A terribly sad outcome from today’s Caulfield Cup, with dual Group 1-winning mare Ohope Wins suffering an injury in a race fall and being humanely euthanised despite immediate veterinary attention. Thankfully, Half Yours was back on his feet and returned to the mounting yard, where he underwent veterinary assessment. Jockeys Mark Zahra and Jye McNeil were both conscious and taken to hospital for further checks. Our thoughts are with Chris Waller and his team, the connections of Ohope Wins and everyone who cared for her. These incidents are heartbreaking for everyone involved in racing. Every serious injury deserves proper investigation, and every opportunity to make racing safer must be pursued. There is always more work to be done. Rest easy, Ohope Wins. ❤️

“Do racehorses only matter while they’re making money?” 👀 Hear from Nina and Yona Lloyd about what happens after racing and the people helping retired racehorses find their next career. Got questions about life after racing? Let us know in the comments section 👇

Not all scans tell the same story 👀 Here’s a closer look at PET vs CT scan in equine care. Got questions about the technology or science? Drop them in the comments below 👇

How high-tech medical scanning helped to fix one of the biggest mysteries in horse racing 🐎🔬 We’ll be exploring how these scans work in upcoming videos. Got questions on the tech or the science? Drop them below!👇

Last night, Marnie’s “forced cycle of pregnancy” produced a lovely filly - Nellie. Thirty-two minutes after being born, Nellie was wet, blinking, breathing properly and attempting to solve a problem no foal has ever solved elegantly… Standing up. Before she got there, Mikey and the team had already checked the basics. She was alert, breathing well, her gums were a healthy colour and she could hold herself upright on her chest. Her heart and lungs sounded as they should and her navel was treated with iodine. Marnie was being watched too, for bleeding, pain, injury and to make sure she passed the placenta normally. As soon as she did, the placenta was checked by the team to make sure it was intact and no bits had broken off, as they can be very toxic when retained in the mare. Horse people have a useful shorthand for these first few hours: 1, 2, 3. Foal stands within about 1 hour. Nurses within 2. Mare passes the placenta within 3. Nellie didn’t need much help. She got one front leg underneath herself, lost the other, tried the back end instead and discovered she had made the situation worse. Then she tried again, and again. Four legs eventually pointed in roughly the same direction and Nellie stood. Not elegantly - but elegant wasn't the goal. Getting out of the way of predators is. Which is why a foal can gallop in a couple of hours. In the wild, there is no Mikey checking her breathing, no treated navel, nobody checking Marnie for passing the placenta and nobody noticing if the little filly isn't getting up. But Nellie didn't pay attention to any of the checks anyway - she had found the udder, so there were very important things to do!

Marnie’s “forced cycle of pregnancy” ended at 1:43am on Wednesday. Eight days late. This will come as disappointing news to anyone under the impression the Thoroughbred breeding industry has complete control over these things. Marnie had spent the previous few weeks being checked, watched, discussed, written on the night-watch board and generally surrounded by people attempting to predict when she would foal. Marnie declined to participate. Then, at 1:32am, she changed her mind. She became restless, walked, lay down, got back up and looked at her flank. Mikey made the call, the on-call staff came in and Marnie was quietly moved into a small outdoor foaling yard. Thoroughbred mares in Australia generally foal outside. The yard is deliberately small, clean and well-drained: enough room for Marnie to move and foal safely, with people close enough to help if things stop going to plan. Her waters broke. Two front feet appeared, one slightly ahead of the other, then a nose. The Superman pose - exactly what everyone wanted to see. So everyone did something humans occasionally find quite difficult… Nothing. If there had been one foot and no nose, a leg or head in the wrong position, strong contractions without progress, or the red membrane that can signal the placenta has separated too early, that would have changed very quickly. But Marnie knew her part. Eleven minutes after her waters broke, a wet bay filly landed on the ground. Meet Nellie. The cord was left to break naturally when Marnie moved. Marnie stayed down for a moment, turned towards her, nickered, then got up and began licking her clean. Her mate Pippa watched from the adjoining paddock. A wild mare does exactly the same job without Mikey, the night watch, the on-call staff, the foaling kit or a vet if something goes wrong. When everything goes right, those people mostly stand there and watch. The difference is what happens when it doesn’t. Marnie, however, demonstrated that she required none of them. Nellie was breathing. Pippa went back to eating. Marnie remained unavailable for social media comment.

Nature has had millions of years to refine the newborn foal, but it has retained some fairly unreasonable deadlines. The first is breakfast. A foal has only a matter of hours to get something it may need for the rest of its life. Humans, fortunately, have become rather good at improving the odds. A foal is born with very little useful antibody protection circulating in its blood. The mare has it instead - concentrated in the thick first milk she produces after birth: colostrum. The foal has to stand, find the udder, latch properly and drink it, and it needs to get on with it. Its ability to absorb those large antibodies through the gut is highest in the first few hours, then falls rapidly until very little can get through. Nature's system is clever, but it is also unforgiving. Which is why breeders don't simply admire a newborn foal, decide mother nature knows best and come back in the morning. They watch it nurse. They make sure it is actually swallowing. Colostrum is tested for quality, and the foal's blood can later be tested to make sure the antibodies actually made it into circulation. If they didn't, there is still a chance to do something about it. Stored colostrum may help while the gut can absorb it. If that window has closed, a vet can give plasma. A wild foal gets the same small window, the same biology, the same rapidly closing window and considerably fewer backup plans. There is a particular sort of confidence required to look at all of this and decide the human involvement is the cruel part. Nature makes magnificent animals, but it has never been particularly sentimental about the ones that don't make it.

After several weeks of refusing to cooperate with the schedule, Marnie has offered the humans a clue. She waxed up. Rachel found two little beads on the ends of her teats. Wax is dried colostrum and commonly appears as foaling gets close, although some mares wax earlier and some don’t bother at all. Broodmares remain committed to making an exact science of foaling difficult. Rachel checked that Marnie wasn’t leaking milk, made a note of the changes she’d seen during the day, then let Mikey know. Mikey was on night watch. At this point in the season he has 62 mares on his board. Six look particularly close. Marnie is now one of the six. Mares have a strong tendency to foal at night, when things are quieter and there is less activity around them. It makes perfectly good sense for an animal whose instinct is to find a quiet, undisturbed time to give birth. It is a perfectly sensible arrangement for the mare and a fairly inconvenient one for the humans. So night watch is exactly what it sounds like. Someone is physically there through the night, watching the mares. Cameras help. Rachel’s notes help. Changes in udders, wax, behaviour and everything else observed over the previous days help. But ultimately Mikey has to look at the mare and decide whether she is sleeping, uncomfortable, getting closer or actually starting to foal. The six get particular attention. The other 56 still get watched, because the seventh mare is generally the one who hasn’t read the notes. A few other staff are on call with their phones beside them. Once a mare is properly underway, Mikey calls and they come in. The foaling kit is already waiting: clean towels, gloves and lubricant, a tail wrap, navel disinfectant, torch and colostrum-testing gear. There is stored colostrum if a foal needs it, equipment for emergencies and a vet a phone call away. Most of it stays exactly where it is. That’s the preferred outcome. Last night, Marnie lay down at 11:40pm. Mikey looked up. Pippa kept eating. Marnie rolled, got up, shook herself and went back to the grass. At 1:15am she wandered away from Pippa, circled, then came back. Mikey checked her again. By dawn another mare had foaled and her name was off the board. Marnie was still pregnant, having spent the night eating, sleeping and occupying a completely unreasonable amount of Mikey’s attention. For Marnie, nothing happened. For Mikey, that was a normal night’s work.

This one's for us too 🇦🇺🇳🇿 The content in this course translates across any jurisdiction.