Mama horse rushes to her baby foal who can't stop crying

A family finished their trail ride and when they were getting ready to pack up and head out, they saw a foal. They asked if they could pet it, capturing the moment on video.
As they were petting the foal, he got spooked. In distress, he begins to cry out. Then we see an incredible show of maternal instinct on the part of the mama mare.
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A sweet family moment
The video begins with the family interacting with the baby foal.
Handling a foal is an important part of their development. According to Equisearch.com, starting to train and handle a foal early and in a positive way “will encourage a mutually rewarding relationship for you both.” However, it’s important to know how to best approach a foal. Because they are young and often not socialized with humans much at that point, they can become spooked easily.
This is what the family found as they began interacting with the foal.
Baby gets scared
As the family is interacting with the foal, it becomes distressed and begins vocalizing.
Horse Illustrated explains there are four main types of horse vocalizations: the whinny, the nicker, the snort, and the squeal. While it’s impossible to ask the foal what his intended vocalization was, it appears to be a concerned whinny.
The whinny is a usually a social call, but can sometimes be a sign that a horse is feeling insecure and lonely. Horse illustrated explains “in the wild, the whinny is how horses find one another.” In the video, the frightened foal appears to be calling out for his mother as he paces nervously back and forth.
Here comes the mama
In the video, the family warns each other the mare is running to the scene.
Once again, we can use Horse Illustrated to help us interpret what the mother is telling the humans surrounding her baby. We hear a clear snort from the mare, a sound of alarm. When combined with her low head position, she is indicating she has detected a threat. She is having the panic new mothers feel when there’s a threat to their baby.
She rushes to the side of her baby, directing it to follow next to her as they pass through the stable. The family in this instance made the right decision to give her the space she wanted.
Mare behavior
In the video, the mother comes to the aid of her foal quickly and leads it away from the threat she is perceiving.
From the first moments after the birth of a foal, the mare is in protection mode. Within minutes, she will go to the foal to clean them and encourage them to stand up. For the first part of the foal’s life, a wild mother horse will stand between other horses and the foal, keeping them from receiving too much attention from the other horses in the herd.
Like many animals, a mare can become aggressive to those who get too close to their babies. Although a broodmare may accept the interaction of humans they know and trust, new people can be perceived as a threat. Wisely, the family moved out of the way, giving the mother and her baby plenty of room to be together away from any uncomfortable situation.
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Watch the full clip in the video below.