Foaling Season by Natalie Keller Reinert

Author:Natalie Keller Reinert
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Women's Fiction, Equestrian
Publisher: Natalie Reinert
Published: 2022-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Sixteen

Alex

I WAS SO tired I could barely keep my eyes open, but the drive was already underway.

And anyway, I’d committed to riding Tiger at the co-op, and I couldn’t get out of it now. Imagine telling Alexander that I was bringing the horse back to our farm, and giving up on my dream of eventing him properly, again.

I’d never hear the end of it.

No, I’d get to the co-op five days a week, minimum, and ride Tiger, even if I had to hire a driver to get me there.

I’d kind of hoped Gigi would be available to keep me awake on the road, but she cried off, saying something about people she had to meet in town, so I was alone today. Driving through a gray afternoon in March, listening to a loud podcast for company, with the dirt of three foalings under my fingernails.

Yes, three. For God’s sake. Fly By Night must have set off some sort of hormone bomb in the broodmare barn. Or all over Ocala—I wasn’t the only one up all night. When I took a break from helping Macy and stood at the open barn door, I could see scattered barn lights shining across the rolling hills. There were plenty of other broodmare managers and foaling attendants hard at work into the wee hours, ensuring their new babies made it safely into the world.

Last night, three wobbly foals joined us at Cotswold Farm, every one of them sweet and snorting and snuffly. A vet from our usual clinic had come out this morning and done their blood tests and pronounced them all healthy. Future racehorses, or at least, future racehorses in theory. We’d see what they wanted to do later.

Foaling season was tiring, there was no doubt about it. I could have stayed in bed, of course, could have let Macy handle things, or hired her an assistant. But I wanted to do it. I didn’t want to push paper and only know my young horses through their registration forms and vet bills.

A patter of rain began to tap on the windshield and I was thankful for it; it gave me something to think about besides the empty road ahead. Maybe I’d been crazy to think I could combine training Tiger and the spring pattern of foals and mares, with a dollop of two-year-old sales mixed in for good luck, but I’d done a lot of crazy things in my life.

What was one more? Jules was always saying stuff like that.

Worked out well for her. I snorted to myself, then sighed. Jules was going to be just fine.

We were all going to be just fine.

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