“Pennyroyal is having problems, Annie. Can you come?““I'll be right over,” I said.I put on my jeans, pulled a warm Virginia Tech sweatshirt over my head and ran out the door.The light over the foaling stall was on in the mare's barn when I arrived and found Liam and Jacko in the stall with a groaning, heaving Pennyroyal.“The baby is twisted,” Liam told me. He looked very pale in the stable light. “One foot is coming out but not the other.”The correct way for a foal to be born was to come out with both front feet first, then the head which was tucked between the front legs, then the rest of the body. One of Pennyroyal's foal's legs was out of position and caught in the birth canal. It would have to be straightened out for her to be able to push out the baby.Pennyroyal was lying in the straw with one of her foal's forelegs poking out of her vagina. “Do you have gloves?“ I asked Liam.Silently, he handed me a pair of long latex gloves. I knelt beside Pennyroyal and reached in around the foal, feeling for the other leg.You have to be strong to turn a foal in the birth canal, which was one of the reasons I worked out with weights.
