Black Beauty

When I was a little girl, I was crazy about horses.  I'd gallop around the school yard neighing like a horse and pawing the ground.  I didn't care if I looked like a fool, I was in my element.  All I could think about 24/7 was horses....and my first favorite book was of course, Black Beauty.

Black horses have always been my favorite; it's funny, but true black horses are hard to find - bays, with the chestnut body and black mane and tail, are very common.

I've been watching the arrival of the many foals at the horse farm near my house (see post below).  About 12 have arrived so far and almost all are bays, except for two:  a future grey and a light chestnut who is a dirty-blondish-type color. 

This afternoon I stopped to see if my favorite mare, Lucy, had given birth yet.  Nope - as I pulled up, I saw that she was still in the meadow with her swollen belly, chewing on a few strands of alfalfa.  But when I entered the barn I saw that a bay broodmare had foaled this morning - and it was a beautiful black colt!

Unsteady on those long legs

Trying to figure out where to nurse....

Ack!  Wrong end!

What's interesting about this little guy is that his mother is a "carrying mare" - she's not his biological mother.  His biological mother is the horse below.  Her name is Sonnengirl, and she is a champion jumper. 

And this is his father, a stallion named Sir Caletto.

Although this wasn't the colt's "real" mother, you would not have been able to tell.  As I walked quietly up to the stall she walked quickly over to me, prepared to protect her baby from me if I was a threat.  She stood quietly as the foal looked for the teat and waited patiently as he found the right place.  When he'd had enough and stretched out flat for a nap in the straw, she stood over him and seemed to gaze at him in wonder.  This was her first baby - she is what they call a "maiden" - and she was a good mother.

I've discovered that at times even the experts can have difficulty determining the color of a horse, and the true color of a foal before it matures.  The owner can take a snip of hair and send it away to one of those companies that does DNA tests, so I don't feel bad not knowing if this little black colt may mature into another color like silver or blue roan...but right now he's black, and to me that's very cool.