I was planning to write a much different report this month, hoping to announce the pregnancy of my sweet mare, Annie. Instead, I am reminded that nothing worthwhile is ever easy. In lieu of a birth announcement, please allow me to talk about some of the finer points of what this process looks like for Annie.

In case you missed it, as part of my own personal “Horse Goals or Bust!” I decided to breed Annie to one of my all-time favorite AQHA stallions, Bet Hesa Cat—a handsome roan cow horse that stands at the 6666 Ranch, and whose size, conformation, and pedigree cross very nicely with Annie’s.

Rather than have Annie travel to Texas, the pertinent parts will travel to her, and she will be artificially inseminated. Toward that end, we drove 100 miles to drop Annie off at the mare-care facility, at the end of March. There, she is under the watchful care of Dr. Richard Marrott, of Elite Equine Veterinary Services in Cañon City, Colorado.

Although Annie passed her pre-breeding exam with flying colors, presenting as a “much younger” mare would, it turns out that on the inside, not so much. A tad past her breeding prime at the age of 16, Annie has what is sometimes referred to as “old maiden mare syndrome.”

A maiden mare is one that has never been bred, and consequently, her reproductive organs are not in ship shape. Nonetheless, Dr. Marrott successfully inseminated Annie the first week of April, and she did indeed create an embryo. But due to the “hostile” environment of her uterus, the embryo failed to attach. The good news was that she produced a viable embryo (step one). All we need now is a friendly place for him (my wishful thinking) to land.