There's a new filly in town. She's looking for love–and a name. For now she's getting plenty of love (and hay and medical attention and pats and treats) from the folks at the Middleburg Humane Foundation. What she really needs is a name.

To remedy this, the MHF is currently sponsoring a "Name the Baby" contest. By January 6th, all interested and creative parties are being asked to submit name ideas for the furry, nameless filly. The winner will receive a MHF lifetime membership and sweatshirt and have their picture taken with the baby for the next newsletter.

A Very Sad Story

Here's a little background on the girl in question to get your creative juices going.

She came to our area via a livestock trailer all the way from Manitoba, Canada. She was born there at a Pregnant Mare Urine ranch approximately six months ago, along with hundreds of other foals, all of them the byproduct of the manufacturing process for PMU.

PMU ranches throughout Canada and across the northern United States produce the key ingredient for the hormone replacement therapy that until recently was popular with women seeking to ease the side effects of menopause.

About a year ago the Women's Health Initiative released a study that indicated that these therapies (Prempro, etc.) could have unwanted side effects of their own, and the use of the drugs has dropped dramatically. However, the pharmaceutical company Wyeth, is still producing the drug, and about 12,000 broodmares are still on production lines (down from about 36,000 at the height of the market.)

Keeping mares pregnant in order to produce the estrogen-rich urine necessary for the drug production does have certain unintended consequences, most of which come in the form of foals.

Initially the PMU ranchers would send these unwanted animals off to slaughterhouses. At some point, many of the ranchers discovered that if they bred nicer mares (mostly draft cross, Thoroughbred and Quarter Horse mares) to decent stallions they could in fact market the foals as riding horses.

Saved by MHF

The fuzzy filly at MHF comes from just such a rancher herself. According to MHF Executive Director Hilleary Bogely, who tracked the breeding rancher down in order to obtain more information about the filly, this rancher has done his best to produce a horse with color, a healthy conformation, and most noticeably, a quiet temperament.

Indeed when Bogely peeked into the round pen at the Fauquier Livestock Exchange to choose a PMU baby to take back with her, she saw about 32 nice-looking if young and frightened prospects.

"It was not an easy thing to do," recalls Bogley, speaking of her task to choose just one from that pen.

After speaking to the gentleman who had come to Marshall to sell the babies at the livestock auction, Bogley understood that any foals that were unsold at this auction would be shipped on to another auction in Indiana. From there, any foal remaining would head to Texas, basically slaughter bound.

As Bogley looked into the pen, one filly in particular was especially curious, calm and interactive. She was beautifully marked and had the strong conformation of a filly that might grow to be a decent foxhunter, or perhaps an eventer–maybe even just someone's favorite trail-riding companion.

Bogley chose her and brought her home with her other purchase of the day: Annie, a 19-year-old mare, pretty much reduced to skin and bones. Bogley and the rest of her crew at MHF went immediately to work on their new charges. Annie is getting healthier by the day, and the filly is handled daily. Soon a trainer will be brought in, to–at the very least–halter train her. Then, once she can be willingly led around and can trailer without worries, she will be formally placed for adoption to someone in the community.

Any horse adopted from MHF, according to its adoption contract, cannot be used for breeding or racing, or be given away or sold. Potential adopters must fill out an application and questionnaire in order to be considered–and, while this might sound like a lot of hoops to jump through just to give a filly a home, history and experience have shown that this method best guarantees a happy outcome for all.

Bogleyʼs experience is to be trusted. She started the farm shelter for abused and neglected animals 10 years ago, and in that time she and her team have placed over 3000 animals of all shapes and sizes in loving, permanent homes. She is quick to point to the numerous volunteers and benefactors that make such an achievement possible.

Dr. Andrea Russell, for instance, provides all routine equine veterinary care free of charge, while Dr. Norris Adams provides equine surgical care on a pro bono basis.

Back to the filly at hand: she's a Belgian cross, a bit of a flirt, seems brave, and is very friendly. She's clever and appreciative. And very, very cute.

So if any of that history and description sparks a name idea, send it to the Middleburg Humane Foundation, P.O. Box 1238, Middleburg, VA 20118.

Contest entries will appear in the Middleburg Eccentric. Good luck to the filly and the contest entrants!