I think everybody in Mo’s (my trainer and friend) barn loves Mocha, including me. She is a Percheron cross and black as night. She is sweet as can be and loves to learn. A few years ago, I showed her in a couple of flat classes in the hunter division. Talking about a smooth ride. She is Miss Steady Edie, alias Steady Eddie. Mocha was the product of being a PMU foal (Pregnant Mare Urine), as the drug, i.e., Premarin is a very common drug prescribed to millions of women worldwide as a hormone replacement therapy. Rather than go into a lengthy conversation about PMU, there’s plenty of info on the web about it. The bottom line is when the majority of the foals are weaned at 4 months, they are sent to slaughter houses, and their moms continue to stand in stalls, bred back to stallions to produce more hormones.
Now, getting down to the soul of this story. Mo heard about the plight of PMU foals, so arranged to drive up to Canada where a good many of these farms existed and picked up 17 foals and drove them back to Virginia. All of us pitched in and bought a foal for $750. They were all adopted out and “re-gifted” in some cases. I gave mine (I named him Chance – show name, Pay-It-Forward) to a family who turned him into a show pony for their daughter. Chance was sooooo cute. He was a quarter horse cross with a white blaze, and a copper colored chestnut and had the sweetest personality.