Yesterday Emerald Downs wrote an article about Griffin Place on their web page, www.emdowns.com. After reading it we realized that we had several photos that had just been taken for us that captured the same thing in pictures. So we decided to write about “a day on the farm”. We hope you find it fun. The photos are courtesy of First Go Round Design. (Roxanne Peters: roxie@gte.net.)

Pictured right: Tommy teasing.

After feeding, Mary Lou’s day begins with a trip through the farm with Tommy Teaser. Tommy’s job is to talk to all the mares to see which ones are in estrus or “showing in heat”. Some of those mares are brought in to be examined by Dr. Procter who will ultra sound them to determine optimum time to breed.

Suzi and Mary Lou start moving horses. The mares with the youngest foals will move from the barn to the pastures. Mares that need to be checked must be brought in. This gets to be a bit tricky when we have more mares to check than we have stalls. Mary Lou tells her staff that in order to work on this farm, one has to solve “the chicken, grain, fox puzzle”. “It goes something like this: If you have a chicken, a fox and some grain on one side of the river and you need to move them to the other side, and can only take one thing over at a time, how will you do it without the chicken eating the grain or the fox eating the chicken? If you can solve that, you can figure out how to organize the mares for vet work.”

“So, Dr. John, how big will that follicle get before she ovulates? Should we Ovuplant this mare? How busy is the stallion right now? Can we get her “booked” for this afternoon? This mare didn’t get in foal last time, so what might we do in addition or different to help her this time? Is that a CL? How many cysts does she have? She ovulated two, so we’re looking for twins here. She has some fluid so let’s flush her.”

The chatter continues while they examine the mares but what they ultimately want is to hear, “She’s in foal!” High fives!

Pictured left: Dr. Procter

After Dr. Procter determines when a mare needs to be bred, Mary Lou calls the farm where the stallion stands to “book the mare”. If the horse is busy and has several mares to breed that day, things need to be sorted out. Actually there is a very set protocol for this. Mares that are being covered for the first time in the season get first priority unless they are “foal heat mares” i.e. being bred on the first estrus cycle after foaling. Mares being covered for the second time in their estrus cycle or their second heat of the season are bred only after the other mares are given an opportunity and so on. The idea is to give priority to the mare that has the best chance to get in foal. Mares returning for the third time are way down the ladder. Usually every mare gets covered close to ovulation. “We are working with stallions here in Washington whose books are under 60 for the most part. I feel sorry for the farm managers in Kentucky who have to deal with books of 180-200 mares. There, it is not uncommon to be told that they can’t get to the stallion for 5-6 days,” Mary Lou says with disbelief.

Pictured right: Mary Lou book mares.

From there it’s off to the breeding shed. Or if she’s lucky, off to lunch. “Lunch” is a daily ritual unless something gets in the way like a mare foaling or a mare to breed. The local hangout is a quaint restaurant in Buckley called the Sweet Shoppe. “We’ve been gathering there for several years and commonly meet to visit with other farm owners around the plateau. Its a little luxury we look forward to, and it is more than lunch. We do a lot of brainstorming and problem solving over lunch and pie”.

Pictured left: Sweet Shoppe

Victor is left in charge, the lead farmhand, with help from the security crew.

	Sydney
	Sophie

Sydney the Labrador is crew chief. Her job is to chase away those pesky deer, although she generally doesn’t go on duty until about 1:00 AM. Sophie, the young assistant, takes care of chasing off all birds.

Back to the farm. Lady Beverly and her filly by Free At Last just shipped in from Kentucky where she was bred to Stormy Atlantic. They’re tired after their long trip. We have isolated them in a small field on the far end of the farm to make sure they are healthy and well rested before we turn them back in with the other mares. We have two more mares to come home, Best Judgement who was bred to Holy Bull, and Outofthebluebell, bred to Aptitude, and her Golden Missile colt.

Pictured left: Lady Beverly yawning.

Lady Beverly still has the shipping tag in her halter buckle. This is a tag that is put on the horses when they ship by commercial van. It includes information on the owner, the most recent vaccinations, shoeing and de-worming, as well as where the mare is shipping to and from. Lady Beverly is also wearing her halter with name plate and a neck strap with name plate. Most breeding sheds in KY require two pieces of ID on a mare before they will breed her. The IDs are usually left on for the duration of their stay at the boarding farm and for the shipping. It’s simply a safeguard against getting horses mixed up. We certainly appreciates having the mares properly identified when they arrive at Griffin Place, but if a mare ships to our farm without a nameplate, we put a temporary ID tag on her halter.

Pictured left: Lady Beverly w/ shipping tag.

The day goes on. Medications are given to several mares. Most are oral, and with a little honey or applesauce mixed in, the mares view it as a treat. Then there is the de-worming, and the vaccinations to do. Sometimes we feel like walking pharmacies.

	Suzi giving IV medication.
	Lanny giving Briar de La Rose her “meds”.

Must be time for a coffee break. Our good friend and mentor, Dr. Bud Hallowell (recently retired) had us well trained to have coffee ready and waiting when he arrived. John Procter followed as farm vet, and continued the tradition. He made sure we had coffee available. He supplied the pot, the filters and the coffee!

Pictured above: Mary Lou, Marty, Lanny enjoying a coffee break.

Pictured below: Lanny making sure Tommy teaser gets his coffee break too.

Dr. Procter and Mary Lou check the foal that was born last night. It was the biggest one this year, 47” and 157 pounds. The foal is by Liberty Gold and out of Mala Mala Lady owned by Marty Loomis. “Marty helps foal our mares and does night watch for us. She missed her own mare this year. Mala Mala started foaling outside and by the time we got her in the foaling stall, there was no time to call Marty.” It took three people to foal the mare. “This mare has always foaled standing up and she did it again this year”, Mary Lou comments. This is not an easy task especially when the foal is so big. All went well though and the mare and foal are both doing fine.

	Marty with her Liberty Gold one day old colt going out to the pasture.
	Marty's Liberty Gold one day old colt.

Time to check the farm again, nap time in the #3 field. Here Drou a Way is trying to rest while Northern Whirl’s colt tries to sneak a snack. Her own foal is sleeping peacefully next to her. Things are quiet; all is well. What a nice time of day.

“We want to make sure that each horse is looked at carefully every day. We’ll be checking for lumps and bumps, foals with diarrhea or not nursing like they should, anything that might be amiss.” Today nothing out of the norm is found.

Thunder Gulch filly out of Frans Lass.
Devil His Due filly out of Late Nite Martini.

Before evening chores and one more trip to the breeding shed, there are phone calls to make and paper work to do. No meetings today thank goodness.

Terry and Mary Lou “walk the farm”. Terry brings a fresh eye because he only sees the horses once a day. We want to make sure everyone is tucked in and fed. Now it’s evening and time to play if you’re a young horse and feeling good. We enjoy watching them so much. They are such fun. This is when we are tired, sometimes exhausted, but we feel so lucky to have the life we do.

Pictured below: Bold Magestrate.

The field with the youngest foals seems to be especially active tonight. Late Nite Martini and her Free At Last colt are enjoying themselves. Grazing quickly changes to a game of keep away when they realize the camera is on them.

Late Nite Martini and her colt by Free At Last

Maybe another foal tonight, but maybe not, and so another day.

5/8/03
Free At Last yearling filly out of Slewdlemagic, owned by Mark Lewis

4/14/03
Pictured at left
Ali Hull’s Housebuster colt out of Minique foaled 3/12/03. Minique is one of three mares owned by the Washington Thoroughbred Foundation Mare/Lease Program. The Foundation leases a Thoroughbred mare to a high school aged student who then raises the foal to sell in the WTBA yearling sale. Ali has nicknamed her colt “Theodore”. It was obvious that Ali spent many hours working with her colt because by the time he arrived here, he was very friendly and easy to handle. The mare and foal will remain at Griffin Place until the mare is safely in foal to Free At Last, and then they will return to Ali. Griffin Place is proud to be a part of this program. If you would like more information please contact the WTBA at 1-253-288-7878.  Click here for Griffin Place Broodmare updates!