Foaling season is once again in high gear, and a Pennsylvania breeding operation is giving racing fans and horse lovers an up-close look at the first moments of their youngest Standardbreds' lives.
Diamond Creek Farm's Wellsville, Pa., location, just south of Harrisburg, is participating in the Pennsylvania Horse Racing Association's Foalcam project again in 2021 after doing so last year. In addition to providing a glimpse of the farm's foals and weanlings to horsepeople and fans alike, the live video streams of footage captured by webcams installed at Diamond Creek — as well as at Thoroughbred facility Walnut Green Farm — have gone a long way toward generating interest and fostering connections.
"We get a lot of emails," Ashley Eisenbeil, marketing director for the PHRA, recently told Harrisburg ABC outlet WHTM. “A lot of messages on Facebook asking how mom and baby are doing, asking us what the process is, of giving birth to foals, and what happens in the days following after they were born.”
Caroline Vazquez, Diamond Creek's director of marketing and stallion syndicates, concurs that the impact of the new technology is positive, and that the added transparency of the live streams goes a long way toward the health of the sport.
"There’s a lot of misconceptions about the sport, and breeding farms in general," she said. "It gives people an insight into actually what happens at these farms."
During foaling season — the busiest time of the year at Diamond Creek — a lot of what occurs centres on learning foals' personalities and helping them acclimate to everyday life before embarking on their racing careers.
"You have to teach them how to behave, so you have to have the patience to understand they’re not going to understand you all of the time," Vazquez continued. "If you go into a situation angry or upset, you’re going to just get that right back at you."
After putting their annual open house on hold last year due to the pandemic, Diamond Creek is hopeful to be able to open their doors up to visitors again later this year to further augment the connection between the public and the developing Standardbreds.
"If you come out here, and you spend some time with the horses, you’re definitely going to learn something, about yourself and about animals in general," Vazquez concluded.