Welcome Marla!

 


Warning Track has settled in nicely. She is such a sweet and quiet mare. Overall, she's in decent condition, mostly thanks to the care at Dreamcatcher. She is put together well and seems sound with good feet. She still needs to gain weight, as her topline is still a bit sunken, but she is on her way.

Because she is a mare and because she has a larger belly, we did check her for pregnancy today as a precaution. In older mares that have had quite a few foals, their bodies often sag, so it could have gone either way. It is not a big deal to preg check, either, since we started doing our own.

She hesitated to go into the stocks, which is not unusual for mares and who can blame them. Palpations cannot be a pleasant experience for them. We do our best by giving them grain and by going slowly in order to let them relax, but it still seems uncomfortable for some of them. Once she was in the stocks, she relaxed well and tolerated the palpation just fine. As with many older mares, her vulva conformation is not great, nor is her internal anatomy. Her uterus sat flaccid and luckily empty. With that discovery, Warning Track is officially retired from broodmare duty and can begin her life of being a horse.

She will have her final check for any signs of infection diseases, then she will be able to join one of the herds. The plan is to turn her out in a small group, give her ample time to gain weight, then most likely turn her out with the main retirement herd. We'll let her adjust to Wyoming winters at The Homestead, our property located in Cheyenne, which is better suited for high maintenance care. We can blanket, grain, and provide whatever other maintenance the horses might need at The Homestead.

She also needed a barn name. We usually stick to their Jockey Club name as closely as possible, but her name didn't give us much. Warning track is a baseball phrase, so we turned to A League of Their Own for inspiration. We've had a Dottie, a Kit, a Mae, and most of the other Rockford Peaches. We have not, however, had a Marla. So, Marla it is.

Marla, welcome to your new life!

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