The loss of Holme Grove Marcella

The loss of Holme Grove Marcella's foal

Holme Grove Marcella has been one of our most prolific mares at Holme Grove and at the age of 22 was expecting her 17th foal in 19 years of breeding on 15th June 2002 by Holme Grove Solomon. She has for the past few winters played nanny to all the weanlings in the barn as she keeps them in order but would never hurt them. Sadly 3 weeks before term on 24th June 2002 she decided to pop her foal out in the middle of the field having given no warning signs at all. The foal was born dead and although with the help of the vet we managed to get her breathing for a short time she was too weak and her lungs too full of fluid so she did not survive.

Paul and I were celebrating our 22nd wedding anniversary and Mum and Dad had taken us to Chelsea Flower Show for the day - Alan (our Stud Groom) phoned my sister Julia with the sad news as he did not want to spoil our day at Chelsea but luckily Julia decided we ought to know so phoned me on my mobile. After the initial disappointment my first though was to contact Johanna Vardon at the National Foaling bank who had helped us find a foster dam for our orphan foal from Holme Grove Hertzblatt last year. Johanna had a foal waiting down in Essex belonging to Mrs Kings-North who had lost his dam the previous day from post foaling haemorrhage. I then spent the next few hours liasing by mobile phone with different parties to get Marcella down to the Vets in Essex where the foal was needing a mother. Unfortunately the transport that the foal's owner usually used was not available so Alan kindly agreed to travel the mare down. Malcolm and Vikki skinned Marcella's dead foal so that her skin could be used in the adoption process. We milked Marcella every couple of hours to keep her milk going and at 4pm Alan set off. ... Friday afternoon on the M25 is never good but this Friday was a nightmare as there had been an accident and the M25 was stationery for 2 hours then closed and all traffic diverted off J24 - Alan needed to get to J28! After 5½ hours they finally arrived at the Vets. Luckily Marcella was very calm and relaxed for the whole journey with the skin of her foal wrapped round some sacks at her feet.

The orphan foal was dressed in the dead foals skin and introduced initially over the door and the reactions of Marcella were good as she was sure it was her foal. After a short time he was taken into the stable and allowed to drink for the first time from his new Mum - he was very keen and soon drank her dry !! She was very happy about it and was licking him and wickering at him. To Alan this made his nightmare journey all worthwhile. Marcella is a very experienced broodmare after 16 foals and new exactly what to do. Alan then drove home as we had Holme Grove Liebe at home all waxed up ready to foal so he did not want to miss her.

Next morning we spoke to Mrs Kings-North who confirmed that Marcella had very readily adopted the foal as her own and she was very grateful to us (particularly Alan who had driven her there) as the prospect of rearing an orphan foal is not a good one and this is the best result for both mare and foal. Once again thanks must go to Johanna Vardon in the wonderful work she does with the National Foaling Bank for putting mare and foal owners together. Another successful adoption to add to her many hundreds over the years.

Susan Attew
Saturday 25th May 2002

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