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My Reality Show Horse Life: Part II

When I left off, my four-year-old filly Layla had just given birth, as a surrogate, to a foal belonging to Taylor Swift. (She’s not Taylor Swift.) It was striking how much the foal looked like Layla since they were definitely not related.

Until then I always thought the idea that boys were slow was just a joke designed to trigger incels, but apparently in horses, it’s a fact. This foal took twice as long to figure out its feet and learn how to eat then either of my girls did.

The good news is that eventually he did learn where the milk bar was, and became adept at using it. I left the clinic that night around 3AM content, knowing that both Layla and the colt were fine.

I got back to the clinic the next morning and they were both well. The colt was zooming around Layla like he’d never not known how to use his legs and Layla was tired, but trying to be patient with the pesky little guy.

I knew that at some point Taylor was going to want to meet her colt, or there would have been no point to having it. But I was extremely concerned. Layla was a maiden mare we didn’t know how she would react to having strangers near her foal. Some mares are positively vicious. Think mama bears and their cubs.

Since I really didn’t want either Taylor, or, more important to me, the foal, to get hurt, I texted Taylor’s trainer and asked with her to let me know when Taylor was coming out. The trainer insisted that Taylor wanted private time to ‘bond’ with the foal.

If that’s what she wanted…. I saved the texts, just in case something bad happened and I needed proof that they’d been warned.

Thankfully it went okay; I found out because there were photos on Instagram. They were pretty, but definitely unsafe poses.

Sigh.

A few days later when I was making my daily visit to the clinic, I noticed a several black SUVs with tinted windows in the parking lot. These were not typical horse people cars. For one thing, they were sparklingly clean. They looked more like protection for the mob. Or something.

I called out to Layla as I entered the mare motel. She whinnied back and I noticed a bunch of people crowding in front of her stall.

It was Taylor, her assistant and the trainer, who was not pleased to see me. The guys in the cars were bodyguards. Protection.
K.

Layla whinnied again, louder so I gave her a carrot, and introduced myself. Taylor was very pleasant.

Inside the stall a vet tech was giving the colt a plasma infusion; this is standard with foals just in case they don’t receive enough colostrum after birth. At one day old, the colt was only about 60 pounds, but 60 pounds of confused, anxious and annoyed horse is still quite a handful. But this was not the tech’s first rodeo. She got the colt infused with a speed that was impressive.

While the foal was otherwise engaged Taylor asked a number of appropriate questions and carefully listened to the answers. Mostly we all admired the colt and I praised Layla for her good job.

After a while they needed to move on. I was giving Layla the rest of her snacks ,the caravan of SUVs peeled rubber out of clinic, spooking a horse a vet was treating.

After a week at the clinic Layla and the still-unnamed colt moved back to the field and joined the four other mamas and foals. Layla was thrilled to be out of a stall and back with her friends.

The other equines were not nearly as delighted to see Layla and the colt. The other babies were all a month or so older than the colt, and bullied him a bit. After the second time they chased him through the electric fence. Layla became a protective tiger mom.

The saying “don’t f*** with a boss mare” is based in fact, and Layla is nothing if not a wanna-be boss mare, happy to show off her skills. A few kicks and bites were all it took. After that, the baby-without- name stayed glued to Layla’s side and the other foals backed off until he approached them.

At three weeks old the colt still didn’t have a name. For reasons I don’t remember but I think has something to do with his breeding, we took to calling him Cooper. He learned it pretty quickly and figured out that he got head and butt scratches while Layla got her carrots and snuggles. When he saw me or heard me calling Layla, he’d come running.

All of the mares were used to me coming out, and didn’t care when I played their babies. Of course, they usually got a carrot or some peppermints and had been for months. Bribery works when broodmares know and trust you.

When the mares and foals know you are a human Pez despenser, they come running.

If they don’t, you can get double-barrel kicked if you get close to their babies.

Which was why it was just luck that no one got hurt when Taylor and her boyfriend, plus a huge entourage came out to the field. The bf, who I will call Travis Kelce, (It’s not Travis Kelce,) is a huge music star. I’m a fan, but it I was much more impressed that he made time to see his girl’s baby horse than anything else he has done. That guy is a keeper.

Unfortunately, no one was informed before their visit, and these are mostly people with absolutely no horse sense. None. We had visions of people being chased, kicked and trampled by a herd of pissed off mares.

Truthfully we were worried that the foals would be hurt in the melee.

Real question: are body guards required to throw themselves between their clients and a furious mare?

I was oblivious to all this when I came out a few hours later, but I did wonder why the mares were so unsettled. Thankfully, no one – human or equine – was injured during the visit.

Phew.

After that, there were no more celebrity visits to the field for a long, long time.

Most of the time when I visited I was the only one there, which was the best. The babies were all curious and friendly, if a little bit pesty. Being mobbed by foals three or four days a week is my idea of heaven.

When Cooper – Taylor eventually named him Columbia but Cooper stuck as his barn name – was four months old he and the others went to Oldenburg breed inspections and ratings. Judging is based on looks, conformation and way of going, ostensibly to maintain the standards of the Oldenburg breed.

I call it toddlers and tiaras for horses.

All the mares and foals were braided, bathed and impeccably turned out. They looked super cute and the the braids were all a bit wonky on the babies which it makes it hard for me to take it seriously, but it is.

The judges are very stern and surround the mares and their babies with a checklist and clipboards rating them on a number of different categories. The judges confer with each other, and then announce their results.

Toddlers and Tiaras, aka foal inspections.

Cooper’s bio mom, who is very cute, was recorded in the breed registry as a Premium Dressage Mare. (Huh? She is a jumper.) Cooper was named Best Dressage Foal (Also huh? His daddy is a fancy FEI horse.), and deemed Elite. He got a nice blue ribbon which he tried to nibble on.

Totally darling.

They all returned to the field as soon as judging was complete. The other mares are all older retired show horses, so travel, new environments and judging is old hat. Layla is a good traveler, and went through the judging herself as a foal (Premium), but she is only four and found the whole experience exhausting. She and Cooper napped most of the next day.

For the next two months things were pretty peaceful. But foals are weaned between four and six months old and the other foals were all a month or two older than Cooper. That meant that gradually the other mares left the field. Their babies were frantic for about a day, and then… just as quickly they got over it.

For more than a month, Layla was the last mare in the field. She looked like the Pied Piper of foals. The other babies were mostly independent by that time but they would check in with Layla regularly. Cooper split his time between playing with his friends and sticking with mama when he was hungry. At that point he was also eating some hay but still liked a regular drink.

Now when I visited I’d get even more surrounded by babies since they weren’t with their moms. They were looking for attention, scratches and the fly repellent that I’d slather them with. It was like wading through five 150 pound Golden Retriever puppies.

It was getting hard for me to get to Layla because, well, foals. When they got to be too much she’d chase a few of them off. Which left Cooper, and he was the biggest puppy of them all.

I’m not sure if it was all the babies glued to her like Velcro, or just Cooper being a pest, or just time, but Layla was mostly over being a mommy. I can only imagine.

On October 1, it was Cooper’s turn to be weaned. I was also time for Layla, now a solid four years old, to go to work for a living.

It took a village to maneuver Layla out of the field and keep all five babies inside, but we managed. The foals were curious but calm when she was on the other side of the fence and they could see her, but all hell broke out when she stepped into the trailer. When we drove away, they all began charging around the field bellowing.

Cooper and company were fine when Layla left the pasture. It wasn’t until she got in the trailer that they got upset.

Even though I knew that by the next day they’d all be fine, it was kind of heartbreaking.

Layla had no qualms about leaving. By the time we to her new home, all of eight minutes away, she had moved on. She unloaded like a dream and marched into the next phase of her life.

Cooper remained in the field with his friends before he was moved to another farm. I visited him one more time right before he left.

All the babies were glad to see me. They all looked fantastic, and it was very gratifying when he pushed his way through his buddies to give me a push and a nuzzle.

I am very grateful to Taylor for letting me play with him for five months. I know he will have a good life. I hope I see him again when he’s grown and working, but that’s a long time from now.

As I was leaving, he followed me to the fence. I admit I cried when I got to my car.

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My Reality Show Horse Life

I have spent a lot of my life being famous adjacent. Sometimes more adjacent than others.

I’ve worked with a bunch of well-known people. REALLY legendary folks. You know the kind I’m talking about. The people you mention – I try not to- and others go, “OMG! What are they like?”

(Note: they may or may not remember me. Sometimes even while I was standing next to them. I spent a week doing radio/tv and other media with David Crosby who never bothered to remember my name. He called me “publicity girl.”)

These people have done stuff. Created timeless music. Written insanely good songs, books and directed classic movies and television shows.

Those kinds of people.

I have zero experience with reality tv stars. I’ve never watched a full episode of any of those shows, though I admit I’ve seen trailers of “F*Boy Island.”

They make me throw up a little in my mouth.

Basically I try to live by the rule that if I want to waste time with useless creatures, I play with my dogs and horses.

Strike that; the horses and dogs aren’t useless. They make me laugh and bring joy into the world.

But sometimes being an adult means you have to be tolerant, and do cringey things to ensure that everyone eats.

I HATE adulting. Really, really hate it.

About 16 months I had a come to Jesus moment and had to deal with my reality. That is, I was (and still am) barely working. Being a woman of a certain age, with no discernable skill set, I’m not exactly in demand by anyone for anything.

Though I now walk dogs for money, this is and wasn’t nearly enough to pay for anything necessary.

Like food.

But mostly hay and kibble.

Most pressing was what to do with Layla. She was three, and it was no longer sustainable for her to sit around in a field looking pretty. She needed to learn her job and then something that I’d figure out.

A smart person would have sold her immediately, and that would be the end of it. The fact that I have four horses should prove I’m not smart. Or practical.

Layla is Lucy’s biological daughter, but my late Faith, her half-sister, was her surrogate mother.

Faith and me the morning Layla was born.

The idea of losing Layla, and my last connection Faith, was unbearable. It still is.

Enter a celebrity. We will call her Taylor Swift. (It’s not Taylor Swift.)

Janis rides a little. (She is a model and spends her time getting paid huge sums to wear fancy clothing in exotic locations and shill dull products on commercial sets.)

Her former riding teacher convinced her that breeding her older, saintly, mare would be fun and Instagram worthy. Taylor planned to keep the mare and hopefully photographic foal at my friend A’s farm, where Layla lives.

But horses are not reality shows, and even with the best veterinary care and expensive stallion sperm, Taylor’s mare could not stay pregnant. The search was on to find a young, healthy mare to act as a surrogate so Taylor could fulfil her momentary dream of breeding her own foal.

I got a call from A, who was well aware of both Taylor and my situations.

“Have you thought about using Layla as a surrogate? Taylor needs one. She would pay a small fee, and pick up all of Layla’s expenses until the foal is weaned.” Then A added the kicker, “It will save you a lot of money.”

I didn’t have much time to think it over, but I consulted with my horse trainer and my conscience -putting my filly at risk for someone else’s foal was hard to justify – but ultimately, I agreed.

The fee was enough to send Layla to a trainer for three months while she was newly pregnant, and then give her a full year to mature before she went to full-time work.

It also took her off my bill for a year. A had me at “It will save you a lot of money.”

Technically horse surrogacy is the same as for human surrogacy. After hormones sync up the donor mare and the surrogate, a fertilized egg is removed from the donor and implanted in the surrogate. Then everyone holds their breath until the 45 day mark, when an ultrasound shows if the embryo is still viable.

The world learned about the results days after I did when Taylor teased it on the family reality show. (Doesn’t every family have one?)

“There’s an embryo!” Taylor crowed in clips that went viral on the internet and The Post’s Page Six. Of course when it came out that what she was expecting, was a foal, not a new Swift, there was an onslaught of memes and disappointed fans. Someone called Layla an equine version of a handmaid.

I had rented my horse out to a reality show. I hang my head in shame.

My phone started pinging immediately with text notifications to watch “Access Hollywood.” The last time that happened to me, Billy Bush was blabbing with Trump before he grabbed a friend on camera.

A great moment for all of us. This time was slightly less traumatizing, at least for me.

Meanwhile, Layla was living her best life. She was residing at the farm where she was raised, sharing a field with four other pregnant mares. I visited four or five times a week.

My only contact with Taylor was having to harass her people to pay me. I don’t blame her; like most really rich folk, she has money managers who pay her bills I wasn’t high on the list. But there were a few months that it looked like I would own the foal.

If only.

Eventually it was straightened out and I didn’t have any interaction with Jendall or her people for the next 11 months.

You read that right. The gestation period for horses is 11 months.

Layla’s due date was late April. The great thing about artificial insemination is that you know exactly when the foal is due. I cleared my schedule for four weeks around the day, since babies still come when they want. Layla was born four weeks late, hence her registered name, Fashionably Late.

I started to worry about month 10. Layla was huge. Unlike Lucy, she didn’t moan every time she moved, but I was a wreck. In the weeks before Layla was due, three very high profile and valuable racehorse broodmares died giving birth.

I was feeling better and better about this deal. Not.

Layla went to the veterinary clinic a week before she was due, and I visited her every day with carrots.

There were a few glitches at first. Mostly paperwork, but important paperwork. Like if there was a problem and a choice had to be made, it had to be clear that Layla would be saved, not the foal.

I also needed to make sure that when Layla went into labor, I would be called immediately. No matter what time it was.

Horses are prey animals, and tend to give birth at night. Unlike the Swifts, they don’t like an audience. Wild horses can literally stop labor in emergencies and wait until it is safe to deliver.

On April 22 at midnight I got a call from that Layla was in labor. I arrived at the clinic 20 minutes later. She had just given birth to a colt.

He was still wet when I walked into the same stall where four years and three weeks earlier, Layla was born. Layla was relieved to see me and nearly stepped on him to get to me.

That would have been bad.

So I sat in a corner to allow them space. Some mares are viciously protective of their babies and will kick and bite anything that comes between them. Layla has known me since she was mere minutes old; she desperately wanted me to comfort her while she waited for the wet lump to do something.

Anything.

We all waited.

Both my foals were girls, and were on their feet, if shakily within an hour. After the first hour, the colt was still struggling to straighten out his legs while lying down.

Cooper didn’t know how to use his legs for the longest time.

I asked the vet tech who was waiting with me if I should be concerned.

“He’s a boy,” she said, as if that explained it all.
“Colts are slower?” I asked. She burst out laughing. “Oh, yeah!”

She was right.

I spent the next few hours taking tons of adorable video, for Taylor since she was out of town attending the Met Gala. (That’s not a sentence I thought I’d ever write about anyone.)

Her trainer didn’t want me to have Taylor’s number (Really? Okay then.) and acted as an intermediary. Or translator. Or something. So I sent about six of the videos to the trainer and she forwarded some to Taylor.

A few turned up on Taylot’s Insta a few days later.

Almost two hours later, we were all losing patience with the colt. He was barely trying to get up. When Layla went over to him to give him a gentle nudge, he bit her. The tech tried to pick him up, but he kept crossing his front legs seconds after she uncrossed them.

Just as I started to think he was a dummy foal he sort of figured it out. (It’s a real thing. Dummy foals cannot stand up, stay up or figure out to eat on their own. They can and often do, die.) He uncrossed his legs and wobbled his way upright before falling over. This time he kept trying, eventually started hopping around like a bunny.

It took another hour or so before the colt figured out how to eat. At first he would grab Layla’s elbow, which obviously was pointless and just pissed her off. Then, when he did discover where the milk bar was, Layla was super sensitive and kept squealing when he tried to drink.

Around 3 am they both got the hang of it and he had a real drink and I finally took a breath.

I thought the hard part was over. I was wrong.

End Part 1