Runadrum ?

Let's get the name out of the way ! Above is the original Runadrum.

We bought his mother already in foal with him so he was our 'first born' and is now aged 11. He was born in the middle of the afternoon, the only one of our now 17 foals not to have been born in the middle of the night - which is how it should be so that for the first hour when they struggle to get to their feet it is under cover of darkness and safer from predators in the wild !

Generally speaking new born foals will find their feet within an hour and find mother's milk within two. Take longer with either and they will accept a little assistance - and it usually means your mare has had a colt rather than a filly ! The male of this species is stronger and faster, but not as bright !

The name Runadrum really comes from his mum who is called Runabay, but it is a slang racing term from Australia. Please note the following definition commences in the negative ........

not to run a drum : In the early twentieth century the term drum in Australian English came to mean ‘a reliable piece of information’, probably deriving from the signal given out by the percussion instrument. It often appears in the phrases to get the drum or to give the drum, and usually in racing contexts: ‘It beats me how the punters get the drum' (1915); ‘I got the drum on the way out to the races’ (1922). From this developed the phrase to run a drum meaning ‘(of a racehorse) to perform as tipped'. The phrase is now almost invariably used in the negative — he didn’t run a drum meaning the horse didn’t perform as tipped. Some commentators see the influence of rhyming slang here, and suggest that drum is also an abbreviation of drum and mace rhyming slang for ‘place’. Thus a horse that doesn’t run a drum fails to run a place.

Unfortunately the horse Runadrum didn't live up to the name as he did fail to make a place in six races in 1997 and 1998, but we still own and love him.