Story Day: One For The Ages

It was a dark and quiet night at Living Legend Stables, and all that could be heard was the soft rustling of straw as broodmares, close to giving birth, shifted in there cozy, roomy stalls. One mare was in particular was watched more closely than all the others, her name was Whispering Wind. She was once a proud race mare, her coat a beautiful silvery dapple gray. She was out of a Spectacular Bid mare and out of the sprinter champion Midnight Lute. As a racehorse she had been a successful graded stakes winner, but seemed to be even better as a mother. As a broodmare she had given six foals, all but one were winners, and three had gone on to compete in grade ones. This foal would be her seventh, and was so far her most anticipated colt, seeing as how his sire would be two time Horse of the Year Curlin.

Whisper had been due two weeks ago, and everyone was on edge. Sam, the farms breeding manager had notice, that, out in the field, Whisper had been pacing up and down the fence line, stopping every now and then to turn and nip at her, now, snowy white flanks. She had then looked straight at him, and almost seemed to say, "what are you waiting for? Get me in, tonight's going to be the night!"

Same sat on a fold up chair, across from Whisper's stall. A couple hours ago she had begun pacing, and pawing at the bottom of the stall. This was Whisper's normal ritual, she would pace the outsides of the stall to shove all of it to the middle, the paw it to her liking before she decided to lay down for good.

Sam's eyes were just starting to drift shut when he hear the mare give a long grunt, settling into the bed of straw she had made. As time went on her breaths became more shallow, coming quicker, as the contractions started to come more quickly. Sam watched unworried, Whisper knew what she was doing, and had always been one of the easier mares to watch while foaling. Suddenly, Sam saw a pair of hooves, starting to come.

"Come on baby, not long now, just keep it up" Sam soothed quietly, Whisper grunted back in response.

Next came the whole forelegs, followed by the foal's head. When Whisper was past the barrel of the foal she gave one more push, and out it came. Whisper let out a soft grunt of relief before turning her head to lick the foal clean. Sam looked up at the barn clock, 4:00am, it read. Almost time for them to start arriving, thought Sam. four o clock was when the owners of the barn Alexandria and Brad, and their 16yr old son Nicholas came out to help get all the horses fed and ready for the morning.

After about half an hour the foal stood up, as fuzzy as could be. It was a colt, a very dark, bay, almost black. He had a crooked blaze that streaked down his perfectly sculpted head, and two stockings on his front legs. What impressed Sam most about the colt was his size, the colt, was big and sturdy, even for being born only a half hour ago. Then there was a look in his eye, a spirit, a fire like no other. The colt already had an arrogance about him.

"What a looker he is."

Sam started, and turned around to find Brad, Alexandria, or Alex as she proffered to be called standing behind him.

Alex nodded to her husband's assessment, "He is." Then turning to Sam she asked, "When was he born?"
"Not long ago" , answered Sam, " At about four."

"Well, just by looks and knowing his breeding, I already am having high hopes for this colt. Come on Alex, we better go get the other horses fed and ready." Alex nodded and set of with a quick thank you.

"Sam, I can't thank you enough, for keeping watch last night, I'm sorry I can't stay longer, but I've got to help Alex and Nick with the others. Are you going to be ok over here?"

Sam nodded," Yeah, thank you but, she did all the work." Sam nodded towards Whisper.

"And what a wonderful job she did. I'll talk to you later ok?"

"Sure, I'll see you later."

Sam turned back over the door, to look at the colt, and found himself staring into the colts deep eyes. Sam held the colt's gaze for what seemed like an eternity, before the colt nonchalantly turned to nurse. Turning away Sam stood dazed by what he'd seen. Then he thought to himself There is no maybe, this colt will be one for the ages.


To be continued.....