When Debbie Hodde, owner of Hodde Quarter Horses, bred her 17.2h thoroughbred mare, French Prize, known as Karma, to Its A Southern Thing, she hoped to get a healthy foal and a great hunter under saddle prospect. Karma had lost the previous year’s foal by Its A Southern Thing, owned by Amy Gumz, so Hodde was especially hopeful this time that everything would go as planned.
On January 23, it seemed like Hodde’s prayers were answered when Karma dropped a long-legged, bay filly she named Mica. But soon after Karma and Mica returned home from Hunt Farm, where Pam and Ricky Hunt have foaled out Hodde’s mares for nine years, Hodde could see a fairytale ending was not meant to be. Karma began showing signs of a neurological issue and Hodde began worrying about the well-being of both mare and foal.
“We told her to bring the mare and Mica back here and we’d see what we could do,” Pam Hunt said. The Hunts are seasoned breeders who have tended to hundreds of foalings. So they drew on all of their years of experience and began to strategize, doing everything they could for Karma, while attempting, unsuccessfully, to get Mica to bottle feed.
“As ill as she was, Karma was trying to survive. We hand fed her hay and she would lap up water,” Hunt says. “That mare, as bad of shape as she was in, she was trying hard to be there for that baby. She was really uncomfortable, and her balance wasn’t good. You could see as the filly nursed, Karma was trying hard to be as still as she could. She had a strong will.”
Another mare owned by Hodde was due to foal any day, and the Hunts were crossing their fingers that once she foaled, they could get her to accept Mica, too. But Karma’s condition deteriorated too quickly and by Monday, February 6, the Hunts and Hodde made the difficult decision that Karma (pictured left with Mica before passing away) would have to be euthanized.
Mica, just two weeks old, still hadn’t taken to the bottle. And Hodde’s other mare still hadn’t foaled. The situation looked bleak.
But Mica’s luck was about to take another turn. Through the power of social media, Hodde was connected to Lana Vaughn, a paint and quarter horse breeder and owner of a nurse mare she calls Ariel. Vaughn happens to live just a few miles from the Hunts.
Four years ago, Ariel had a foal that contracted strangles, which worked its way to her foal’s brain and paralyzed it. “That was traumatic for her,” Vaughn says. “It changed her.” And every spring since she has stood by the fence and watched the babies on the other side longingly. Even feedings don’t lure her from the fence.
“All she does is watch the others having their babies; she will not leave the fence. You have to take water and food over to her,” Vaughn says. So Vaughn was entirely confident that Ariel would accept Mica and be the answer to Hodde’s prayers.
Hodde and the Hunts were hesitant. “We had heard that there was a lot that needed to happen for the mare to produce milk and accept the baby, but Lana ensured us that this mare would make milk and accept the baby pretty much immediately,” Hodde says.
And Ariel did just that. Last Wednesday, just two days after Karma’s passing, Hodde met Vaughn’s mare and saw her facility and Mica was loaded into the trailer for the short ride to the Vaughn’s.
“Ariel was in the pasture and already ‘talking’ to the baby as we drove up. Lana caught Ariel and led her to the trailer. My assistant opened the trailer door and the mare and baby touched noses. They both nickered, and Mica jumped off the trailer. Lana led Ariel into the barn and Mica followed just like she would have if it was her own mother. It was as if the mare told Mica, ‘Okay, I’m here to be your new mom.’ And they’ve been inseparable ever since,” Hodde says.
The pair is happy. Now with “her own” foal, Ariel is able to join the mares and foals on the other side of the fence, and she can be seen circling Mica in the pasture like any other mother would do.
“So Mica was kind of a blessing to Ariel, too. Now she’s able to go out in the pasture with her friend and her baby rather than watching over the fence. It’s a blessing for her to be able to go back into the mixture,” Vaughn says.
For all of these pieces to come together to create a happy ending was a long shot. Vaughn calls it a blessing. Hunt says it was divine intervention. Hodde claims it was a miracle.
Maybe, just maybe, it can all be chalked up to karma.
View the video below of Mica and Ariel together.
https://www.facebook.com/debbie.theriothodde/videos/10210317032179446/
