EQUESTRIAN
Stud Life Lucy Procter, co-owner of the Glanvilles Stud, shares a diary of life on a Thoroughbred stud. This month - the mischievous gang of foals.
It’s September, and the first lot of early foals born in February and March have turned five months, are weaned and roaming their thickly hedged and tree-lined paddock in a mischievous gang. Weaning is a gradual process which starts at around three months, with the introduction of a special youngstock cube mixed with chaff, a selection of chopped up dried grasses and alpha, which helps stop them bolting their feed. With abundant, good grass, the mares only need a small quantity of a nutrient dense feed with minimum calories. So to stop the mares eating more than they need, the feed for the foals is put inside a creep feeder; a low metal ring or portable fence with foal-sized openings, which the foals can fit under or through, but the mares cannot. These foals are all young Thoroughbreds, bred specifically for jumps racing; aiming to first get to a racecourse in their ‘four
year old’ year. We supplement eating well and spending less their natural summer grass to and less time at its dam’s side, encourage them to grow that we catch the mare and lead her little bit taller and ‘Small horses can to the other end stronger so that the farm, out of make perfectly of the bloodstock earshot. good racehorses, agents will be more inclined to but buyers are Within a very short buy them at the mostly after tall, time, most foals sales – small horses have settled back well matured can make perfectly with their mates youngsters with and all is calm. The good racehorses, but the buyers lots of winning mares will often are mostly after pace the field they racehorses in tall, well matured have been moved their extended to for the first youngsters with family’ lots of winning couple of days and racehorses in their this, combined with extended families. reduced grass for a week or two, To have any chance of making a helps dry up their milk. The field profit when it comes to the sales, group sizes vary but six or eight it’s all about size and pedigree. mares with foals at foot in a group is ideal, with two or three Once a foal is five months, is mares being taken out at a time.
To stop the mares eating more than they need, the feed for the foals is put inside a creep feeder; a low metal ring or portable fence with foal-sized openings, which the foals can fit under or through, but the mares cannot. image: Courtenay Hitchocck
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