My ponies were dangerous, mad, out of control and that was that! - Jill Thorp

A very sleepy-eyed check by myself revealed our maiden mare, Anwen, had given birth to a beautiful little filly.

I’d been suffering terribly with sleep deprivation and had to quickly switch all the lights on to make sure I wasn’t seeing things. The entire placenta was still attached to the foal so I rushed inside to wake Paul.

It certainly caught me off guard as Anwen hadn’t even begun to bag up and I’d presumed she was a good week away from foaling. Unfortunately, she had no bag and no milk, her teats still tucked high up.

The next few hours were a stressful blur of getting the foal to latch on in the hope it would encourage the milk and phone calls to the vet.

Anwen was incredibly patient and calmly tolerated our intrusion. Thankfully, later that day, her bag started to drop and fill out, due to the constant hungry suckling from her foal.

John-William was ecstatically happy, constantly stroking and reassuring Anwen whilst gently running his hands through the soft, fluffy coat of her foal.

That evening suggestions of names were raised. Sticking with the Tolkien theme, Miriel was a strong contender until my sister pointed out that there was only one name she could possibly be called and that was Padmé.

Being born on the fourth of May, it was only right that she was named after a Star Wars character. Thankfully, no-one was in favour of John-William’s suggestion of Chewbacca!

I was hugely relieved that I’d made the decision to move the mares into the stables next to the house. The drive up to High Moss during the night had been a real slog and left the mares a fair distance from the house, not ideal if anything had gone wrong.

Whilst they’d still been out up on the hillside Paul had offered to do a late-night check for me. A dense fog had descended making it impossible to make out any shapes in the gloom, so he’d hopped over the gate and gone in search of the girls.

Now, I perhaps should have mentioned to him that it’s a good idea to call out, talk to them as you approach, in a reassuring manner. But I didn’t. I’m not sure how far up the hillside he got and neither is he. All he remembers is being hit by what felt like a steam train and tumbling backwards down the slope, hooves narrowly missing him.

He lay for several minutes, winded and unsure as to whether or not it was safe to move before finally crawling back in the general direction of the gate.

The next morning and in fact the next few days, I was told that I would be seeing to my own damn ponies and there would be no further assistance from him.

I calmly reminded him of similar past experiences involving myself and his freshly calved cows, but he wasn’t for moving.

My ponies were dangerous, mad, out of control and that was that!