Sadies Story

Susar Jasaada was a very special girl. 

Her pedigree was interesting in that her Sire Masada El Rabdan was out of a Babson mare by *Tuhotmos. 

Her dam, BDF Jamala Basara was a combined source mare with Babson, *Turfa, and Davenport blood. 

Sadie was born loving people. 

From her very first breath she wanted to be in your lap, or in your pocket .

When she was a baby if you would sit down anywhere around her, she would come over and lay down and put her head in your lap. 

Sadies dam carried the blood of Serr Mariner, and *Tuhotmos, and had gorgeous movement so we had high hopes that Sadie would be a terrific performer. 

Her training proceeded without incident. We start our babies from day one and work with them every day so that by the time it is time to ride, you just get on and there is never any hassle and Sadie certainly followed this pattern. 

I was training her in dressage, and jumping her and in general just enjoying her and getting ready to start showing.

We had the opportunity to create a 50% Tuhotmos offspring using the wonderful old mare Om Khamsa (Tuhotmos x Radin Hilal)  Om Khamsa combined *Tuhotmos, Babson and Sirecho in a gorgeous chestnut mare. 

I had studied living horses trying to find the ideal mare for Tucky (Masada El Rabdan), and Om Khamsa was my “fantasy”.

She was owned by Jean Jennings and lived with Walter Schimanski, and she was very old and very blind. 

Khamsa had not had a foal since 1986 although she had been bred numerous times. We were lucky enough to have a wonderful Equine Reproductive vet here in Dr. Paul Morris and Paul felt that he could help us get an embryo transfer baby out of Om Khamsa.

Walter was excited about the possibility, so Om Khamsa came to Susar Farm to live. 

We spent many months treating her severe infection and working on trying to sync her to our mares as I wanted to use one of our horses for the recip mare. 

It was during this period that we got a rude shock! 

While sonogramming, Paul discovered that Sadie had an ovarian tumor that would have to come out! 

I had some experience with ovarian tumors and I did not want her to go to A & M for surgery and be far from home. 

Pauls brother was the surgical professor at Colorado State and Paul talked him into doing surgery on Sadie here at Pauls clinic when he was visiting. 

Normally ovarian tumors are removed through a flank incision but Paul felt that because he could not get any idea of size through sonogram that it would be better to do a belly incision. 

It was a good call because the tumor was the size of a basketball and it had so many associated veins and arteries that it took literally hours to free.

It was a difficult surgery, but Sadie came through it just fine. 

We took her home the next day so that we could nurse her and we spent the next few days in the stall with her.

That tumor was huge, yet the only sign of its existence was on sonogram.

Sadie worked, jumped, and did everything I asked of her with no complaints at all.

Sadie was four when she had the ovary surgery and it took her about six months to fully recover but she did and I continued her training and then started showing her in dressage. 

She did spectacularly scoring regularly in the 70’s and handling travel and showing with wonderful grace.

She would show her heart out in the arena, but back at the barn she would sack out in the shavings and take a nap, never getting stressed or unhappy. 

She won many Class  A awards and she qualified for Regionals and won regionally as well. 

She always qualified for Nationals but I did not feel that a horse show was worth hauling a horse half way across the country and subjecting them to the things that can happen, so we limited our showing to Regionals.

              

I always knew that I wanted to breed Sadie but I loved riding her so much that I never could stop riding her long enough to do so! 

Finally when she was 14 I  bred her to Ma Sabbah Bedu, a straight Babson stallion that I had shown to regional wins as well. 

Sadie settled easily in spite of only having one ovary, and I anxiously awaited the birth. 

About a month before she was due she started acting colicky and I took her up to Pauls clinic and he decided that she had a uterine torsion! 

He did not have the facilities at that time to deal with it, so he called around and found Dr. Williams at Lone Star Park and convinced him to help us try to save the foal and Sadie.

Dr. Morris and Dr. Williams worked hard and managed to get the foal reorganized with a flank incision but Sadie was still experiencing pain so Dr.Williams said that we had to go in and find out what was wrong. 

So, for the second time in her life, she had a full belly incision!

This time adhesions from the old surgery were the culprit.

The weight of the foal had caused the adhesions to pull and tear and they were causing the pain.

Dr. Williams removed all of them and sewed her back up. 

All was well, when she came to she was no longer in pain and we breathed a sign of relief.

However our relief was short lived because she then started dripping milk. 

She was a month away from when the foal should be born, but foals of this linage are frequently born early and do just fine so we took her home again so we could nurse her ourselves, and we waited. 

We set up headquarters in the foaling stall and she was not left alone at all.

She continued to drip milk freely! 

I was already on oxygen so I set up my sleeping bag in the stall with my oxygen tank in the aisle and the tubing coming over the wall.

Sadie was quite happy with the arrangements and she reverted to her old habits of lying down and putting her head on me. 

We existed like this for 30 more days. 

One afternoon after feeding she lay down and got to business. 

We quickly saw that she was going to have trouble as she was totally soaked in sweat and was not able to push very hard at all.

She still was completely stitched up from girth to bag and she also had a 15inch incision in her flank. 

Cyann and I took the rear and Julie took the front and we worked at pulling the baby with each of her rather frail contractions. 

It was a long birth but fortunately his head and neck came out early and we were able to get him cleaned and clear and he was breathing and looking around. 

Finally it was over and both mom and baby were ok.

Sadie was exhausted and just lay there while we cleaned and dried the baby and sent Cyann off to get fresh colostrum from a farm that did a lot of foaling out. 

Sadie had dripped constantly for 30 days so she of course did not have any left.

The baby was already up and looking for dinner but Sadie was not yet able to stand.  I milked her and fed the baby and after about an hour she got up and took care of him.  The colostrum arrived and he eagerly ate that up.

Nothing wrong with that kids appetite.

We were worried because he had suffered two rounds of anesthesia plus the two surgeries and we were not sure what kind of shape he would be in, but he was fine. Sadie claimed him and she was very pleased with herself!

We named the baby Susar Sabada and he grew up to be the beloved mount of Elizabeth Powell who rides him almost daily.

It took Sadie awhile to heal from the surgery but when Bada was about six months old, and weaned, I started riding her lightly again.

She was very stiff in the body due to the soreness from all of the muscles cut during the two surgeries, but as usual, she was very anxious to please and she enjoyed our rides, as did I.

By now Sadie was 15 and I was busily training and showing two young stallions so I did not show Sadie any more however she started a new career teaching beginner riders to learn dressage and to show. 

She carried several folks to their first Class A show and brought home numerous ribbons including Championships in SHIH, which was pretty good considering that at that time she was 17! 

She even qualified for Regionals in SHIH!

She continued to teach young riders, and to carry them in local open shows frequently winning them their very first blue ribbon.

Susar Sabada, Sadies young man, was a beautiful boy and I so wanted to have another foal from her, but no way was I going to chance putting her through another pregnancy, so I started on the long road to getting an embryo transfer baby from her.

In spite of only having one ovary, she settled at once and was a sweetheart about having to haul back to Dr. Pauls to be flushed. 

She yielded an embryo and it was put into one of Pauls recip mares.

When it was clear that the foal was stuck, we brought the mare home to care for her through her pregnancy. This was an adventure because this mare, a rather large black quarterhorse, was barely halter broken and did not in any way like people!

   

We spent the whole of her pregnancy handling her, grooming her, teaching her to love carrots in hopes that she would be a good mother and not try to kill us when the baby came. 

She foaled without a hitch however she was NOT happy about sharing her baby with us.

We imprint our foals at birth and handle them daily as a part of our overall training routine, so dealing with this foal was a challenge! 

He was a gorgeous colt, tall and strong and very sweet, but the mare kept trying to keep us from him. 

One afternoon she charged me and rammed me into the side of the stall breaking my right ankle!

Nonetheless we managed to survive the recip mare from hell and happily weaned Jazzy (Susar Zarie) at four months.

We had two other babies that year so we put the three babies together and it was a happy, easy weaning.  I don’t even think Jazz objected to his surrogate leaving!

Meanwhile Sadie is getting older and she has another beginner. 

This time a woman in her 50’s who had always dreamed of learning to ride correctly, and Sadie volunteered to teach her. 

Anytime we have taken on students at Susar Farm it is entirely up to the horse whether or not the person is accepted. 

I will never force one of my horses to carry someone that they don’t like and because they are such sweet and loving horses, if they DON’T like someone, I take that as gospel and we decline to accept them as a student.

Sometimes it makes for a bit of a sticky wicket, but I feel it is the right thing to do.

                                                             

                                                   

Sadie continued to handle beginners (never more than one at a time), and carry them through to be decent riders. 

The older woman purchased a horse of similar blood lines and proceeded to train her herself with guidance from me. 

Sadie never took a lame step and aside from the freakish things that happened to her, she was always healthy and happy.

After the last surgery, I promised her that I would not ever subject her to surgery again, so when she colicked at age 27 and was not responding to fluids and oils, I put her down. 

It was the saddest day of my life, but it was the right thing to do.

She was too good and too brave to be allowed to suffer and surgery was out of the question.

Our faces were the first thing she saw when she was born and the last thing she saw as she died and in between she was loved and cherished.