(STORY IMAGE:KHQ.COM)
SPOKANE, Wash. - Tim Floyd woke to the sound of a ringing cell phone in the middle of the night: It’s a phone call no horseman wants to receive.
“We got a phone call at about one in the morning,” said Floyd. “It was from the farm on the west side. And when you get that, something good is not going on typically.”
Floyd’s mare, In Vitro, was extremely sick.
“She got to the point where she couldn't get up,” said Floyd. “And the most humane thing to do was put her down.”
The tragedy left a one-month-old foal without a mom.
To ease the pain of losing his horse, Floyd started searching for a mother who could take care of the orphan foal.
It turns out; he didn’t have to look very far.
“And I had just seen a few days earlier on Facebook that a neighbor had a nurse mare available because she had just lost her baby two or three days prior,” said Floyd.
Floyd had the orphan foal transported from the west side of the state to his farm, Warlock Stables, to see if the childless mare would except him as one of her own.
Not long after the two met for the first time, they became inseparable.
“She says that's my baby and he says that's my mom, and it's not going to change,” said Floyd.
The new mother-son relationship was never a guarantee. In fact, there was a good chance she’d reject him as one of her own.
“If you look at her, the way she is with him, she says that's my baby don't get close to him,” said Floyd. “She's protective.”
Two horses, brought together through unfortunate circumstances: Two stories that are far from crossing the finish line.