It’s a heartwarming story: A mare who lost her foal meets a foal who lost her mother. Immediately, the two connected and a veterinarian caught it on camera. The photo was posted on the Facebook page Equiception, with the following caption: “Two days ago, a group of people came together, working as a team... Saving a mare in labor but losing the foal... Today a group of people, working together, the same mare as two days ago, was introduced to a foal who had lost her mom.... This picture is taken an hour after the introduction.... It speaks for itself.” The picture was shared by Dr. Patrick Brogan, a horse fertility specialist from the Netherlands, and it quickly went viral. As of press time, the photo was liked 627,000 times and shared more than 266,000 times. The mare in the photo is Zindita. When it was time for her to give birth, Brogan helped out, but it wasn’t an easy labor. “I saw that she was struggling,” Brogan said in an interview with CTVNews.ca. “There was no way the mare would be able to get (her foal) out.” The foal didn’t make it. It died in utero. A few days later, Brogan heard about a mare named Tolanda that had died from complications in labor. Taking a chance, Brogan paired up the foal with Zindita. To his surprise, she took the foal as her own. Brogan says most mares become aggressive when meeting foals that aren’t their own. Zindia however, is different, and Brogan expects that he’ll raise and wean the foal. “It’s a sad story with a good ending,” Brogan told CTVNews.ca.
