Can you tell we are excited? We are very excited about this little guy! Born at 9 hands, a good temperament, a cautious personality, and it seems like he'll have a cobby build. He's going to be Bay, but we are waiting to see if he has any sooty. We are so pleased with how well Honey did we are picking out her next boyfriend and hoping for a filly. Instead of an Appendix sire we will be using a Quarter Horse stud. We have narrowed down our list to 10 based on height and build, now to make further cuts based on color/pattern combos. Here is a photo of our handsome little boy! Our performance bred girl, Flower is coming along nicely. She is up to 12 hands as a weanling and has a light build.
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This coming month Liz (GM 3045) Zepher will not be working with Jessi, but I will be getting him going under saddle a bit better. He already walks out a bit, but I want him more confident with the tasks before I ask him to do pleasure. We brought in a Native Bred mare, she trains about as well as Honey. So late this month we brought in a new custom, she is grey, but that is okay and she trains 30 to 40 minutes comfortably! Exactly what we want! I can hardly wait to get her trained and showing and of breeding age. She is of a nice build for an Appendix too.
Zepher has been settled in for a while now and Honey is settled in too. Zepher is a joy to work with, he could do 40 minutes a day but we keep it to 30 and he's with our chief exerciser, Jessi, now. Jessi adores him and we took him to his first show with 15 maybe 20 days training in Halter and being a breed show he was the only entry but he scored fairly well, 28.09. We had just started him under saddle that month too. We'll give him a few months with Jessi to fit up a bit more before asking him to do more than walk out with me on his back. Honey on the other hand has almost no training sustainability. She can exhaust herself with 20 minutes of work. She's spent most of her time here in the pasture to recover. I'm thinking about bringing her in to work with her again. If I can't get her to be able to train at least a little I really can't see myself using her to breed to Zepher. I want to improve the amount of time I can work with a horse not make it less.
Jonah and I took a serious look at our remaining stock (the Aztecas) and made the difficult decision to sell them all. When we get down to a comfortable level of horses (to be determined), since it is just the two of us we will go shopping for one horse to work with together. Micah is back on the road and will be for at least a year. Pat is in Ireland with family, one of his sisters is sick and one of his nephews (not the son of the sister who is sick) is very sick. He didn't want to leave us, but I told him to go if he felt he was needed. The only staff still here are exercisers but as horses are selling they are being terminated for the time being. They aren't happy to be losing the job but they understand.
"Pain?", Jonah asks, "How is there pain in progress?" With a sigh I have to explain to him that the pain in progress is saying goodbye to some of the horses on the farm. He turns to me and asks "Like Daisy?," I just nod, being close to tears I was afraid to answer. She had become increasingly difficult to settle in foal despite being fairly young at 15. We have a daughter to replace her in the breeding shed, the question is when we retire Delia. She is already 8, our Spotted Saddle horse colt is just a suckling and there are very few options as far as stallions go. There is a list on my desk next to my monitor of the Azteca boys, in the order they will be placed for sale or gelded.
The joy of progress lies in the future. Jonah is helping with training and exercising everyday. We have some lovely foals through 4 year olds that we are working with. The four year olds are preparing for the show ring for the first time. Once they start showing I'll be bringing back around the 5 and 6 year olds that have been exercising and teach them some show-ring basics. Just came in from moving horses around the farm. Shifted the show horses into another barn, shifted the Beginner horses into the barn vacated by the Intermediate and up show horses. Separated the young horses into two barns, those that I am training stayed put and those that were started under saddle and being exercised were moved into the barn vacated by the Beginner horses. I retired one of the Beginner horses out to the pasture, I plan on breeding her in the spring. We did the move early so that we could feed breakfast in their new stalls to help get them comfortable in their new digs. The cams on the pregnant mares are public, but the whole farm has cams that are private and everyone is all settled and happily cleaning up their meal. I am so excited to be training my babies personally that shortly I will be heading out and training our four youngest, last month I focused on the four older youngsters.
I hinted to my fellow ranchers of a change here on the farm on a thread talking about Foremen and whether we are still paying them. Pat and I agreed on his retirement with great sadness, as he's been a part of the farm since I took over. He's still here, just enjoying his cottage and his honorary grandson, Jonah. Wait what? Who is Jonah? Jonah is our adopted son, Micah and I discussed having kids and decided it would be better to adopt a child instead. Our only request was that the child be interested in the horse industry, any aspect. Jonah sure fits that bill, he's out every day with Pat walking the property and learning the basics of handling and care. Jonah is 8 years old and Pat is teaching him to ride Linda (our 17 year old Azteca mare) much to Jonah's displeasure. Jonah wants to ride Kaluha, but Kaluha is barely started under saddle. I have to spend a great deal of time with her and figure her out.
On that note, Micah, myself, and Pat (since he's basically family) will be sitting down this month and talking about shrinking the farm. I'd like to see 15 or less horses on the property. I've already called the kill buyer for two horses that I know will be extremely difficult to market. The problem is with 5 breeds on the property (Azteca, Fjord, Somali, Racking Horse, and Spotted Saddle Horse) where do we maintain focus? The Racking Horses can be bred to the Spotted Saddle Horses and slowly phased out bringing us to four breeds. The Aztecas are greatest in number, the Somalis are dear to my heart and have historical significance to the farm. The Fjords are good horses with sentimental value to Micah. There is one Fjord foal due in the next few months, I think we'll wait on them and see what comes of them before we rule them out. It looks like there will be some one on one time spent with each horse to see which horses will be staying and which will be going. keeping our numbers low. Up to 36 horses on the farm this month, 34 of those will be here next month too. We had a credit sitting with our name on it at the import farm. So we decided with so few Racking Horses we'd expand out and get into Spotted Saddle Horses again too. "Again?" you ask, yes again. The Champions bred by this farm in the past were all SSH and Racking Horses. Soon we feel it will be our turn again in the high Champs classes. The photos are fading with age, but still they hang on the wall.
We'd like to introduce our new filly, she is still without a name but she is stunning to say the least! Kaluha is what we've been calling her around the barn this month. I think she will be awesome combined with our Racking Horses. At the end of this post is the possible cross breeds for our SSH program, in case anyone is interested. We have 4 mares confirmed for next year and 2 to confirm next month. Confirmed we have Linda, Daisy, Millie, and Nori; waiting for confirmation are Fresh and Prancer. Now to try to keep myself out of the sales listings and FS sales listings, I just have to keep reminding myself that I have 3 years before I can breed her. I need to save this for quick and easy reference for future breeding plans. Stallion Mare American Saddlebred Spotted Saddle Horse Florida Cracker Spotted Saddle Horse Kentucky Mountain Spotted Saddle Horse Missouri Fox Trotter Spotted Saddle Horse Racking Horse Spotted Saddle Horse Rocky Mountain Horse Spotted Saddle Horse Single Footing Horse Spotted Saddle Horse Spotted Saddle Horse Kentucky Mountain Saddle Horse Spotted Saddle Horse Missouri Fox Trotter Spotted Saddle Horse Racking Horse Spotted Saddle Horse Rocky Mountain Horse Spotted Saddle Horse Single Footing Horse Spotted Saddle Horse Tennessee Walker Spotted Saddle Horse American Saddlebred Spotted Saddle Horse Florida Cracker Tennessee Walker Spotted Saddle Horse Making some tough choices, listing some horses for sale that just don't seem like the fit the direction we are aiming the breeding program for. We've got 3 Azteca's listed and an ageing Quarab Gelding that is for sale, but not advertised. Offers on other Aztecas may be enter
Regal Norina won both of her classes in the Rare Division of the English Futurity for the year 234! Her scores weren't great, but she showed well and they were improved from her couple of trial shows. We are waiting on proofs from the photographer who came out to take her and Ladi's pictures. Why did Ladi get his picture taken too, you ask? He won both of his classes in the Dressage Futurity and brought home HPE! Pictured above is Nori before we clipped her, pulled her mane and tail for the show. She looks like a proper Hunter pony now! Here she is all done up after getting home! She was just perfect! Ladi was simply amazing! I was surprised at the lack of entries in the dressage event. I really expected there to be more competition. Here is his before... and his after is below. I really want to thank the local contractor who offered to pave our drive with the extra truck of material he was sent for our neighbor. It really makes a great spot to snap conformation shots and not have the mud and barns in the back as a distraction.
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