- March 20, 2026
- By Karen Shih ’09
Instead of digging her toes into the sand during sunset over Spring Break, Katie Sakai ’27 was knee-deep in hay at 2 a.m. to welcome a new foal at the Campus Farm.
Awoken by a call from University of Maryland animal and avian sciences Professor Amy Burk, who teaches the “Equine Reproductive Management” class, Sakai rushed to the barn and arrived just a minute after the filly, called Charm for now, was born on Sunday. The teaching assistant sprang into action to assist Burk, cleaning the foal’s nasal passages, taking her temperature and cleaning out the stall.
“I’m really glad I stayed and was able to help out,” said Sakai, a San Francisco native who decided to forgo her trip home this year. “It worked out really nicely.”
The class provides foaling services for two mares from local farms every spring, usually in April. This year, the broodmares’ due dates fell a little earlier, possibly colliding with Spring Break. Assessing milk calcium and pH usually gives students an idea of how close a horse is to giving birth, but Charm’s mom, thoroughbred Backside Bourbon (nicknamed Bailey), showed none of the typical signs.
She was still more than a week out from her due date when Bailey suddenly started showing signs of agitation, pacing in her stall late last Saturday night. When Burk saw that on the security cameras, she drove to campus as a precaution, thinking there might still be hours to go—but around 1:50 a.m., she sent out an urgent text to the class, telling them a foal was on its way and seeing who could come help.
“Spring Break was the perfect time,” said Burk. “The campus was so quiet. They’re animals of prey, so they want to have their baby when nobody’s around.”
Charm runs around the pen outside the horse barn.
Three other students showed up shortly after Sakai, and during the first critical day, they took turns sleeping in the tack room and getting up every 45 minutes to help teach the foal to nurse. (Foals must consume antibodies in colostrum, the first milk produced, to boost their immune system.)
“It’s a short, immersive experience. We don’t have a lot of farms nearby where they can get a similar experience, so we bring it here,” said Burk. “It’s really great of the owners to trust that we know what we’re doing, and that we can utilize student help. It pays off for the students to get the exposure,” with some eventually going on to manage breeding farms or breed their own horses.
The class was well prepared; the Wednesday before break, students took a field trip to Chanceland Farm in Howard County to get hands-on training on handling foals after learning in the classroom all semester.
Charm’s owner is eager to get her and Bailey home, so the energetic filly will only be on campus for another week, zooming around the pasture and napping in the barn. In the meantime, the second foal is on its way.
Burk hopes to get all the students together in the coming days for their usual sleepover in the Animal Science Building when a mare is about to foal. “After this one snuck up on us, we’re on high alert,” she said.