Chatting to Johnny Hyland I realised I was lucky to get a call with him at all. Oghill House Stud is an incredibly busy place. Once home to Annie Power, Oghill offers foaling, mare boarding, speller boarding, rehabilitation, pre-training and breaking. It’s a thorough menu of services which Oghill offer at really competitive rates - affordability for breeders is important to Oghill.

Oghill House Stud is a 300-acre limestone land farm nestled perfectly between Kildangan Stud and the Irish National Stud. There are five foals on the ground so far this year and there will be over 75 more. Oghill have 42 mares of their own and take in up to another 50 from France, UK and Germany. Already consigning a few foals, Hyland says that their plan is to increase the number of foals to sales in the future.

“OGHILL give every foal an enema about five to 10 minutes after it is born, as a precaution, in order to avoid meconium retention. Out vets supply these and we simply dip the enema in lukewarm water before administering, being careful to ensure there is no air in the bottle.

“After an hour passes, we apply some silver spray to the foal’s navel area. The navel is the weakest point of defence in the new born foal and therefore the obvious danger area when it comes to contracting infection. We find the silver spray has served us well down through the years in preventing joint-ill et cetera.

“Whilst the foal is the focus of attention, it’s crucial not to forget the mare. We offer her a warm beet pulp or barley mash as she will have an emptiness/hollowness inside her after foaling and this mash helps her feel strong enough to get back to her feet again. When she does get back up, we tie up the placenta which is hanging from her vulva, so as to avoid her standing on it and tearing it. Tying it up also helps her expel the full placenta as gravity takes a hold and does its job naturally.

Once the placenta is fully expelled, it is important to remove it and lay it out on a large, clean piece of plastic in order to establish that it is completely intact. Should there be any tiny piece of placenta missing, the mare must be seen by the vet as soon as possible in order to flush the rogue piece out of her system, or she will suffer numerous unwanted complications.