PART THREE: Trials

Part three in a four part series.
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Almost six months after Akhal Teke mare Gold Angel was covered by the Farm's stallion, Tejen, she was finally beginning to show a bit of a round belly. The golden mare still had five months to go in what the Farm had hoped would be a good and uneventful pregnancy.

They were wrong.

Angel met with complications within a couple of months after the mating. Dara knew they were lucky to still have Angel. Things became interesting when she developed an infection that nearly caused her to abort the fetus. But eventually the tough mare made it through...and so did the little one growing inside her. But that was not the end of the trials. More came. A pack of coyotes found their way into the mare's pasture and attacked poor Angel...if Markus had not been near by, Dara was sure the canines would have killed the mare. She suffered some terrible injuries, but they were healing under the groom's meticulous care.

Now...Angel seemed depressed. Withdrawn. She didn't even care for her favorite treat: sugar cubes. Her eyes were flat and listless, and her head always hung low. Dara had never seen such behavior in the mare...and she wondered if the mare was sick again. The veterinarian gave the mare a full exam...and found nothing abnormal. Angel was just...depressed. Markus and Dara spent as much time as they could with the ailing mare, but with two farms to operate and run, both were going almost 24 hours a day. Dara hired several more people to oversee other duties that she could not longer devote time to, such as the daily grooming of each of her horses. Four grooms were hired for Obsidian Farm, two for stallions, and two for the mares. An on-site veterinarian was hired, and two grounds keepers were brought in as well.

With some time now to herself, Dara began to devote more and more time to the buckskin mare. The swelling belly made her smile...somewhere in there was a colt or filly of her dreams. Dara was hoping and praying she was given a cremello or perlino foal...from both parent's genetics, the likelihood of a double-cream foal being born was almost 100%.

If the foal survived to birth, that is.
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I already have the foal designed and colored in and everything...I can't wait to reveal its identity. I am still trying to decided what I want to do with this new Teke...I'm considering flat racing for sure...and of course halter and liberty disciplines.