A rare Marwari mare died last week, when a stallion of the same spirited breed escaped from his stall in a rented barn at Red Pony Farm, chased the mare across farm property and attacked her. The death left farm workers shaken, saddened, and angry.
The loss could also be a blow to the efforts of the mare's owner, Francesca Kelly, to preserve and strengthen the unusual breed, which traces ancestry back to legendary battle horses of ancient India.
The stallion Nazrulla at Red Pony Farm.
Photos by Mariah Bendavid
The dead mare was called Bijli.
West Tisbury veterinarian Constance Breese, who responded to a call for help on Wednesday, March 11, said that the mare was already dead when she arrived. She said that marks on the mare's head and accounts from the farm workers indicated the mare had been repeatedly stomped by the five-year-old stallion, called Nazrulla.
"It's kind of an extreme expression of stallion behavior," said Ms. Breese. "Stallions are very difficult creatures to have on a farm. It's not unheard of that a stallion acts out aggressively."
The mare was a favorite of Ms. Kelly. In a 2001 interview with The Martha's Vineyard Times, she said, "My personal dream is to race my lightning mare Bijli into the winds that blow across Cape Poge and thunder down East Beach at dawn, with the sound of the Atlantic surf around us."
Nazrulla was born on Chappaquiddick, among the first Marwari horses every foaled outside of India.
Bijli, a rare Marwari mare.
Devastating loss
Jennifer Blaisdell, an experienced horsewoman who is employed by Ms. Kelly to care for the Marwari horses, said she was devastated by the killing. She described the events of the late afternoon. She had finishing her evening chores, and the stallion was in his stall with the lower gate closed, and an upper grate open, as she worked near the front of the seven-stall barn. The sliding front doors of the barn were open to a gap of about four feet.
"Everything was perfectly calm," said Ms. Blaisdell. "I heard this bang. I turned around, and the stallion and the mare were running toward me. I tried to block the door. They blasted by me."
Red Pony Farm owners Martijn Stuurman and Karen Magid, concerned about the reputation of their riding and boarding farm and the safety of horses and farm workers, said that the mare and stallion, along with the other Marwari horses, were housed in a barn leased to Ms. Kelly, separate from the other horses on the farm. Mr. Stuurman and Ms. Magid stressed that the Marwari horses were not under their care.
In an email to Ms. Kelly, they ordered the stallion removed from the property within 48 hours, pursuant to the conditions of the lease agreement. Mr. Stuurman recommended that the stallion be humanely euthanized.
Ms. Kelly was out of the country last week, and The Martha's Vineyard Times could not reach her for comment. She returned to her Lambert's Cove home yesterday.
Concerned that the stallion had not been removed a day after the incident, the farm owners called West Tisbury animal control officer Joan Jenkinson. The stallion was removed from Red Pony on March 13, and returned to quarters on Chappaquiddick, where the Marwari horses are usually housed during the summer months.
A West Tisbury bylaw requires that whoever owns, keeps or boards horses, "shall provide and maintain adequate enclosures to keep the animals confined to the properties on which they belong." Ms. Jenkinson said the bylaw does not apply in this case, because it is not intended to cover horses that get out of their stalls. She determined that the horses remained on the farm property after they left the barn. Along with other experts in horse behavior, however, she said it is dangerous to house stallions and mares in the same barn.
In this 2001 photo, horse owner Francesca Kelly is pictured riding one of her Marwari horses on Martha's Vineyard.
Photo by Rebecca Sherman
"That's a dangerous practice, very dangerous," said Ms. Jenkinson.
Ms. Breese echoed that view. "I generally advise people not to go there," said Ms. Breese. "They're just too dangerous, too risky."
Ms. Breese intended to advise Ms. Kelly in a letter that she should have the stallion gelded or humanely euthanized. "If he can't be managed properly or safely, there really isn't much more to do," she said. "When they're housed with mares, the sexual instinct becomes very strong. It doesn't take much for things to turn tragic."
Gelding is a surgical process for removing a stallion's testicles. It often has the effect of damping the stallion's aggressive mating behavior. But once a horse reaches sexual maturity, sometimes even gelding does not completely alter the behavior.
A breed apart
The Marwari horses are a distinct breed, marked by a spirited temperament, superior agility, long eyelashes, and unusually shaped ears that curve and point inward, touching at the very tips. They are extraordinarily hardy, bred to endure harsh desert conditions in the northwest part of India, now called Rajasthan. They were bred in great numbers more than a thousand years ago by a clan of warriors which, legend has it, had a consuming appetite for battle. In modern times, they are trained to perform intricate dance steps, sometimes in elaborate productions at weddings or special events. They are a valuable part of Indian culture, drawing thousands of tourists to Rajasthan each year.
Ms. Kelly has been both lauded and criticized for her attempt to preserve the Marwari breed. She has gone to considerable lengths, at considerable expense, to import the breed to the United States. At the time she began her campaign, it was estimated that only 500 or 600 purebred Marwari horses remained in the world. Thousands were killed or gelded in the 1950s, after India gained its independence and rejected the ruling society that banned ownership of the horse by anyone except royalty. Her campaign included a concerted effort to get government authorities in India to lift their ban on exporting the rare horses.
Ms. Kelly co-authored a definitive book on Marwari horses. In it, she described the Marwari as the "ultimate war machine." She writes, "Cavalry horses were schooled to pirouette on the spot at any pace, to passage at a gallop, to extend like a racehorse, and to collect on their haunches for close combat. A fine silky coat helped keep him cool in the long summer months, long lashes protected his eyes from sandstorms, and the beautifully curved ears unique to the breed allowed him to pick up the slightest sound."
In a 2004 interview with Smithsonian Magazine, Ms. Kelly said, "My goal now is to find someone who is already set up as a major breeder, who has the passion and the funds to really put the Marwari on the map in America."
She has since sold the Chappaquiddick property she owned with her husband and, according to the Smithsonian article, was looking for a place in California to move the horses. She vowed not to split up the animals and said her biggest fear about offering a stallion for sale is that someone interested in the horse's "novelty value" might get fed up with the Marwari's spirited temper and geld him.
