OVC helps weave happy ending for motherless foal and adoptive mare
They look entirely mismatched
— and in many ways
they are. The 14-year-old mare is a
dark brown standardbred racehorse.
Her colt, almost six weeks old now,
has the paint horse’s signature
reddish-brown and white patches.
But they came together after the
Ontario Veterinary College played
the role of adoption agency to weave
a happy ending from a double
tragedy one weekend last month.

OVC resident Marcio Costa, left, and clinician Luis Arroyo helped match up “stepmom” Iway Regency with Slider, a foal whose mother died during the birth. PHOTO BY BARRY GUNN
The newborn colt arrived at the
OVC Teaching Hospital late at night
May 9. Its mother had hemorrhaged
and died during the birth. The foal
needed intensive nursing care. Its
owners hoped the University could
help pair up the youngster with an adoptive mother.
On-call clinician Luis Arroyo
knew that horses often balk at forced
adoption. If a pairing failed, it could
mean months of hand-rearing. Even
then, the colt might not fare well and
might prove troublesome later without
that critical mothering period.
That night, he had already
learned of a standardbred mare in
Elora whose foal had died after a
breach birth. The mare was experiencing
complications, including retaining
the afterbirth.
Now he was expecting to receive a
newborn without a mother. It didn’t
take long for him and the owners—
and their respective veterinarians —
to come up with a solution.
Says Raz MacKenzie, owner of
racehorse breeder MacKenzie Farm
in Elora: “I said, ‘Let’s take two bad
things and make a good thing.’
Through the University, we brought
the mare and the foal together.”
Because it had retained the placenta,
his mare risked becoming infected.
He delivered the horse to
OVC on the following afternoon.
Working with resident Marcio Costa
and intern Marlis Blatter, Aroyo
flushed the horse’s uterus to remove
the afterbirth and gave antibiotics
and anti-inflammatory drugs.
They used a towel to rub the placenta
on the foal’s body before introducing
the newborn to the mother. It
was a bit of a gamble, says Arroyo,
but “it worked immediately. It took
just a minute to get them together.
This mare adopted the baby right
away. Once the foal started nursing,
there was nothing more to do.”
Although he’s seen horses adopt
newborns before, he’d never seen
birthing survivors paired up like this.
Neither had Sue Paget, co-owner
of Pound Scots Farm, which raises
paints and pintos for show in
Fisherville near Lake Erie. Calling the
case a “miracle,” she says: “The University
of Guelph did a fantastic job.
They were all in it very quickly and
handled it very well.”
Named Slider, her colt was sired
by Ima Switch Hitter, a world-champion
paint and pinto stallion at
Painted Feather Farms based in
Florida.
“He’s like a diamond right now,”
says Paget of the colt. “We don’t
touch him. We hope he’ll be like his
mom and dad and carry on the legacy.”
The “stepmom” is Iway Regency,
a former racehorse that had already
delivered six foals as a broodmare in
Elora.
Both horses left Guelph a few
days after meeting, bound for
Fisherville.
“It’s a happy ending,” says Mac-
Kenzie. “If not for the intervention
of the University of Guelph, we’d
have four dead horses.”
- Andrew Volves
reprinted: At Guelph, June 18, 2008