2008 Love Your Horse Mare & Foal Photo Contest Winners

Some mornings it just doesn’t pay to get up. We all know the feeling. Things just seem to go wrong no matter what you do. Or somehow you just know it’s going to be the same old thing all over again. But if you are lucky, every once in awhile you get up with a feeling that something good is about to happen. It may be something as simple as seeing a sunny day instead of rain, or you step on the scale and find that you have lost a few pounds. Maybe you’ll even win a dollar or two with that lottery ticket you bought the other day. Whatever the reason, you just always seem to know. That’s how I felt the morning I took this picture. My daughter and I were present at the birth of this colt the night before and we were really looking forward to seeing him again the next morning. Knowing that most mares are very protective of their babies, I really didn’t have much hope of getting a good shot of the two of them on their first day together. Just as we got to the barn though, Chelsea, the beautiful mama, was nudging Warwick out of the darkened stall into the sunny paddock. She stopped when she saw us and before she could move the colt away I snapped this shot. Sheer luck. We were surprised to actually find her very friendly while we were in the pasture with them, even letting us fuss over her baby. Of course, the bag of carrots and pocket full of peppermints had nothing to do with that fact! I took quite a few more pictures that morning, but none of them were as special to me as this one. I call it ‘First Light’.