Filly Foal Twins : Greenacres Champagne Z & Crystal Z

Filly Foal Twins Greenacres Champagne Z & Crystal Z

Perfectly formed twin fillies were born on the  2nd June 2008 to the Graded Trakehner Show jumping mare Sequin II.  This type of birth is an extremely rare event.

The birth came as a complete surprise to the stud as when the mare was scanned after insemination there was no sign of  multi foetus . Had it shown two , then like most horse breeders the stud's veterinarian would have been asked  to abort one of them.

The 17 hh broodmare is a daughter of the prolific Olympic show jumping stallion Abdullah and was purchased by the Greenacres Stud from the late Ingrid Christodolou . Sequin II was inseminated by Artificial Insemination  to the young talented Zangersheide  show jumping stallion Calvados Z .

Greenacres Stud are no strangers to the show jumping community with their current team of seven graded mares being competed by riders Jo Hassall and Alex Thompson and with their breeding operation  based in South Derbyshire.

Proprietor Christine Mart commented , " It should have been a routine evening in front of the foaling cameras and I was not fully prepared for the events that followed "

The first filly foal was routinely born at 7.30 pm. The 13 year old mare  had given birth to off spring in the past and everything appeared perfectly normal at first .  However , after the birth , Christine noticed that the mother appeared to have a problem , mainly she feared that the birth had caused some damage to the mare's uterus.

As a precaution , Christine immediately called for help from her vet who luckily happened to be just 10 minutes away and it was during this slight wait that the mare started to push again. " I just couldn't believe it as the hooves of the second foal started to appear  ". Fortunately , one of the Greenacres staff had just arrived and  quickly cleared the immediate delivery area for the next birth.

The second filly arrived at 7.45 pm but was delivered not breathing . It took a heart stopping 30 seconds of massaging to get life into the new born. The visiting vets could not have arrived more on cue even if everything had been rehearsed as they immediately drew colostrum(s) from the mare and delivered it via stomach tubes to the youngsters.

A little surprisingly , the second  ( and smaller foal ) to be born was actually on her feet first but then the long night  really began in earnest .  After three hours of this foal trying to suckle without success a two hour round trip by Christine and her Yard manager Ella Taylor to collect enough milk  for bottle feeding  began. Fortunately and much to the relief of all concerned the foal started to suckle off the mother at around 2 am ( approx 6 hours after the birth ) , literally just moments before the  milk for the bottle arrived !

Routine checks by the vet later in the morning confirmed that all organs were functioning normally with both foals and that the blood counts confirmed that ample anti - bodies were present in each animal . Equally important and against all the normal expectations in these circumstances , the foals were perfectly formed .

To help the foals to grow , Greenacres are feeding the broodmare " all the hay she wants ."  She is also eating a feed that is high in protein and vitamins to pass on as much nutrition as possible to the foals  , which have to split the five gallons of milk their mother produces each day.

" Obviously , we will be keeping a very close eye over the days ahead " said Christine  "but as the mare actually went over her due delivery date by five days , I am very optimistic about the future of the two youngsters. Hopefully if all goes well I will be taking them to the Trakehners UK grading show later in the year "

Christine also jokingly added  " Apparently this is a rare event and research shows  just a 1 in 10,000 chance of this happening with yet even greater odds of such twins being born perfectly formed as these two young ladies are . Its a bit of a pity that I am not so lucky with my lottery numbers "

Foals at 48 hrs old ( Crystal on the left )