Ethel (Eisenherz/Smargd/Duft I/Maigraf xx) finally went into labor Thursday at 10:30 pm. It was going WAY too slowly. I determined she was presenting a breech birth (hind feet first) and called Dr Balliet. He and Jim and I tried pulling, but got only the legs out to mid cannon. Baby (by Gold Luck) was dead by now; the rush was on to save Ethel. 

I loaded her into the horse trailer and took her to Quakertown Vet clinic where Randy Bimes was waiting. The foal kept twisting every time Ethel lay down, so the hind feet were pointing towards the hip. The foal had to be rotated before it could be pulled, requiring super strength. After two hours of pulling 1 cm. at a time with a pulley rope system linked to a rebar in the wall, a huge colt was born, chestnut, blaze, 3 whites, of course, dead. Randy had called in a big, burly cow vet and 2 techs to help, plus me. Ethel was a trooper. She tried pushing so hard and was nickering to her foal occasionally, even though she was in extreme agony. Ethel kept on losing blood at a pretty fast rate. Randy had given her an epidural spinal anesthesia. In the recovery stall she appeared to have some hind end nerve damage due to the pulling, and she ended up splayed behind in one of her feeble attempts at standing, breaking or pulling every thing at the area of the left stifle. She was euthanized right away. Ethel was the consummate broodmare. I think she had 12 foals. She was from the Eisenherz line, and she was an overall 8 upon inspection. She always produced elastic, rideable, sweet horses. Ethel's legacy lives on at RSF with Alure, one of my best broodmares, her daughter Rhussia, and Rhussia will be bred to Gold Luck this summer, making a three generation legacy that will continue on here. Her owner, Jeanie Poindexter was great and knows that we did all that could be done. Anyone with horses should be acquainted with tragedy. This year just seems to be reminding me of this a little too frequently of that fact.Much thanks to Edgar, who knows I don't call him for an emergency in the middle of the night unless it is REAL, and to Randy and the staff at Quakertown Vet, who worked so hard to try to save her. -Mo