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Irka (Martke Wellm) has been allowed to keep an old mare that used to be a champion show horse but is now losing her sight in addition to the physique that once brought her blue ribbons. The young girl and her family are taken completely by surprise when the mare gets pregnant and delivers a strapping colt into the world. Irka comes to love the newborn as much as the mother and is devastated when her father gives her an unhappy but realistic ultimatum: she can keep the mare and send the colt to be raised in bliss on a stud farm, or she can keep the colt and the mother will be sent off to the glue factory -- not a choice anyone wished on the girl, but one brought on by economic necessity. No matter what she decides, Irka is clearly faced with the first truly adult challenge in her young life.