A major ice storm like we had this week in horse country means: breeding by candlelight.

Just kidding. But it can mean foaling by flashlight. When Central Kentucky loses electrical power (some 525,000 of us are without electricity) the horse farms face unique challenges.

I baked potatoes in the coals of a fire Wednesday night and had to leave home to find Internet service Thursday. That was after digging out the car. Meantime, those horse farms in my neighborhood with mares scheduled to foal have been bringing babies into the world under whatever alternative lighting they can muster up.


Most of the major farms use generators to provide alternative lighting: lessons learned from the big ice storm here in 2003. Not far from my place, WinStar Farm must have been caught by surprise, as most of us were, when the power went out in the middle of the night Tuesday. I read in the Lexington Herald-Leader that WinStar’s foaling crew helped a mare give birth Tuesday night – by car light.

Hill ‘n’ Dale Farm manager Joe Ramsey told the Herald-Leader: “I do have several mares close to foaling and, by golly, if we’ve got to use a flashlight, we just do.”

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