Bernadette Kelly

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Two Beautiful Foals

Uncategorized | Posted by Bernadette on Tuesday 25 September 2007

Saturday 22nd September was a very busy day for me with the arrival of not one, but two foals. I had been keeping a close watch on both the mares for several weeks. At 4am on Saturday morning I was woken by the sound of Josie’s horse, Doc, neighing. Thinking one of the mares might be foaling, I quickly dressed and went outside in the dark to investigate. It was hard to see but I didn’t take a torch as I didn’t want to disturb them if they happened to be foaling. Most mares deliberately wait to foal in darkness so that they can be assured of some privacy.
Both mares had taken to standing in the corners of their paddocks, facing each other across the laneway for company, but Bickham wasn’t in her usual place. I was giving Jess (Summer Eclipse), a scratch and a pat when through the darkness I heard a special little nicker from Bickham. I recognised it straight away as the nicker that she reserves for her foals. I have never heard her use it at any other time but for a foal. I ran back to the house to get a torch and sure enough, running beside Bickham, coat shining bright and creamy in the torchbeam, was a rather large palomino foal. I went back inside to wake Josie and together we admired the foal for a while. In the dark I couldn’t tell if it was a colt or a filly but we soon established in the daylight that she was a filly. We have called her Cadence, after Erica’s dressage horse from the Riding High books.

Cadence

Then, at 5.30 that same afternoon, I saw Jess lying down in the paddock and raced over to see her foaling. This time it was in daylight. It all happened quite quickly. We have named Jess’s little chestnut colt Jaspar, which means special. He is very special because Jess had already lost two foals, born much too early to survive, before we finally had some luck with this one.

jaspar.jpg

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September 2007

Uncategorized | Posted by Bernadette on Wednesday 5 September 2007

What a busy time it’s been since my last post. Myself and Black Dog Books Illustrator, Richard Morden, recently had a lovely day speaking to Mentone Grammar primary students at the school’s Shoreham seaside camp. It was a delightfully sunny winter day and the students were all fabulous listeners. They were all very keen to ask lots of questions about books and writing.
For me, that day was soon followed by another visit to Assumption college to speak to the 2007 crop of year seven’s. Again, a very interested and enthusiastic group of students with some very thoughtful questions and responses to my presentation.

My other life as a horse breeder is about to become very busy too. Both the mares have huge bellies that look as if they might burst at any minute. I don’t think the foals can be too far away now from making their entrances into the world. Foals and older horses are especially at risk from the Equine Influenza virus so I am carefully watching the current situation. My horses are at present safe in Victoria but nobody knows if the disease will eventually spead down south from NSW and Queensland to here.

If any of you reading this have your own ponies, please keep them safe from this current Equine Flu outbreak and most importantly, keep them at home so that the Department of Primary Industries can contain all the affected horses and stop the disease from spreading. The horse flu would have to be one of the most contagious things you can think of. Because the bacteria that causes the virus can live for a long time on any surface, it can be spread not only from horse to horse, but by people, gear, vehicles and even just through the air.
If we all do our bit we can hopefully stop the spread before it covers the whole country and we all have to live with it forever. If any of you have had to miss out on competing because of the flu, that is disappointing. But just remember that we don’t want to have a situation where we are always putting our horses at risk of the flu just by going to events.

But on a much brighter note, keep an eye out here on the blog and on my horse page. I hope to soon be posting pictures of the foals. Here’s hoping for healthy, happy, mares and foals everywhere this breeding season.

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