Morning Star Farm

This is a story of 2 Straight Spanish Arabian mares that lived at a farm in Iowa. One of them had been owned by a friend of mine and he called to tell me some of the horses had been seized and were in the care of the rescue people.They were working on getting homes for the horses and asked him to send them the registration for Szed Mariposa.

I asked him at that time if it would be possible for me to adopt her. He gave me the name and phone number for the rescue person. I called her and asked her if I could have Szed Mariposa. She said she would be delighted to send her to me.

This got the ball rolling and a few days later she called me and asked if would consider adopting Szed Hermosa also. She told me that mare had been reported dead to the Arabian Horse Registry and they had cancelled her papers. But in the process of identifying each of the horses in her care, she discovered Hermosa was alive and living at her farm. She and the Arabian Horse Registry are working together to get her registration reinstated. There was some talk that Hermosa had been bred, but no one thought she could have carried a foal through being starved nearly to the point of death. Hearing her story made me decide to bring her to New Mexico with Mariposa.

When the mares arrived at their new home Mariposa looked pretty good. They had been at the rescue house for about 3 months and she had picked up weight very well. However, Hermosa was still very emaciated. I began a feeding program for the mares concentrating on each mares needs. They had been stable mates for several years and Hermosa was the lead mare, but I still felt I needed to feed them separately, so I put Mariposa in the pen next to her.

One evening I was in Hermosa's pen looking at her when the wind blew her tail over and I was staring at a very large bag.

I immediately started looking at her with foaling signs in my mind. Sure enough, she had several other signs and I became sure she was in foal. She didn't have a big belly because of her poor condition.

I began preparations for delivering a foal, and we started a mare watch program. About 3 weeks after arriving at our farm she foaled a beautiful, healthy filly that we immediately named Hermosa Milagra, which means beautiful miracle. The foal was a little thin, but has gained weight since birth. I began a feeding program having an emaciated, and lactating mare in mind. Since that time they are both gaining weight and doing great.