Reunion (7/16/08)

The horses had been waiting for this day for two months. Both mares had been used for the production of Premarin (pregnant mares' urine) in their life of slavery before the Kindness Ranch. They were each branded twice and kept pregnant in tiny stalls where they were outfitted with tight devices to collect their urine throughout their pregnancies. Their babies—mere "byproducts" of the Premarin industry—were taken away after birth and often slaughtered, especially if they were male. The grief they must've experienced, time and time again.

So when Stormy and Shima were rescued and arrived here at the sanctuary, they were pregnant and each gave birth to a foal who was born free. 

Their babies, Milagro and Second Chance, were not branded or mistreated, and they never will be. For the first time, the abused mothers were allowed to keep their babies, and they cherished them …. and didn't wean them, even when the colts were over a year old and still nursing.

The vet advised me to separate the horses for two months because it wasn't healthy for any of them to continue nursing. Reluctantly, we separated them on May 15, and it was traumatic. The colts became needier for human attention, and the mares simply drooped.

I'd been assuring the sad-eyed mares all this time that they'd be seeing their sons soon, always letting them know how much longer. Yesterday I told them it was their big day. But I'm no horse-handling expert, so I planned to wait until my rancher-neighbors came over to help me to ensure nothing got chaotic (since being kicked two weeks ago, I'm more cautious!).

But the mares had waited long enough, and as I walked toward my bike to ride down and get the mail early on the afternoon of July 15, I spotted Stormy and Shima loose on the ranch, outside their corral. They were standing calmly outside the corral where their sons were. I thought I was seeing things, kept looking back to their empty corral across the yard ... and spotted the wide open gate, which was uncanny.

I let the mares in the gate to the big pasture where their unaware sons were grazing out of sight. None of them was wearing a halter. I grabbed my camera and walked past Stormy and Shima and around the corner to greet an unsuspecting Milagro and Chance. The colts came slowly to my call, nibbling grasses as I led them toward the mares, until we reached the crest of a hill and they spotted their mothers.

Milagro stopped still and then ran forward to the mares. Then Chance saw his mother, and both stared across at one another for a couple seconds before Chance let out a needy, happy neigh and ran toward Stormy as she galloped toward him.

All four ran around together in small circles and kicked their back legs for joy, then stopped to stand close and sniff one another. 

Next they ran in a line all the way down to the road and then north, covering more ground than I ever saw the colts use in that corral. I was elated for them.

The mother-child bond is particularly strong between Chance and Stormy, who used to call to one another while they were separated.

I checked the mares' inexplicably open gate. It's the kind that closes with a metal peg twisting into a hole in the fence post. It wasn't damaged. I hadn't used it and don't know anyone who would've, particularly recently, and I don't know of anyone else who was here yesterday.

Maybe the mares understood me or just instinctively knew it was their day, so they managed to somehow open the gate, left and went to rejoin their children, the only ones they ever got to keep.