About two weeks ago, the KHP’s first foal of the season was born here at the park.

In years past, the KHP’s small annual foal crop could be found in the Big Barn or in one or more of the neighboring paddocks. Last Friday, I walked over to the Big Barn, camera in hand, only to find a single horse in the barn and a sign out front declaring that renovations were on the way.  Apparently, the KHP’s Education Department (which handles the foaling and runs the “mare and foal” show for park visitors later in the spring) had moved.

This week, I found out where they’ve moved and headed to that barn yesterday afternoon. The barn was quiet when I got there in the late afternoon — the only sounds: the rustling of straw, the munching of hay, and the friendly greeting of a calico barn cat. I peered into a few of the stalls and, in one of the large ones, saw the new filly taking a nap in the straw.

I tried taking a few sleeping-foal photos, but they aren’t the best, what with the soothing (dark) barn interior and the odd camera angle from having to aim the camera between the stall railings. Here’s the best of the lot:

this sleeping Thoroughbred filly is the first of the foals born at the KHP this year

I wandered down the stall aisle, visited with the barn cat, and watched her investigate a few stalls.

the barn cat, making her rounds

Then, on my way out, I looked in on the filly one more time. And she started to stir from her nap, then got up for a snack. The big black blur at the end of the video is the mare’s dark bay nose investigating the camera.