"We would have found out too late": Haras de l'Aumonerie and a foal with its head back
Updated: Sep 2
Julie Mestrallet took over Haras de l'Aumonerie in 2011, a sport horse operation she turned into a thoroughbred breeding operation. Here is her testimonial, in her own words. She speaks French, with French subtitles on screen, and the written translation follows below.
The night watchman maths, put by a breeder
We asked her what led her to look for a solution. Her answer is the clearest economic argument we have heard, and it does not come from us.
I do not have many foalings, so I cannot have a night watchman for the whole season.
A handful of foalings spread over several months cannot be staffed. It is not a question of budget but of arithmetic, and it means the nights land on the person who runs the place.
It gave me a watch of my own that lasts the whole season, without me being too tired from watching the mares all night.
She adds a point that matters to anyone taking in boarders: her clients know their mares are not alone at night, and not only during the foaling season.
A mare walking her box, and nothing more
We asked her for an example. This one is from her first year.
In the very first year I had a mare with abnormal behaviour, so I was warned by NOVOSTABLE. Honestly, the mare, she was looking around like that, it was not really anything, she was a mare walking her box but nothing more, no pawing, no colic signs.
And I took the decision to take her to the clinic, telling myself there is something wrong. And sure enough, the mare foaled the next day with a foal whose head was turned back. And the mare had to be put under anaesthetic to get the foal out.
We would have found out at home without NOVOSTABLE, and it would have been too late. By the time the vet arrived and we got the mare to the clinic, it would have been too late.
What makes this story worth telling is what it does not contain. No mare flat out, no sweating, no colic, nothing dramatic. A mare walking her box, and a look. That is exactly the kind of deviation a device triggered by one physical event will never see, and the foaling happened the following day.
What she remembers, and what marketing forgets
Asked what sets us apart, she first mentions that nothing is fitted to the mare. Then she says this, which beats any sales argument.
Foaling is one thing, but it is mainly after the foaling, where we get a fair number of colon torsions or problems with the foals, and at least the mares stay under watch after foaling.
A breeder who has lived through the whole season does not talk about the night of the birth. She talks about the days that follow. That is also why the mare and the foal both stay under alert after the birth.
NOVOSTABLE in three words
Her three words: calm, peace of mind, efficiency.
What it looks like elsewhere
Several thousand broodmares went through this season with us, on three continents. What we do across a whole season, before, during and after the foaling, is explained here. And the Normandie Breeding story, from a breeder who came through belts and magnets, is here.
And to see what it would do on your own boxes: request a demo.
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