Page 39 of Tom's Chance
“Why the vet? I could understand the owner, it’s to make sure he has enough money, right? If this is like anything else, it’s a one and done, if it doesn’t take, they have to pay again?”
“Correct. Erin wants the vet checked, especially if it’s one we haven’t worked with before.”
“But why?”
“Think of it like this, I hate to even voice this, but I’ve seen and heard it happen before.” He nodded to the screen and pointed to one of the stallions pictured there. “Let’s take this horse for example. See the price the rancher has to pay?” He pointed to a little box in the corner of the description, and nodded at her shocked expression.
“Yes, it’s that expensive, and well worth it. We’re talking about generations of good horse flesh here. These ranchers only want the best. Erin can provide it. Anyway, say the rancher purchases this sample, because a vet is the only one that can inseminate the horse, the sample is shipped directly to the vet. Once it leaves my hands, we are out of it.”
“Crap, and if the vet isn’t reputable, or is hitting hard times, what’s to say that he doesn’t switch out the sample with something inferior to what the rancher expected. Then the foal is born, and it shows problems. He can come after Erin for false advertising,but in reality, the vet kept it and sold it to someone else, pocketing the money.”
“Exactly, with all the background checks and phone calls we make, we try to prevent it. In the last five years we’ve never encountered this problem.”
“However, you don’t want to slack off and this suddenly happens.”
“Correct. Anyway, after Erin gets the request, she passes it to Duane and Jake. They do what they have to, and I get the paperwork.”
“What do you do?”
“I go over it, then go into the lab, take the sanitary precautions of gowning and gloving up, take the sample from storage, box it up, and mail it out. It’s more time consuming than anything else.”
“I probably know, or can imagine, but how do you get the sample?”
Tom grinned at her, then ruined it when his cheeks turned bright red. “I invented or modified a fake female for the stallion to mount. Just before he sticks it into the mare, I slip what the guys calls the horse condom on the stallion. He does his business, and I have the sample gathered at the bottom. I take that sample and secure it before taking it to the lab. Once in the lab, I run genetic tests, to make sure there won’t be any issues when it’s used, have a DNA profile, store it properly, document everything, and wait for the order to come in.” He looked at her with a small smile when she looked at him in confusion. “The DNA profile is our proof that we went the proper sample.”
“Is there a life-span on the sample?”
“So far, the oldest we have is roughly five years old, and I sent one of those out about three months ago. Erin got a call from the rancher that his mare was pregnant.”
“Great.” Lorissa turned back to the website and started scrolling through it. At one point she looked up when Tom asked what was wrong.
“I don’t recall seeing half of these horses over at Erin’s Way? Are they somewhere else on the ranch?”
Tom leaned over and looked at the couple of horses she pointed back and before he answered her, he asked if he could make a pot of coffee. When she agreed, he made it and began to explain. “Those horses were the ones from the original horses that started Riceman Stallions. They rejected Erin when she got out of the hospital after the accident. The guys, I’m talking Wendell, Floyd, and Virgil, convinced her to move them away from the others and she would work with them in the coming days.”
“Work with how, especially if they rejected her?”
“Approach them to see if they would reject her again.”
“Ah, got it. So, what happened?”
“Even after she was completely healed, with no bandages, just the scar pink and puckered, she came to me to explain the situation. She asked if there wasany way for me to extract their sperm so she could sell it on-line. We spent the next year collecting it. When she sold the horses, she had a clause written into the contract that the frozen samples stayed with her, and she kept all the profits from them.”
“Smart business move.”
“Yes, and so far, she hasn’t had any problems with it. Oh, I should add that the sale of those stallions was what purchased the lumber, labor, and horses for Broken. Also, what is now being referred to as Broken Two.”
“The other businesses she’s opening, the therapy ones?”
“Correct.”
“Wow, it sounds like she has her head screwed on straight.”
“She does, and I’m in awe of what she has accomplished. I asked her once why she did all that she did, and she told me that after waking in the hospital with her missing hand, finding both parents had perished in the accident, and not being able to get ahold of her brother, she had to do something. She couldn’t rely on anyone to make the decisions for her, or hold her hand, she needed to pull up her big girl panties and be like the ancestor she was named after. She also hated the fact that the doctors and nurses kept referring to her as disabled, and she didn’t feel that way. She felt challenged, and didn’t want to wallow in self-pity.” Tom shrugged, not knowing what else to say.
“Who was she named after?”
“Erin Riceman from back in the eighteen thirties. That Erin woke one day to find her husband had left her with a covered wagon with a broken wheel, half the money, two of their four horses, a two-year-old child, and pregnant. That Erin cut her dress into trousers, pulled up her suspenders and was able to start Erin’s Way.”
