After I left Longwood Farm in March of 1993, I tried to keep track of the yearlings and other horses that I worked with. I have newspaper clippings of entries and results, from some of their races, I have magazines with articles about them, when they won their big races, and a few other odds and ends of info from their racing careers. Since the majority were geldings, after their racing careers were over, I lost track of them, only knowing where one is, to this day, and knowing that another died fairly young, but that is it. Fillies are a bit easier to keep track of, especially if they are lucky enough to be used as broodmares, Red Devilette was one of those lucky ones, as she won a few races and came from a nice productive female family, so people believed she deserved a chance as a broodmare.
I was able to keep track of her as she produced a few foals in Kentucky and as the internet got better and better at finding out info, it was easier to track her foals, as well.
Her first three foals were all winners. Nothing special, but they did all win races. Her first foal, in fact won races over a long period of time and raced almost 100 times. I think he actually won a race at 10 years of age.
In early 2004, I did an internet search, as I did every few months, to see if there was any new info, and was saddened to find that she had gone through a recent sale in Kentucky and had not brought much, and I had missed the opportunity to buy her. Later that summer, I decided I'd try to track down the person who had bought her and just make contact with the person to tell them about my experience with Red Devilette and just to see how she was doing, owning her was a longshot and I really wasn't even thinking about it too much.
Well, I stumbled across the person's website and there was a picture of Red Devilette and even with my limited vision, to me, in the picture, she was conveying that she was afraid. The picture had been taken at the auction in Kentucky and I'm sure she was quite worried about what situation she might be going into.
Luckily, when I contacted the lady, who lived in Colorado, she was really nice and said that Red Devilette was actually up for sale. We talked about her a bit and I told her I would see if I could afford to buy her or not. My husband and I talked and we decided to see if she would actually fit our breeding program and if she did, I'd first see if there was anything like her, for the same price or less, closer to us.
I looked all around and for some reason, I couldn't find anything like her for less, as the market was still fairly strong at this time. So, the lady who had her offered to come down a little bit on the price, so it would make it easier for us to buy her and pay for shipping from Colorado to Virginia.
I think I was still in shock that I was actually buying Red Devilette and was going to be reunited with her after almost 12 years.
Right before Thanksgiving of 2004, Red Devilette arrived at our small Perfect Peace Farm in southeastern Virginia, to take up residence at her new perminant home.
Because I had never been allowed to give her a nickname, when she was a yearling, because the men didn't want me to, I started the search for one. I wanted one that fit her personality and maybe one that fit her registered name, too. My mother-in-law suggested Scarlett and I added an "e" on the end, in reference to the last part of her registered name, so her barn name was now Scarlette. It fit her perfectly, she is a lot like the Scarlett O'Hara character from "Gone With The Wind", very much doing what she wants, high class, proud, intellegent, and so on.
I swear that Scarlette remembered me, when she heard my voice, because she settled in at our farm quickly, and with very little issue. She came to us carrying her 6th foal, as she was bred to Oliver's Twist, back in Colorado.
In early March she produced a lovely filly that we called Windy. Windy was sold as a weanling to a lady in New Jersey, but unfortunately was not able to race due to her owner's circumstances and was resold as an event prospect. She was given the registered name of Scarlett Shetanna, by her owner from NJ, who was a huge fan of "The Black Stallion" books, as am I, it fit.
As we got to know Scarlette better, I realized she was even smarter than I had remembered. Scarlette seems to be one of those rare horses that understands a whole lot of english and if you ask her nicely to do something, in most cases she will do it, but like Scarlett O'Hara, you do not tell her what to do, unless you want a fight or unless you are prepared to wait and wait and wait.
For instance, if I need to get Scarlette in the barn, because a storm is coming, I go out to the field to bring in the horses, Scarlette being my alpha mare, she usually is the last one into the barn paddock and then the last one to be caught. After I get everyone else in and it is now Scarlette's turn, I open up the outer stall door to her stall and stand back, I turn towards her and say, "Scarlette, it is going to storm, you should come into the barn." Or something close to that, it can be, "Scarlette, the farrier is coming and you need your feet done." As long as I give her a good reason to come into the barn, on her own, she usually walks right up to her stall door and goes in on her own, with me never having to catch her. If she is in the front field and I can't get the gates open so that she can do this, and I absolutely must catch her, I will go out into the field and say, "Scarlette, will you let me catch you so I can take you to your stall? There's going to be a storm." And she will usually circle me a few times, look at me, stop about 10 to 20 feet away and then stand looking at me and that is her way of telling me she is ready to be caught. I can then approach her and put the halter on her, with no trouble. But if you do not ask for permission to catch her or do not tell her why she needs to go into the barn, you can spend a half an hour out there chasing her around the fields, trying to catch her, but as soon as you start talking to her and give her a good reason or ask for her permission, she will immediately change and do what you ask, as long as you did so nicely, as she responds to tone a lot, too.
Even when entering her stall, I ask for permission to put the halter on her. I do not know what was done to her in the past and by whom. I do not know if she was abused or if just not treated the way she needed to be. I do not know if it is just people being afraid of her slightly nervous disposition or what, but when you enter the stall she usually has her butt turned towards you. In most cases you don't want the horse to do this, because it means that they might be thinking about kicking you, it is a dominance thing and yes, she is my alpha mare and by such, she demands respect. But I can honestly tell you that in the 7 years she has been on this farm, she has never kicked at me or my husband. So, I allow her to have her butt to me, I understand her need to do this, it is almost like she is protecting herself, she isn't doing it to be mean. I just talk to her, and reach out with my hand, finding her rump, I gently touch her, as I talk to her about catching her and putting the halter on her, telling her all that I'm going to do and what is going to be done. I slowly walk up her left side and as I get to her shoulder, most of the time she turns her pretty dished head towards me and lets me easily halter her and I can easily take her out of her stall for the farrier or vet to work with her.
I seriously believe she is not a mean horse and this behavior is more of a defense to her than her trying to be dominant over me, as she never pushes me, knocks into me or acts aggressive in any way towards me. We have a wonderful understanding relationship and I know she is happy here.
For my first choice of a stallion to breed Scarlette to, I chose Marquetry. He was a very successful racehorse and sire of some very nice runners, he also sired soundness, which I desired to breed for. Scarlette was bred to him in April of 2005 and in March of 2006, she presented us with a second filly, who we nicknamed Hope. Hope was a beautiful filly, dark bay with a heart shaped star on her forehead and one white sock. Like Windy, we sold Hope as a weanling, but this time, we were lucky and Hope ended up in a racing home.
Hope's owners gave her the registered name of Perfect Pet, using the word "perfect" from our farm name, I believe, and "pet" probably because she was a nice filly with a good disposition.
Hope did not disappoint us. The first time we got to see her race, in person, she was racing in the Jamestown Stakes for 2 year old fillies at Colonial Downs, on the dirt. Even though it was a stakes race, all of the fillies had not won a race, yet, as it was still early in their careers, so we had a lot of "hope" for Perfect Pet, who was the most experienced in the field, and had already placed a few times. Perfect Pet led most of the way and was only passed at the top of the stretch by one horse, a filly sired by a stallion who stood for more than 10 times what I had paid for the Marquetry stud fee. Perfect Pet lost by about 6 lengths, but was another 5 lengths or so ahead of the third place finisher, and in doing so, she put black type on her dam's page.
This is very important in the career of a broodmare, because it makes all of the foals born afterwards worth more, out of the mare. It proves that the mare can produce a decent race horse and that if she did it once, she could do it again.
Perfect Pet went on to race 20 times, with 1 win, 8 seconds, and 2 thirds, with earnings of $57,156, to be Scarlette's best foal to date.
Perfect Pet's owners decided near the end of her 3 year old year that she just didn't have the heart to race anymore and just wasn't happy doing it and they did the right thing and found her a great home. She now lives in northern Virginia and is happy as a pleasure horse. I was thrilled when her new owner contacted me and we have developed a friendship and I get updates, pictures, etc from Hope's owner on a regular basis. I hope to one day get to visit her at her new home. Her new owner has no plans to sell her, but knows that I am always willing to have Hope back, if there were ever a need for that, as she did so much for my little breeding operation, I could never repay what she and her mother have done for me, giving my first black type runner and my first winner as a breeder, something I'll never forget.
Scarlette's next date was with Silver Ghost, an older stallion, but he had a pretty good record of siring some decent runners, so I decided to give him a try, so I bred her to him in April 2006.
In mid March of 2007, I was anxiously awaiting the arrival of this next foal from Scarlette. I stayed home from choir practice one night, even though we were rehearsing for the upcoming Easter Cantata, because something told me that Scarlette was going to have her foal that night and I just couldn't leave her alone. It turned out to be a very good decision.
I put a camera up in my foaling stall, we run a cable from the camera to our house, where it attaches to a TV, where I can see and hear what is going on in the foaling stall. Since I can't see very well, having sound capabilities on this camera/TV system is very important. My husband had to be at church, as he was working sound for the choir, that night, and I was home alone with my 1 1/2 year old daughter. Around 8 PM I started noticing that Scarlette was pacing the stall and just not herself, so I knew we were getting close, so I called the church to see if someone could tell Gordon and maybe even relieve him, so he could come home, but I heard nothing.
I put my daughter to bed about 8:30, hooked up her baby monitor and made sure the batteries were in it, so I could take it to the barn with me, and here her, when I had to leave the house. Luckily it is only about 250 feet or so from barn to house, so it works well.
Right at about 8:45 Scarlette's water broke, I grabbed my bag of stuff, which included the phone, baby monitor, towels, and other assorted items that I use for foaling out my mares. I turned on the flood lights, so that I could use the one at the end of the barn, as my guide, to get me to the barn in the dark, and I made my way as quickly as I could to the foaling stall.
When I went into the stall, Scarlette just didn't seem right, so I went over to her hind end, knelt down and decided to check on the foal's position. As I reached inside of Scarlette, I was immediately horrified to find that the foal's feet were facing the wrong way, the foal was upside down! This is really bad, as horses can not deliver a foal that is upside down, safely, it can kill both the mare and the foal. I quickly exited the stall and called the vet, who was 45 minutes away. I then called the church to see if Gordon could leave, but again, nothing, I don't think anyone knew how serious the situation was, that I was now dealing with, by myself.
I put Scarlette's halter on her and led her outside infront of the barn and began to walk her in small circles, under the flood light, where I could see just a little bit. She kept wanting to lay down, but I just kept talking to her, encouraging her, that she needed to hold on and wait for the vet, to help her get the foal out. I had delt with some minor malpositioned foals, before, but never one this severely turned in the wrong direction.
Finally, about 9:15, my husband arrived and was able to help me start to take turns walking Scarlette and he could hold her, while I checked the foal's position and tried to see if I could turn it any, but it was stuck and I just couldn't seem to get it to turn at all.
After another 20 minutes of endless waiting, the vet finally arrived on the scene and immediately started to work on turning the foal. It was a very tense situation, as Scarlette was close to tearing up into her rectum, which could have left her open to massive infections, which we may not have been able to save her from, but somehow, he was able to slowly get the foal to turn. At another point, as he was working on turning the foal, he said, "I think we have lost the foal. It isn't moving anymore." So, I started preparing myself for the possibility of Scarlette delivering a dead foal and we said for him to do what he could to save Scarlette.
About 5 or 10 minutes after 10 PM, almost an hour and a half after her water broke, Scarlette finally delivered the foal. It laid there motionless for a minute and suddenly it moved and we all got really excited, as we all thought it was dead. The vet immediately went to work checking it over and kept saying over and over again, "Geez, that is one big filly!"
She was indeed a huge filly, almost the size of a lot of one month old foals, tall, big boned, lots of muscle, just massive, and out of this petite 15.3 hand Scarlette, it was amazing that both were still alive. We were so thrilled that the filly was alive and we decided to give all the credit to God and said her name had to be Glory, Glory to God that she was alive, and we also almost immediately came up with her registered name, Prepare The Way, one of the songs from the Cantata we were working on at church, it just fit her so well, such a wonderful beautiful big filly.
Glory got up and as I helped her find where her mama's milk was, this cowboy of a vet, big guy, whispered to my husband, "Look at that. That mare trusts her so completely. She is totally comfortable with Lisa working with her newborn filly." He was just amazed at how calm Scarlette was about letting me work with her and the filly. Amazed that Scarlette knew I was helping and that I was doing nothing to hurt the filly.
I have been told by more than one person that I am more of a "mare person", that mares just trust me, and after experiences like the above, I know that I am a "mare person", however, I have had a lot of good experiences with colts and geldings, too, but I just love being there for my mares when they need me, helping them give birth to their new babies, helping them find where the milk is, teaching them to lead, and teaching them everything else they need to know to be good horse citizens. It is one of those gifts God has definitely given me.
I will tell Glory's story more, in her own posting, so I move on with Scarlette's.
Scarlette needed a year off after giving birth to Glory, so that her body could recover. Her left stifle is now arthritic because of that foaling complication, but luckily it doesn't bother her too much.
So, after a year off, I decided that Hope had done so well, that I needed to repeat the breeding to Marquetry, so Scarlette was bred back to him in 2008. I don't know if it was because of the issues with foaling Glory or her age, but she took a little longer to get in foal this time, not conceiving until late May.
So, on April 30, 2009, I was watching and waiting for Scarlette's next foal to be born and suddenly realized I was seeing some signs of a repeat of Glory's birth. Scarlette was just not herself, again and I was feeling really uneasy about the whole situation. Around 9 PM Scarlette's water broke
and I rushed to the barn, as fast as I could, but this time, I was not alone, as my husband was home, but I was also 5 months pregnant with my second child and in the middle of a very difficult pregnancy.
I got to the stall and went in and immediatley went to check the foal's position and I looked up at my husband and said, "Here we go again!"
He said, "Your kidding, it's upside down, too?"
"Yep, call the vet!" I replied and I ran out and got her halter and got her up and had him start to walk Scarlette as I called the vet and began to talk to him. This time, it was the head vet, that was on call, and he was an hour and a half away, way too long for Scarlette to wait for him, for her to deliver this foal. He informed me that I'd have to try and turn the foal, to help their chances. He knew that I was pregnant and not doing well, so he encouraged me to just do the best I could, take breaks when I needed to and just have my husband keep walking her, inbetween my attempts.
So, I got off the phone with him and reached into Scarlette, as far as I could, to assess the whole situation. The foal's forehead was wedged hard up against her pelvis. I could only feel one eye and not the other and no ears. I was not sure what to grip to try and move it, but I tried anything I could grab and sometimes it meant putting a finger into its eye socket and I was terrified I was going to blind the foal, but I figured better that than loosing it or Scarlette.
The vet kept calling me every 10 to 15 minutes, to check on me and my progress, and for awhile, I was not making any, it seemed, but finally, somehow, the foal started to turn slightly. I told the vet this and he said that if I could get the foal more sideways, that she could deliver it that way, just not upside down.
The front feet of the foal had been at 12 o'clock, if you think of it as a clock, but slowly I got them more towards 3 o'clock and at that point, we let Scarlette lay down and I had my husband come back to Scarlette's rump to help me start to pull on the foal, to see if we could get it out. It was after 10 PM, by now and she was getting tired, as was I.
We pulled gently with Scarlette's contractions and as we started to pull, the foal slowly turned more and more into a more normal foaling position, until finally it was a normal presentation and the foal slid out the rest of the way. I pulled the sack off of it's head, and we discovered a matching star to it's full sister, Hope, and 4 white socks, the most white of any of Scarlette's foals that she had produced for us. I probed to find out if it was another filly and discovered that we had her first colt for us, as well.
He was just as big as Glory had been and I started to dry him off, taking breaks, sitting next to him, while my husband took pictures to show people what I had done and how exhausted I looked. The vet arrived about 15 minutes after I got the colt out and was amazed at how big he was. He commented about how my foals are always so big and healthy looking and wondered what I was feeding them or what was in my water, as I rarely ever have a weak foal born here, only three, that I can think of.
This beautiful boy deserved another special name, a strong name, so he was dubbed Marcus. After much thought and debate on what to register him as, we settled on Marq Your Bible, a name my husband came up with, using a "q" instead of a "k" in Marq, in honor of his sire Marquetry.
Marcus is now in race training and we still own a large percentage of him, but have sold some shares and may sell some more shares, and he will race under a partnership, like we did with Glory.
Scarlette has not had anymore foals since Marcus. She needed the year off, after Marcus, just like after Glory, and now the economy has just not been very good, so we decided to not breed her. But, I'm hoping that Marcus will do well enough this year, that we can send both his mother and Glory out to be bred next year. I hope that Scarlette can produce at least one more foal for me, but if she doesn't, she has no worries, she'll live the rest of her life with me, as she is a very special horse and owns a big part of my heart. I can't help but love that proud mare, she's something special, for sure!
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