Jones sets down the coffee without taking a sip. He steps deliberately into the stall. Laura Hopkins holds the wary mother. Working quickly, Jones lifts the foal's head and shines a light into his dull eyes. He sees stains of meconium on the white surrounding the iris and pupil.
Meconium is the fecal matter of the fetus.
The stains, along with the foal's stuporous condition, tell Jones what's wrong. He flicks off the light, lowers the foal's head onto the straw and stands. In a voice as soft as it is self-assured, he tells his audience that the problem is failure of the placenta, the tissue through which the fetus receives nourishment and eliminates wastes. It became infected, probably late in pregnancy. The foal, before he could know the warm embrace of a mother's tongue, was deprived of oxygen and poisoned by his own waste.