How an Igloo cooler helped turn orphaned foal into strapping sale ring yearling

When Audrea Dyer foaled the St Patrick's Day colt out of her mare Humorlee on January 25 of last year, she had no inkling of the events that would soon take place, making the now-strapping bay colt named My Last Lea a family project. The colt was to be the last foal from Humorlee, who died just 24 hours after foaling.

The yearling colt is consigned by Abbie Road Farm (Lisa McGreevy) as Hip 151 and heads through the ring on Tuesday as part of the select group of yearlings during the Ocala Breeders' Sales October Sale.

The winning Distorted Humor mare Humorlee joined Terry and Audrea Dyer's Florida farm after a spur-of-the-moment bid during the 2020 Ocala Breeders Sales Company Winter Mixed Sale. They landed the open mare for $1,000.

"We were kind of window shopping and just watching the sale," said Audrea Dyer. "When we saw this gorgeous chestnut mare come up to the ring, I looked down at her page; I used to work for Riley McDonald on Eaton Farm and at the sales for several years. I remembered selling yearlings out of Humorlee and recognised the page. She caught my eye, I had never seen the mare, but I had seen her babies before."

Dyer continued: "We looked at the page and didn't think there was any way we would be able to afford her and that she would be out of our price range. The catalogue page said she was in foal to Goldencents, but she got up to the ring, had aborted, and was open; nobody wanted or bid on her."

The couple sent the mare to first-year Florida sire St Patrick's Day, along with a few other purchases they made at the OBS sale that winter. Humorlee was confirmed in foal after one cover and continued to carry the foal uneventfully up to foaling. Producer of eight runners, six of which are winners, she was scheduled to see Bernardini for the 2021 breeding season.

Dyer said: "After the mare foaled, she wasn't quite 100 per cent. She was a little bit off and lying down and quiet. The colt was nursing, and she was tending to him. He was doing okay, was a little bit slow to nurse, maybe not the most vibrant thing in the world.

"Later in the afternoon, she started to [show concerning signs]. We had the vet out and we watched her carefully, doing what we could, but she wasn't a surgical candidate."

Sadly, Humorlee haemorrhaged and had to be euthanised when her foal was just 24 hours old. This all happened during the OBS January Sale. Dyer's husband was already planning on going shopping, so she got to work on figuring out bottle feeding the orphan foal on the farm.

"I was calling around trying to find a nurse mare," she said. "We got a call from someone who had a recipient warmblood mare whose foal had died two days prior; she was full of milk and screaming for a baby. We tried to graft the foal onto her, but unfortunately she wanted nothing to do with 'Lee'."

Quick thinking led Dyer to try filling an Igloo cooler with a milk replacer and fitting it with plumbing for a nipple, simulating nursing from a mare.

Dyer said: "Everyone asked, 'How did you teach him to nurse from the cooler?' I had a bottle in one hand and the Igloo in the other hand, and I moved the bottle to the Igloo, and he started sucking on it. And that was it; the cooler became his mom."

It went outside with the foal and came back in the stall with him, filled every four hours with warm milk in the beginning. When outside, the lone colt was partnered with another mare and foal, becoming fast friends with his paddock mate.

"It was so cute; at 2am, I would go to the barn with a pitcher of milk, and he would squeal and knicker, getting all excited because his fresh milk was coming," said Dyer.

"He lives in the first stall in our barn, and we have big windows at the back of the house. Every day when you open the door and walk out the back door of the house, his little nose is peeking out the window, nickering at you, waiting for his milk.

Credit: Audrea Dyer

"Even now, as a yearling, he's in that same stall, and if you're ten minutes late feeding and walking out the back door, he's out there hollering for dinner."

When 'Lee' was about ten days old, he started to be turned out with another mare and foal who was born the same night. The two foals became playmates and friends, so the colt was raised as much as possible like a normal horse.

While the colt became part of the Dyer family, the plan has always been to send him through the sales ring. The January foal has turned into a strong-looking colt, currently going through a growth spurt.

Dyer added: "We're really going to miss his little nose looking at us every day, but he's grown into a very big, strong yearling. Nobody would believe that he's an orphan."

The Dyers, who have around 13 broodmares between themselves and clients, will be excited to see the colt stride through ring but are also prepared to bring him home and campaign him under their Ever Blue Farm banner if he fails to meet his reserve.

Dyer said: "I think he's a good enough horse, and someone with a bit more means could probably send him to a better trainer than we could. We thought being a Florida-bred, we'd be better off selling him here at OBS on the first day.

"Our main intention is to raise to sell, but anything that looks like it might not make it to the track or if it falls through the cracks, we can keep it and run it ourselves. [We're hopeful of] getting a little bit more attention with him here."

As an event rider, Dyer plans to keep tabs on My Last Lee and, hopefully, welcome him back home for a second career with her when he finishes at the track.

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