Ila Malloy examines her first foal for 2011
April 22 through April 29, 2011
By Ila Malloy-Stoutenburgh
I left my uncle in Burney with a casserole size apple pie and a refrigerator stuffed with finger foods and headed home after midnight, which would be the wee hours of April 23, 2011.
I departed a day early on the calendar, leaving Uncle Myles to spend his last visiting day with his daughter, her husband, and his sons privately. I had been unable to quit cleaning or cooking and it was driving him nuts.
"Come in and relax!" the king of the castle would order.
"No!" I’d yell back. "The Japanese are immaculate housekeepers, and I can’t leave this kitchen floor sticking to her feet!"
Insubordination and court martial pending, I explained to him that my husband Michael had no vehicle as the truck I’d left for him in the parking lot had failed to start and was in the shop. He seemed to accept that more than any other pressing issue which demanded I return home. Maybe my horse Layla was sending me signals, like the pacing the mares do before they let loose of their new life form.
As it turned out, the timing was auspicious. Arriving home, I found ranch hand Rich sleeping in his truck in the barn parking lot on night duty watching over Layla sometime around probably 3:30 AM. All was well and so I proceeded to the cabin and talked to Michael for an hour about the visit before turning in.
The next morning our hands covered the ranch chores, and I did site checks on the stock.
Rich stuck to his guns about taking night duty again, and so I went to bed Saturday night, glad for the relief, as Annie is looking like she’s competing with Layla for delivery.
At 11:24 PM the call came in over the walkie talkie announcing the arrival of our first foal of 2011, and was I glad to hear "He’s standing!" Sneaky Layla had done it again. Can’t leave her for twenty minutes, she’s going to lay down her baby alone. Incredible mare.
Her colt’s perfectly black tail ascends his spine in a dorsal strip, fuzzing out to what appeared to be the dorsal barbs of a grulla, with a silver dove rump and smutty face. Sociable from the beginning, it was hard to keep our hands to ourselves.
I couldn’t stop saying "Wow!" and repeating myself about the color and Layla’s performance as a brood mare. With Wilson, the palomino Appy colt at a year, she has more than paid for herself with this second super fine colt.
Relief gave way to exhaustion and I adjourned to bed again, sleeping easier now. Rich insisted he stick out the night for Annie, who now seemed inspired, letting down beads of milk, anticipating her own foal.
The week went by in a bleary blur of interrupted naps. I slept in my car. I slept in the barn. I listened. I watched the milk beading and falling off, walked the mare, brushed and fussed while observing all of the signs of pending labor.
In the end I nearly let down my vigilance , when I went back up to the barn at about 11:15 PM. When I had left her, Annie was continuing to eat with appetite. I had taken photos of the dipping haunches on either side of her tail, which bore the last tail wrap of red. It is written that if the mare is feeding normally, it is unlikely she will produce that night.
When I opened the barn door, I heard no greeting as had met my entrance every previous time, and I was apprehensive it was too late. However, Annie’s bright eyes met mine, and I saw no baby in the stall, which was excessively messy for the short time. I let her into the inner paddock and went to work cleaning. She laid down.
I watched her bite her sides and switch her tail and lay out her head and I began to work harder on the stall. I had just wheeled out the barrow to the barn doors and turned around to look when she got up.
Looking back at me, she let loose a gush and the labor proceeded. I cannot at this time go over the event so much as I brought my camera out and videoed as much as I could under the circumstances, but the world saw the arrival of the red filly at 11:34 PM on April 28, 2011.
This is the first filly by our stallion IM Diamond Cutter, who we brought out in 2005 from Texas to California to start our own line of the American Quarter Horse. Similarly my great grandfather Albert Chauncey Stoutenburg imported the Hambletonian, a Standardbred horse, from the East Coast to Montana during his day. I have a picture of his wife, my great grandmother with this horse. Interesting how generations who never knew each other were similarly inspired.
submitted by Anna May Batty
