Adventures of Saving a Foal

“Congratulations! I heard it's a boy!” I shook the hands of Stable Master, Charlotte, and congratulated her on the new arrival of a pony foal. It had just arrived in the early morning.

Me and my colleague, Alet, were waiting for a group of people at the stable to have a guided walk at the Cathedral Caves. Fortunately or unfortunately, they decided not to turn up and we decided to go ahead to the Cathedral Caves with the horses. While we were about to get the horses, Bushman, one of the biggest stallion, suddenly went crazy and aimed for the foal's testicles. The next few minutes felt like eternity.

It was tragic.

Bushman dragged the young foal aggressively across the floor in circles. The surrounding horses were horrified, and there was total chaos. Charlotte was screaming at the top of her voice at Bushman to get him to stop. Bushman continued to slam the poor foal repeatedly on the ground. I froze. It was a frightful sight.

Suddenly, when Bushman let go of the foal, other horses managed to surround the lifeless foal and kept Bushman out. Charlotte and Alet immediately took the limp foal out of the chaos. It was bleeding between the hind legs. We had to keep it on the ground and apply pressure on its wound with a towel. It was shivering quite badly. I felt lost, not knowing what to do, or how I could help. I just kept stroking it's legs and applying pressure on the wound while others busied with getting the vet on the phone etc. The next thing I knew, Alet came with the cabby, and created space in the boot.. Charlotte had also placed mats in the boot. We were bringing him to Bethlehem (around 48km away).

When we placed him in the boot, his mom was furious and confused, and just kept coming to the boot. It was heart wrenching. When we were moving off, she just kept galloping towards the car, knowing that her new born foal was in it.

Nevertheless, in the car, we were doing what we were good at. Charlotte – being the stable master and the best with horses held on to the foal's head and stroked it, trying to comfort it. Alet – superbly fast, but not necessary safe driver, eventually managed to drive us all in one piece to the vet at 170km/h. Me – since i could do neither, held on to the wound, and in order to do that well, my face was at its rear end for most of the journey. My first real application of the first aid skills that I have learnt during my first two weeks of training in Kruger.

To be honest, when I was kneeling in the 170km/h cabby holding on to the rear end of the foal, for a split second, I had visualized the headlines in the newspaper tomorrow, “Golden Gate Tragedy – 3 Dead with Foal in Car Crash” I believed my heart rate was probably at least beating as fast as the car was travelling, i.e. 170. It must have been all over my face as Charlotte, who should be the most traumatized, kept asking me if I was alright. I just kept on praying that all would be well, the foal and us.
Charlotte was initially worried that his mom would reject him. Afterall, he was just born, had yet to feed, and there was no time for imprinting before we took him. Thankfully, he was not rejected when we got back, and now, he is feeding well, sniffing, trying to gallop =) He is a real survi