you get to the shed, the stallion workers pretty much take over.  We unloaded the mare and handed her over, and they took it from there.  You first have to present all her paper work, and she has to have a form from a vet saying she has been cultured and the results have come back negative.  After that she's put into a stall next door to their teaser stallion that has a window in between.  They allow her to be teased then bring her out and clean her up and take her into the shed.  Once she's in the shed they put booties on her hind feet as a precautionary measure for the stallion, put a twitch on her and lift one of her front legs to help keep her still until the stallion is able to mount.  And from there, they allow him to breed her.  I was pretty lucky this morning, Ashford Stud had a mare being bred before ours and she was being bred to Storm Cat, so I got to watch that breeding as well.  Storm Cat stands for $500,000 - he's a pretty big name horse around here.

Other than that it has pretty much been work as usual.  I've been cleaning a lot of baby butts this week, we have had a couple foals with diarrhea.  We've also been grooming mares that are going to be sent to the breeding shed in the next week and keeping them clean.  It snowed again over the weekend and has been really cold!  But the forecast for the rest of this week is close to 50, which will probably feel like a heat wave!  Last Tuesday night's class was about equine nutrition.  We had a professor from the University of Kentucky come in and talk about feeding horses for maximum efficiency dependent upon whether you were breeding them or using them as a performance horse.  We were given a bunch of feed analysis sheets and had to try to determine what types of hay each one was after we learned a little about the various types of forages used on area farms.  That was pretty cool.  This week's class is at Rood and Riddle Equine Hospital.  We're going to be talking about stallion reproductive anatomy and semen evaluation.  I'm also going to Rood and Riddle on my day off this week to hang out in the neonatal unit!  My farm manager was able to set it up so that I could go and shadow, so that should be fun, I'm really excited!

Hope you guys enjoy all the new pictures!  I'll be in touch again soon!  Pictures

Hey guys!  Sorry it's been awhile, things have been pretty busy here the past week.  We now have close to a dozen foals running around on the farm.  A couple have gone during the early morning, I think one night there were 4 in a row, one right after the other.  Our manager didn't get much sleep that night!  They caught one mare foaling out in the field yesterday, but I didn't get over in time to see, I was working at the main farm that afternoon.  They are all very cute though, and luckily no real complications with any of the mares or foals.  We did have to get a nurse mare for one of the foals, the mare was a maiden and just wasn't producing enough milk.  So we now have one foal who has a big belgian mare as her adopted mommy, they're pretty funny to watch out in the field together, it's an odd couple.  The nurse mare wasn't too accepting at first, but she's coming around, and we can let them out alone now without having to watch and make sure the mare doesn't hurt the baby.  We had 2 mares who seemed a little colicky after delivery, but they've seemed to be doing fine.  We had to tube colostrum to one baby because he hadn't gotten enough from the mare, but he is doing fine now.  We've also been teasing all the barren mares and the vet has been out to do cultures on each of them so they'll be ready to be sent to the breeding sheds when they open this week.

Breeding season officially opens Thursday, the 15th.  But we've got a maiden mare we're sending tomorrow to the breeding shed I believe.  If I get to go, I'll be sure to snap some pictures and post them for you guys.  That should be pretty exciting.  Other than that, it has been a lot of work this past week.  We've been moving a lot of horses around to make room for all the new babies and there's been a lot of walking from barn to barn with mares and foals.  We actually have to lead the mares and foals on our own which was pretty difficult to learn how to do at first.  Once the babies have started wearing a halter, which around here is as soon as 2 days after birth, we start leading them out with the mares by putting a little leather strap though the rings on the halter.  Then with the other hand we lead the mare, the baby in between you and the mare.  It was really hard to get the hang of at first, and some of the foals really don't like to cooperate, but the mares are pretty good about being pulled around and most of the babies get the hang of it after the first few times. 

On Tuesday we went to our first Thoroughbred Farm Manager's Club meeting.  That was pretty exciting.  They have it at the Embassy Suites hotel in Lexington, and it's catered, so we got free dinner which was really good.  The veterinarian who did the talk was a neonatal specialist with a board certification in internal medicine.  She gave a short talk about neonatal foals and some of the common problems farms often face with them this time of the year.  It was really interesting to listen to what she had to say, some of it was stuff I had seen at our farm, like the contracted tendons, and some of it was stuff I might be seeing as more foals come.  Then Thursday night we were back at Embassy Suites for a client seminar put on by Rood & Riddle Equine Hospital.  They had five different veterinarians each do a short talk about different topics of interest.  The topics they covered were:  neurological herpes, dental care, dealing with infertile mares, treadmill endoscopic evaluation, and heel pain/foot care.  This was really interesting.  My favorite was the presentation about endoscopic evaluation using the treadmill.  The presenter had short videos of what the scopes look like of various yearlings when they're on the treadmill, and you could watch their airways as they ran and exercised at various speeds.  That was really interesting to me.  Some of the yearlings they had scoped prior to exercise looked really bad, but once they got on the treadmill, their throats opened up and they performed normally.  It was pretty fascinating to me how effective this type of diagnostic testing is, and how much about a horse's future performance as a racer you can learn from it.  It was also pretty funny watching a video of a horse on a treadmill, who would have thought you could ever do that!

I've added a few new pictures, not very many though, I'm sorry.  Just a few of the new foals and some of the day it snowed here.  I'll try to keep posting on here more often and get some more pictures up.  Thanks for the comments!!!

Hey guys...lots of exciting stuff happening.  We've got two more foals at the farm.  One was born Wednesday morning, she's a big filly and was born with contracted tendons in her front legs.  What this means is that her tendons are tight and sort of scrunched up, so it causes her knees to bow forward and she has to walk around on her toes.  This is something that can often be seen with foals that are really big if they're forced to fit into a small space in the mom.  We're expecting her legs to straighten out soon, it will just take some time and a little bit of treatment.  There's actually an antibiotic that the vet can give where one of the side effects is that it relaxes the tendons.  So she has been started on this and she's already starting to show improvement.  She was having a hard time getting up in the begining, so we had to bottle feed her some and she's had a couple enemas to help her out as well.  One of the things I've already learned about foals is, it only takes one problem, and from that problem there seems to be a domino effect.  Because she wasn't able to get up and walk around on her own, she couldn't nurse, so we had to be sure she was getting all the milk and colostrum she needed.  Also because she wasn't getting up we had to be sure she was using the bathroom enough and didn't develop colic.  But she's doing really well now, and actually made it outside today for the first time for a few minutes! 

The fourth foal came Thursday night about 8:00.  We actually made it out to the farm in time to watch the whole thing which was really exciting!  We got to help position the baby and do a little bit of pulling as the mom gave birth.  That was probably the neatest thing I've ever done!  I felt like a proud mom when everything was done and over with.  I've got a few pictures added from the foaling, my manager took some of us during the delivery so I'll get those from him and post them as soon as I can.  This foal's a colt, the mare is actually 21 years old!  So it was really lucky everything went so well.

Other than that, it snowed here yesterday about 3 inches.  Today was 12 degrees when I got up to go to work, and the wind chill was even colder!   I think it's only supposed to get colder as the weekend wraps up.  OH, and if anyone's into racing, one of our broodmares has a 4 year old running at Santa Anita tonight.  The horse's dam, Candytuft, is actually a broodmare at our farm right now.  So if you're keeping up with racing at all be sure to cheer for Midnight Lute tonight!  It's the grade II stakes race, The Strub Stakes.   

Be sure to check out the new pictures! 

Another week has flown by.  We have 2 foals now on the farm; the most recent is an Afleet Alex colt.  We also had a mare abort towards the end of last week.  This was really sad to see, but it was also a neat thing to get to experience.  Luckily when it happened the vet was already on his way out to do cultures on a few of our open mares so he was able to take care of her right then.  The mare hadn't yet expelled the fetus, so the doctor had to go in and pull the baby out!  The mare wasn't due until the end of April, but the baby was fairly large already.  After looking at the placenta and umbilical cord it appeared the cause of the abortion was twisting of the umbilical cord.  The cord was very large and swollen and almost looked like a cork screw.  This mare is doing fine, and she's being watched and cared for so she'll be ready to rebred this year.

I also got to see a few other neat things this past week.  Last Thursday I did the early night watch which was exciting, but also very nerve wracking.  Knowing there are million dollar mares under your supervision can make anyone a bit nervous.  But nothing out of the ordinary happened and we didn't have any mares foal that night.  On Friday, the vet came out to suture one of the mares who had already foaled.  Around here all thoroughbred mares get what's called a caslicks (or breeding stitch).  I had always learned the only mares that needed this were those with bad breeding conformation, but around here it's a common procedure.  All of our mares have one!  So what happens is when a mare gets close to showing signs of foaling or is past her due date, the vet will come out and open up her caslicks, this way she can deliver normally.  Then once she has foaled, they wait about a week and the mare gets the stitch put back in.  The most common answer to the reasoning behind this that I've gotten has been that mares that are outside and running around tend to suck wind up their reproductive tracts.  So they think that by doing this, it's better for the pregnancy because you're reducing the incidence of anything contaminating the tract.  I also got to see a pretty neat shoeing done on one of our mares who has navicular disease in both of her front feet.  Around here the veterinarians who specialize in lameness and podiatry are also trained as farriers.  So I got to watch him put some really fancy looking shoes on this mare and learned a little about navicular disease and what may have caused it in her case.  This week I?ve also gotten to go out in the mornings and afternoons with the managers to check the fields.  We have a lot of horses on the farm and not all of them get brought in every night.  So first thing each morning the managers have to go around and check each individual horse in the fields that have stayed out all night.  Some of these mares get special medications, regumate, or have to be treated for various things such as eye infections or foot abscesses.  

Our class last night was about maximizing broodmare efficiency.  A veterinarian from Hagyard's came in and talked to us about cycling mares and how to manage problems that may occur with a pregnancy.  This was a really interesting lecture I thought.  He covered everything from getting mares in foal to dystocia, twinning, and mare reproductive loss syndrome.  He also had a lot of really neat pictures for us to see.  Next week we get to go to our first Thoroughbred Farm Manager's Club meeting.  These meetings are the first Tuesday each month and we get to attend them over the next few months while we are here.  At the meetings they'll discuss current issues on area farms and in the industry and will have a guest speaker come talk about a topic of interest.  I believe next week's lecture is about neonatology.  Plus there's dinner served at the meetings, so I guess you can't go wrong with that!  

I've got a few new pictures posted.  Not many, but I'll be adding more soon!  These are just a few of the 2 foals!  Enjoy!

Nicole's Pictures