What former Olympian Paige Lockton is calling "Miracle Twin Foals" will be available to the public during this Saturday's Great Powassan Pumpkin Tour.
The fall tour of Powassan's farms and businesses, is happening from 10-3 p.m. promising farm animals to see, sheep shearing, fall veggies, pumpkins to buy, food trucks, bouncy castle, dunk tank fundraiser, walks in the maple bush, kids' activities, kids' crafts, and vendors. Maps are available at www.250clark.ca
The twin horses have brought new life to Lockton Farms says Paige, and she is planning an educational event for horse lovers including a display on the History of Horsecraft and The Lockton Legacy, including her dad's Dr. Lockton’s signed books.
Twinning in horses is exceptionally rare, essentially, about one in a million and they rarely make it to term and when they do, they almost never both survive, says Lockton.
Mother Costar gave birth to Harley and Jetta.
"In some very rare cases, when the mare is turned out with the stallion, she can 'catch' on her first heat, and then 'catch' a second time three weeks later on her next heat," explains Lockton. "My dad hypothesizes that's what happened here, and it would account for the huge difference in size."
The local ‘Miracle Twins’, and their mama, Costar, are going to be a part of a living/breathing experiment and a resulting documentary, ‘A Better Way’.
"The horses will come together to form a special herd as we explore a better way with horses, and create a documentary about the evolution of Horsecraft and Humanity," she adds.
The ‘surprise’ twin foals were born May 22 to a local Quarter Horse mare named Costar, and her owner Nicole Goulet of North Bay. It left the local horse lover in a financial pickle so she reached out to Paige Lockton about leasing some space on her family farm, gone fallow with age and neglect.
Indeed it was a bit of a miracle that Paige, a small-town girl from northern Ontario on a little crossbred horse named OReilly, found themselves competing on the world stage and named as alternates for the 1992 Olympics in Spain.
Over 30 years later, she needed another miracle … and got one.
“I used to say that ‘ANYTHING is possible’, but I was wrong”, says Lockton. “I signed off all of my posts and emails with that slogan, but somewhere along the way I quit believing in it myself. All I knew was that it was too big for just me. I couldn’t do it alone. But my friends wouldn’t let me keep telling that story. They said, ‘You’re NOT alone!' Now I know the truth is this; anything IS possible (together!)” said Lockton.
Now, a small group of people is coming together to help these two local horsewomen pull off the miracles necessary to return life to Lockton Farms.
Nicole Goulet, the owner of the twins, is a regular, hardworking, resourceful ‘average joe’.
"And everyone knows an ‘average joe’ can’t afford the cost of board and veterinary care for three horses, let alone a nursing mare with vulnerable twin foals, one of which has special needs," says Lockton.
The smaller horse is named ‘Jetta’ because of her jet-black foot. The first evidence of her existence was when one of her tiny forelegs got tangled with her longer-limbed brother Harley’s, and whose protrusion was the first indication that something was amiss.
They haven’t figured out the math specific to this little gem, but here are the statistics related to twinning in horses and the likelihood of survival.
- Of all twin pregnancies, 60% will birth a live single foal
- 31% will abort both foals
- Only 9% of mares will carry both foals to term
- of those 9%, 64% will birth two stillborn foals
- 21% will birth one live foal and one stillborn foal
- 14.5% will birth two live foals
Paige’s veterinarian father and equine reproduction specialist, Dr Chuck Lockton hypothesizes something even more extraordinary than that. According to him, the miracle began when the second embryo was fertilized by subsequent breeding, when the mare came into her second heat cycle, conceiving Jetta three weeks after her big brother, Harley.
“That would explain why one of them presented with evidence of joint immaturity and other signs of prematurity, while the first was clearly fully developed and robust”, the senior Lockton explained.
The births led to an effort to bring life back to Lockton Farms in Callander.
Devoid of horses, sheep, and cows, and with the infrastructure aging alongside its octogenarian occupants, the farm was indeed fallow and depressing, as Paige pursued the ‘sensible’ path.
“Leaving here was unfathomable, but living here like this became intolerable."
Something had to give.
At this stage of her life, she was supposed to be ‘dreaming with the lid off’, and recreating a new life from an ‘ANYTHING is possible’ perspective. She believed this to be true for others, but not for herself.
"Not after everything I have been through! Not at my age. Not after the debilitating effects of chemotherapy. Not with my lack of business acumen. Not with my lack of startup capital. Not with my car falling apart and certainly not with my brain, seemingly damaged by trauma and toxins and tears.
“I was surrounded by evidence of the impossibility of it all; of fixing up the fences, affording the insurance, and getting the help to have horses here again. It was all too much for one person.” Lockton remembers.
It was in the middle of this that the desperate new owner of the miracle twins reached out to Paige for help. She asked to rent a pasture at the once prosperous Lockton Farms, along with the use of a run-in shelter for her trio, and offered to do all of the care and feeding of them, morning and night, herself, before and after work - anything to keep costs down and be able to afford to keep her little family of three together.
Goulet was already being offered money for Harley, the stronger twin. She couldn’t bear the thought of losing any of them after surviving against all odds, and was actively searching for ways to afford to keep all three of them together.
“After everything we went through – the days of 24hr/daycare to nurse them both, all of that love invested to keep Jetta alive, the extra feedings, the nights spent sleeping in the straw with them in my arms … the thought of selling one of them makes me physically ill! They are my family,” explains Goulet.
“With the board, where I had them, increasing in the fall as the foals take up more space, I knew I just wasn’t going to be able to do it! I didn’t know what to do, so I applied for a couple of jobs and asked Paige about those empty fields I saw full of grass”, she recalls.
“Initially, I told her I couldn’t do it,” Paige replied. “Not the least of which was a desire for my mother to have peace and quiet in her own backyard.”
But a seed was planted Paige concedes. “My friends wouldn’t let it go. They could see that something died inside of me when the horses left, and how I cringed every time they wanted to walk through the barn. They saw me come back to life at the prospect and, they wanted to be a part of it.”
Friends began offering services and help in their areas of expertise - from carpentry to finances, to filming, to fixing fences - so they could be a part of something special, and Lockton fleshed out a plan to get two other herd members to round out their herd. The plan snowballed from there.
“I arranged to visit the twins and that was it. I was hooked and so was my Dad.”
It was just a matter of how. The first thing that came to mind after fencing and safety and creating spaces big enough for a family of three, was that they needed to be a part of a larger herd. So, who would those horses be?
The story continues, as there are plans to create a father-daughter Lockton legacy – a documentary about the evolution of Horsecraft. Crafted from conversations between Paige and her veterinarian father, alongside change-makers in the equine industry, they explore and document their experience transitioning toward newer ways with horses … and the humans who love them.
With the working title ‘A Better Way’, the story will wrap at the end of 2024.
Read Paige's blog or listen to My Podcast at The Magic of Horsecraf
