Horse Women and Trakehner Inspections: A Day with Mares, Foals, and Tough Women

I had originally thought to make this post about what happens at a Mare/Foal/yearling Trakehner inspection but it’s intertwined with us horse women.

My friend Emily had asked if I would be interested in volunteering at the inspection and I could learn a little bit about the breeding world. I have read enough of breed.ride.event’s blog that I am not intrigued by the breeding world.

I was the scribe for the German inspector that had flown over from Germany and was doing a week-long inspection all over the USA.

Inspections serve to maintain quality standards for the Trakehner breed (and for other breeds registries as well).

To start out, the only man involved in this event was the inspector. Everyone else was women.

Which is cool but funny! Women driving in these massive trucks and massive trailers unloading mares and sassy foals/yearlings. I could feel the nerves and tension in the air. We can do the hard things but we are going to stress about them! Which makes sense as normally caring for the mares and foals is out in a green field or fluffy stall in the piece and quiet. This involved hauling both mama and baby out of their home turf.

There were a couple maiden mares being inspected as well. Which is a brilliant idea for the future if I get another mare.

my friend Emily and her horse who scored the highest of the mares that day as a thoroughbred!

Well it was definitely a learning experience. The German inspector (I feel bad I have forgotten his name) was a funny guy with a very German brand humor. He did have some helpful points on the handling of horses and foals. One lady got NAILED in her ribs by a foal that left a gnarly bruise. I am fairly certain I heard she had already had cracked ribs not that long ago. She was on the ground but then maybe 15 minutes later this lady was handling more horses !!! And she was 40’s or 50’s. All these women are strong and fit and tough! I really love horse women we just get it done.

Here is the order of operations in case anyone is curious.

-everyone shows up to the arena barn and puts mares/foals into stalls, fills water up and drops hay

-a lot of the mares already had braids in but everyone was spiffed up and groomed to shine

-inspector and scribe prepare paperwork in order and the inspector has a tablet he pre enters information into

-the organizer already has the order of horses that will be presented and inspection sheets filled out with the basic information

-horse is presented on a hard concrete surface for visual inspection, height and cannon bone measurements (scribe writes this down on the paper) and then the mare is walked away and back and trotted away and back.

-after this the mare or mare+foal is brought inside a fenced arena with white poles making a large triangle, the mare is walked around on the outside of the triangle at the walk and the foal is walked around on the inside of the triangle

-the mare is then asked to trot around the triangle while the foal handler just holds on for dear life

-The mare or mare/foal then have their halters taken off and are asked to trot and then canter around the arena

good luck catching them after they've been asked to run around lol

-during this the inspector is grading and the scribe writes down what the inspector scores

-the mare or mare/foal are caught and the inspector tallies up the totals and tells everyone the scores and comments

-at the end of the scoring and all horses have went the approved horses are branded. I didn't stick around for this because I need to go pick up my kid.

One other tidbit is you should dress semi nicely as it is supposed to be a semi formal event.

This was definitely a new part of the horse world for me and I’m so glad I went. Especially getting to meet more horsewomen in my area. Who knows what I will be doing in 15  years with horses.

-A