Journal
I am beginning anew in this journal project. What follows are entries made by me from time to time to note the activities that we participate in and events that we experience. The most recent entries are first and eventually the older entries will be archived. I hope you enjoy reading and learning about life on the farm here in Oregon!
Wendy Snell
Jan 25, 2005
~ Time sure does fly when I am having fun!! Things have been hopping here
on the farm in the last few weeks.. Mild (DRY) winter weather has allowed me to
keep the horses out on the pasture almost all of the time. And while I do
still have to feed them I do NOT have to muck stalls and that makes a huge
difference in the amount of time available to do other things.. 
I
am continuing working Sid lightly but regularly. By his third ride, he was
being riden by my daughter Anne and her friend Liz. They were on the lunge
line and riding bareback. Sid was star.. Never taking a wrong step or
spooking ever. The kids even rode him at a walk double.. VERY COOL for a young
horse to be so unflappable so early in his training. Ride number four saw
Sid and I out riding thru the fields. Ride 6(photo at right) had him back in the ring
being ridden by all three of the kids (no not all at once, though I am sure he
wouldn't object!). He packed Anne, Daniel and Liz happily around for quite a
while, even trotting for them a bit.. Ride number seven saw us back out in
the fields.. This time for a longer walk about. Tomorrow (ride 8) will be
Sid's first field trip. We are going to visit Sally at massage school. Can't
wait, I am sure he will handle it all with his usual style.
Also this week, Annette and I have started Charlie under saddle. He is a bit more sensitive then Sid and has more "get up and go". We are taking our time showing him the ropes so that he doesn't get flustered or overwhelmed. . I am finding Charlie to be VERY fast to learn new things and he seems to be improving hugely overnight. I am not surprised as his mom is also a quick student and great fun.. I am so looking forward to having this boy under saddle. He is something special. And being a straight coated Curly, heck.. I will "get" to do all those normal horse things for him.. lol.. like pull his mane, trim his fetlocks, he might even get body clipped this next week as he sweats alot when being worked. I haven't body clipped a horse in over 12 years.. Hope I don't "butcher" his coat to badly.
We heard from the expo organizers about our entry this year. I again waited a
bit to long to get my stuff in. When I first called they said they were full up,
but when I mailed my stuff in anyway and called to check on it, they said they
had found some room for us, so we are IN!! YAHOO!!! The kids and I really missed
doing the expo last year and are thrilled to be participating this year.
In addition to taking a pile of Curlies we will be taking Daniel's new Caspian
pony, Chappy. The kids are working hard learning to drive the pony and cart so
that they can take him in the breed demos all by themselves, with no adult
copilot. Chappy is a peach to drive, so I am sure it won't be a problem. I am
also trying to talk Anne into driving Koko at the expo. We have never had a
driving Curly there before and I think Anne could easily drive her in the demos
and do a great job!!
Jan 1,2005 ~
WoW!!! The first day of the new year.. Can't believe how quickly 2004 went by..
Anyway, some updates on the happenings around here.. Sally left in December to
go live at the Bridge Creek School of
Massage.. 
How
cool is that.. She gets to be a "school" horse for equine massage
therapy students. in other words, Sally gets to stand around and get rubbed for
a living!! Am I jealous!! lol.. Actually while she is there, she is also getting
some much needed riding time, also a much needed diet (though I am sure Sally
wouldn't say she needs to diet.. lol).. and she is being treated to an all
natural lifestyle, free of all chemicals. I'm going up for a visit soon
and can't wait to see how she is doing in her new home.. This isn't likely a
permanent move for Sally but she does have a way of endearing herself to folks,
so they may not want to send her back ever.. I get to use her for breeding and
go visit whenever so if they want to keep her that is okay with me!!
This last week I decided to really make a serious effort to get all of my unstarted horses started finally (and hopefully sold to new families!) .. Sid is the one that gets the most inquires by far, but everyone wants a broke horse.. So seeing as he is a very mature (in both mind and body) long two year old, I decided to just do some bare minimum saddle work with him.. I brought him in on Thursday.. He has only been lunged once in his life, way back in August I think.. He has never ever seen a saddle or even a saddle pad.. I am soooooo pleased to say that in about 15 minutes Sid was standing there saddled and ready to go.. I lunged him at the walk, trot and canter with the saddle and he never flinched, never offered an objection, and certainly never thought once about bucking.. I didn't have a helper nearby or I would have been on him then and there.. Later on Thursday night a friend came over and we got Sid out again. took a few minutes (about 3) to saddle him and make sure his brain was still intact and then I just climbed on him.. He was good with that.. turned his nose around to see what my boots were up too. lol he likes me to scratch his face with the heel of the boots.. Funny boy.. Anyway.. he is now what I would consider started!!.. He is learning quickly how to follow directions and all about reins and legs.. Today (his second ride) we did walk and a bit of trotting. Again, he was such a good boy. no bucks no spooks, no temper tantrums.. just a good, solid, very sweet young horse that likes to have someone messing with him finally.. I won't ride this youngster hard, but will spend enough time with him to get him throughly comfortable with tack and rider both in the ring and out on the trail.
Nov 12,2004 ~ Troy leaves for his new home up in Canada today. He will be missed but I am happy to know that he is going to a good home that will both use him for breeding AND more importantly get him some riding time. That was the first consideration for me. Troy is too nice of a horse to just be a pasture ornament (though he is a GORGEOUS pasture ornament.. lol). I always intend to ride him but just run out of time.
On that note, I am seriously cutting back on the number of horses I am keeping in the permanent herd. It is just to hard to keep up with 22 head and have any time left over to do anything else, either with the horses or my family.
Nov. 10, 2004 ~ I finally got around to saddling Marq up today.. I have been working with him on and off since Sept.. I thought he looked pretty cute in a western saddle..
Oct 23, 2004 ~ Early in Oct. Ketty took Koko for her D-3 rating and they both did fabulously. Ketty felt that the jumps were a bit higher then the 2'6 " requirement (we had been schooling her 2'6" at home so she knew how tall that was) but said that Koko didn't haven't any trouble with the bigger jumps.. I knew she wouldn't..
All five of the foals have been weaned and are doing fabulously. The curls are starting to come in and they are SOOOO cute!! It is looking like all of them will be wintering over at Tami's house while her riding horses come here. This is always a good solution to winter housing as I really prefer to have the foals turned out somewhere rather then cooped up in my barn standing in stalls. I will miss them though.. We will be making regular trips over for "baby school" as I don't want them to all turn into a group of hooligans.. Especially since two of them are stud prospects.
As winter approaches and I start counting noses and assigning them stalls, I have felt motivated to see if I could find some alternative homes for a few of my herd.. To that end Storm has been leased out to a Pony Club member and is quite happily the apple of 11 yr old Tarra's eye.. I am really excited for Storm.. She will get lots of attention, riding and training from her new person and already is thriving on it. Troy is being sent to a friend of mine up in BC Canada for the next year. We had been talking about it somewhat jokingly for some time when we both realized that in fact we were quite serious about it.. both her desire to have him and my desire to send him.. I won't be using him next year as I have to use those WB breedings so it seemed like the perfect solution to what to do with him.. He will get some riding time AND some mares and I will have more room and LESS hormones raging around here.. and that is ALWAYS a good thing.. lol..
Oct. 18,2004 ~ We just finished up our second weekend of "pony rides" for the local pumpkin patch. Each year they hire the Pony Club to come in and give free rides to all their customers.. It is 4 hrs of walking in circles with all sorts of kids riding them. Also taking place at the same time are hay rides, with HUGE wagons pulled by a team of drafts and a covered wagon being pulled by a tractor.. Last year some of our club members brought horses that were frightened by these things, so this year, I volunteered to take a whole slew of suitable ponies.. Which I did and they were all fabulous.. Of Course.. They maintained their happy disposition even after hours of long boring work.. I am always so pleased when my Curlies conduct themselves well out in public.
Oct 1, 2004 ~ I have been spending much more time on both Harmony and Diamond, out enjoying the fall sunshine.. The local logging company has finally cleaned up the mess in the woods from last winter's storms and thus opened up many miles of logging roads for us to use.. As most of these roads are surfaced with large gravel, I had front shoes put on both mares. The farrier was somewhat reluctant to even put shoes on Harmony as her feet are very hard, not to mention HUGE.. and they do actually hold up rather well against chipping. But since she has fairly flat soles, the gravel does make her pussy foot on the bumpy, sharp rocks.. So we did put shoes on her, until her new boots arrive in the mail sometime in the next month or two.. After that it is back to barefoot for both her and Di.. For an 8 yr old mare that has never had more then her feet trimmed, she did very well with the extra pounding that shoes require.. WOW, I like this horse!! I did decide that no matter how spectacular the foal she produces in 2005, I will not be breeding her back.. I enjoy riding her to much to be willing to sacrifice her as a riding horse any longer.. Diamond and Sally will have to carry the broodmare burden for the big mares.
Sept 29, 2004 ~ Fall is upon us and the kids are back in school.. I have been weaning colts all this month.. Some were taken to a friends house both to be company for her lone filly and also to make things easier on the dams. T~baby and Clyde stayed here for the process and after one failed attempt where I had weaned Peter along with them and he came thru a fence taking the other two with him, they are now happily living apart from their dams.. Peter will be left with Andy a while longer as he is still quite attached and Andy is showing no ill effects of nursing him.. In fact she could use the help in keeping her figure.. lol..
Sept 17, 2004 ~ Anne and I took Koko down to Eugene so that Anne could take the Pony Club D-2 rating test.. After some difficulties with me finding the place and arriving over an hour late, the two did a fabulous ride and aced the verbal knowledge section so that Anne was awarded her D-2 rating.. The very next day Koko made the trip a second time as a "catch pony" for a club member who's mount came up lame just days before her rating.. So Koko was chosen to be borrowed. Ketty who did the riding, had never even met Koko before their rating test. The impromptu team worked perfectly and Ketty was also awarded her D-2 rating.. In two weeks, Ketty will borrow Koko once again to go after her D-3 rating, which requires them to jump in the ring and out cross country fences up to 2'6" in size.. I am sure there will be no problems.
Sept 6, 2004 ~ Daniel got a new pony today. We decided that he really needed a smaller pony then Breeze and set out to see what we could find. There really weren't any Curlies available that were suitable so we ended up trading Gideon for a Caspian Horse, which is a pony sized equine, generally under 12 hands.. Chappy, our Caspian, is just 11.2 hands tall. He is the PERFECT size for Daniel. and they are quite the cute couple.. Breeze finds herself without a job right now, as she didn't settle on her breeding to Quark before he was gelded, or on the one the week after he was gelded though the vet thought we had a shot at that one.. lol. so it goes.. I'll see if I have funds to send her to a super cute little Welsh dude next spring.. If not, she may be offered for sale sometime soon. Would be sad to see her go, as we all love her dearly, but I am finding that I have to many horses for my comfort, so some hard choices will need to be made soon.
Aug 12.2004 ~ Well I am updating this as the kids and I wait for it to be after midnight so we can go out and watch the meteor shower. We figured if we went out to soon we would fall asleep.. AH how well the kids know me.. lol..
Anyway, on July 31 we hosted the second CSI breed stock inspection. The first was held in Georgia in April. To say it was crazy would be an understatement. Theresa came up from Ashland a week early to help me prepare. Man, I would have been sunk without her! But we got most everything done and a large portion of the 17 adult horses washed and prettied up.. I will likely NOT try to ever run so many horses thru an inspection on one day again. At least not that many of MINE! But the judge Martha was wonderful and didn't count down for some of the less then pristine ones that came thru. She was judging conformation, movement and type. not spit and polish!
When
the day was done and we sat exhausted in our chairs, unable to move another
inch, I learned that Troy had made it into the Premium Stud Book, along with two
other mature stallions. Harmony and Sparkle had also been approved as Premium
Mares. Sparkle was awarded the top score for mature horses at our inspection
site! Wow was I excited about that!!
In the young horse category (under 3 yrs of age), Peter took top honors with a high score of 8!! So far he is the highest scoring CSI inspected youngster in the nation! WAHOO PETER!!! But then I always knew he was pretty spectacular. No way I am going to convince myself to sell him now. Drat.. Like I need another stallion prospect around here.. lol.
Sally and Troy's 2003 colt, Nick at Night took reserve champ honors for the young horse group. and Talisman also scored very high. I am thrilled that Troy's offspring did so well in the inspection as it helps verify my belief in his ability to sire sport type foals.
On the fun side, when it was time to put Gideon thru the jump chute we had some time to spare, so we just kept raising the jumps on him. He cleared a 4 ft oxer in great style and we were all quite impressed.. He knocked down the oxer set at 4'2" inches, but he was getting quite tired by then so I don't hold it against him. Gideon also rated in the Premium category but as he is a gelding that won't do a whole lot for my breeding program.. lol but it does say lots about his quality and talent!
July 24,
2004 ~ Again the month just sped on by. I spent late June and early July working
to get Sally in foal to a Trakaner stallion based in CA. Unfortunately Sally
didn't wish to comply and came back into heat after the insemination. So lacking
the funds to send her up to the repro clinic for another go around, I bred her
back to Troy. I am currently waiting for the date when I take her out and tease
her to see if that worked out any better.. If it didn't I guess I can assume she
has some reproductive issues present and call out the vet. Crossing my fingers
that isn't the case. It appears that Diamond, Storm, Harmony and Sparkle are in
foal. So far the only one confirmed by the vet is Sparkle, but the other three
all take offense when teased to the stallion. Breeze did not settle with a foal
from Quark, so we will wait and try again next year with an outside pony
stallion. Why an outside one you ask? Little Quark had an appointment with my
vet in early July and is not longer the "man" that he was.. lol.. He
is happier, I am happier, and Daniel is thrilled that he will get a new small
black pony to ride next season.. Breeze is great, but really too big for him, so
12.2 Quark will be a perfect fit..
July
11,2004 ~ Just back from Pony Club camp out in the desert. Each year a club out
there offers a 3 day camp for D level members to bring their ponies and ride,
ride, ride.. It was great fun. We took 4 ponies this year.. Anne went on Dez
(her borrowed mount for the summer), Daniel took Breeze (this was his first time
to camp, WAY COOL, DANIEL!!), Tarra (a PC member) took Gideon and Liz (PC member
and friend) took her Morab Scarlet. It was hot but not so unbearable that
we couldn't stand it.. The kids rode 3 hours a day, in the ring and out over the
cross country course.. Anne mastered her fear of the cross country jumps
and came home bursting with enthusiasm for all things jumping (it is about
time!! I told her jumping was fun!).
Daniel
jumped his first jumps while at camp, working up to 12+ inches. Considering that
his pony loves to go around the jumps rather then over them we thought this was
quite the accomplishment!!
Also attending camp was Tarra (11) on Gideon (for sale!!). They were the camp darlings.. All the kids wanted to ride Gideon, all the parents were impressed with his honest attitude and willingness to jump anything and everything that Tarra pointed him at..
June
27, 2004 ~ Ah well, the best of intentions often go awry.. I had intended to
"journal" frequently, and just got totally swamped by foaling,
breeding, and springtime. Anyway.. I'll seek to do better.. lol.. Just got home
from Harmony's first ever horse show.. She did fantastic.. No ribbons but the
show was more about getting her out and about rather then bringing home
ribbons.. I have had Harmony for almost 4 years now and I have never put
her in the horse trailer before yesterday.. so to take basically a green
"broodmare" out was quite the event.. She was great.. Stood quietly at
the trailer and rode nicely.. We were jumping things she had never seen before
and in the ring she went to them all, no problem.. Out in the cross country
field, she wanted to stop and look at them, and once she had looked at them, she
jumped no problems.. I can't wait to get her out more.. She is just
turning into the most fabulous riding horse.. I am almost (okay, actually I AM)
regretting breeding her for 2005..
April 2004~ It looks like Koko isn't near as far along as I thought she was. I figured she would have had that foal by now, but she seems to be still crossing her legs.. At this rate, Diamond and Storm will foal first and Andy is fast on their heels.. Oh well, I guess Koko will foal when she is good and ready, it is the kind of girl she is.. lol..
I
restarted Troy under saddle this month. I started him very lightly (5 rides)
last spring, then circumstances forced me to wait till this year to continue. I
can't say as I mind the delay. Troy's concentration and capacity for work has
increased dramatically. He is not nearly as prone to unpredictable "green
horse" behavior.. I am enjoying working with him immensely and find it so
fabulously neat to ride a horse that is a totally blank slate. He is light as a
feather on the bridle, responsive and eager to figure things out. Oh, and he can
even keep his mind o riding rather then all the mares running around.. lol
March
12,2004 ~ Yep, last night was the night.. at a very reasonable hour of 9pm Mae
lay down to get to serious work delivering her foal.. By 9:30 pm we had a big
strapping bay (I think) curly colt on the ground. Anne loves him. I had the kids
to sleep by 10:30 and figured I wouldn't be far behind them.. WRONG!! My
punishment for being so pleased at the early foaling hour was to wait up with
the new colt for 6 HOURS while he figured out how to nurse.. Needless to say,
that by the time he finally figured it out, he and I were very good friends.. He
would see me enter the stall and leave his mom to come see me.. Nickering at me
the whole time.. very cute, but not really what I was hoping for at 3 am in the
morning.. But he finally figured it out and I got to stagger off to bed.
March 11,2004 ~ Well it finally looks like Mae is going to foal. The kids and I are spending the night in the barn. Anne thinks this foal might be "The One". That is, the foal she gets to claim as her own to raise, train and love and hopefully keep forever.
Feb 22, 2004 ~ It is early Sunday morning (like really early, 5 am). Mae is getting huge and has a pretty tight udder. Last night when I went to check her she was a bit warm and damp to touch, so I made her a deep foaling bed and checked her every few hours. Hence my being up at 5 am. No foal yet, I guess we could go a few weeks at this stage. sighhhhhh.. lots of daytime naps scheduled for me! Anne is very excited and really thinks she wants this foal to be hers. I always told them that they could choose a foal when they turned 10 and she is that age now. Wow did time go fast. 10 seemed such a safe far away age.. LOL.
Feb 21, 2004 ~ Pony Club meeting today. Anne and Koko did fabulously. They even jumped an 18 inch vertical with no fears on Anne's part. But I noticed that Koko has noticeably slowed down and has little bounce and spunk to her step. The funny thing is that just a week or two ago she was roaring around as if she weren't pregnant at all. She hardly even looked pregnant.. Well she looks ready to pop now, and I noticed that she is building up a bag. So we decided that after the dressage rally next week, Koko will be put on maternity leave and Anne will go back to riding Quark regularly.
Jan 24, 2004 ~ I am in the process of making arrangements to host one of the first Curly Sporthorse inspections for CSI. We are planning on holding it in August of 2004. The judge is a licensed judge with the AWR as well as having many other credentials. I am really really excited to get some outside feedback on my breeding program and my horses. I think have some nice ones, but I am probably biased.. An outside pair of eyes will be great!
Jan 14, 2004 ~Well I am a bit slow in updating this.. We have had a busy few months.. Theresa came up in December to get Nick and take him back to Ashland with her. She sends me pictures and updates on him regularly. She is thrilled to have him and he continues to exceed everyone's expectations.
Over Christmas break (towards New Years) we had a big snow storm.. Okay it was only 8 inches, but for us here in the Willamette Valley that IS a huge snow storm.. Many trees and branches fell down causing wide spread power failures. We were out for a full week here.. The good news was that we had lots of fun in the snow and even got to ride in it a few times.
I just found out that the regional expo is all full up so we won't be able to take our Curlies to it again.. That is somewhat of a bummer as we do always enjoy getting these fabulous horses out in the public eye, and the kids were really looking forward to it. Oh well, I will send in my entries extra early for 2005..
I was notified that both Anne and I won awards from Curly Sporthorse International, the new Curly registry that we are members of.. Anne and Breeze won the dressage horse of the year in the Into division, while Diamond and I won the training level award.. WHAT FUN!!! It will be harder for next year as I think we will have to move up a level in the awards program..
Earlier this month I took over the riding of Harmony since Amy is just to busy with school and work. I am so happy to report that riding Harmony is a complete blast.. She has so much energy and yet is so simple to ride. She always tries hard to do what is asked of her, and when you teach her something new it is learned fast and well.
Dec. 2003 ~ We went on our annual Christmas tree hunt.. this time the kids went too. It was great fun.. To read all about it, please click here!! (Christmas tree hunt!)
Nov
23, 2003 ~ Anne had a Pony Club meeting today. She did get to take Koko after
all. We weren't sure since we have only had her a few days, but both kid and
pony did fabulously. Koko is going to be a great one for instilling confidence
in her young rider. Anne has loads of confidence on the flat (as demonstrated by
her starting young Quark under saddle for me) but needs experience over
fences still. Koko was wonderful for her over fences, very safe and
steady. We couldn't ask for a better pony.
Earlier this week Amy and I took a drive behind Koko. I will say, that driving is a bit harder then it looks!! LOL , again, Koko was very tolerant of our beginner drivers mistakes and took it all in stride.. What a cool family pony!!
Nov 20, 2003 ~ Well it is official, Theresa is going to buy Nick as a stallion prospect for breeding hypo-allergenic straight horses. Nick will be an outstanding stallion, I am sure. He has wonderful conformation and the perfect disposition, not to mention being cute Cute CUTE!!
Nov. 16, 2003 ~ Well the snow never happened so I loaded up Sparty on Sunday and headed out. I stopped in Ashland to pick up fellow Curly junkie Theresa Davis as she so kindly offered to be my navigator on this trip. We stopped in at Darlene Livingstone's place on the way down to have a peek at her stock.. And what did I find? lol, a Curly pony (13.3) that I really simply MUST have!! Hmmm. well my stalls are full, but I am working on finagling a way to get her.. We got to Allyn's and made the trade. While there I fell in love with Allyn's very cool (but huge) Scottish Deerhounds.. MY GOODNESS, there is nothing quite like being awakened by 5 of those dogs jumping onto the bed!!! Okay, Allyn only let in 2 at a time, but you can imagine! We headed home on Tuesday, totally exhausted and both of us longing to never see another M&M or bag of driving munchies again..
Nov. 13, 2003 ~ The weekend forecast is for snow in the mountain passes, so I am postponing my trip pending better weather. I hope it will clear soon as I was so hoping to have Koko here for Anne's upcoming Pony Club clinic.
Nov 6, 2003 ~ Well it is done!. I will be driving down next week to pick up Koko and her cart.. Things are moving very fast because I don't want to get hit with snow driving thru the mountain passes.. I am not a good snow driver, especially with a trailer in tow. Meanwhile the kids (including Amy, age 21) are thrilled at this turn of events. To be honest, I am also thrilled.
Nov. 3. 2003 ~ I got an email from Allyn Babitch, the lady that sold me Storm. She wanted to know if I would consider trading my two year old filly, *Spartygirl, straight across the table for her Curly pony *Koko. The pony is broke to ride and drive and would come with both a cart and a harness, and she is bred to *Storm's half warm blood Curly son. To be honest the idea of a super versatile pony that everyone could use and enjoy is a very tempting one and I will think seriously on the idea of a trade. (2 seconds later). Okay, I finished thinking about it and decided to go ahead and make the trade.. Koko will be loads of fun to have around.. I wish she weren't bred, but oh well, not much to be done about that..
Oct. 26, 2003 ~ The vet was out today to preg check Sally and a friend's mare that is bred to Sioux. Sally turned up with no pregnancy. WOW, am I bummed! Nick is such a fabulous colt , I was really looking forward to having another like him next year. Anne gets to take her pick of big horse foals next year, and I was hoping to have a good selection for her to chose from. Tami's mare is in foal, which we were pretty sure of due to her total lack of interest in teasing to Sioux.
On a hunch I had the vet recheck Harmony. She had checked in foal back in August, but I sort of had a feeling she that she might have slipped it, as she was showing a bit to much interest in the stallions.. Harmony is a tough mare to tell about by teasing alone as she is always somewhat (okay a lot) combative at breeding time. Anyway, the vet checked her and sure enough, she is not in foal any longer. This was also a major letdown as she was bred for the first time to Troy and I really was excited to see what that cross might produce. Harmony always has such exceptionally athletic foals, even when crossed to somewhat less athletic stallions that to have her bred to another awesome athlete (Troy) really had my expectations peaked.
The bright side of these mares turning up empty is that both will get some great riding time under their girths over the next year and a half. We are thinking about putting Sally under harness as we don't really have a good saddle that fits her well, but we do have a suitable harness.. Also with them being open, it will allow me to start their breeding early in the spring thus moving their foaling dates up to a more reasonable late spring/early summer date. Sally would have foaled mid way thru August and really that is just a bit later then I would like to have them foaling.
Oct. 20,
2003 ~ Anne rode Quark today with Liz and Scarlet in the arena at the same time.
This is a major step for the pair as Scarlet is an unbred mare that Quark spends
much of his free time chatting too across the barn aisle. I am so pleased to be
able to say that he didn't even once look at her or speak or anything other then
act like an old gelding! Perhaps we might indeed be able to take them to the
shows next spring.
The more I know this little stallion, the more thrilled I am to have him adding his genetics to my Curly pony line. He is quiet to handle (but not quiet of voice when he gets talking to those mares! <grin>), trains quickly and easily, extremely athletic, and just the right size!! I suspect that our foals from him and my Curly mares are going to be top class individuals. I can't wait for March when his first foal arrives. That foal will be born up in WA, to a mare that we bred for a friend. Our first foal from him will be arriving in May, out of Storm.
Oct 18,2003~ We just got back from our first dressage show. It was just a local schooling show but was a great experience for both Anne and I and our horses.
Anne had to ride Breeze as Andy came up sore just three days before the show. Poor Anne, she had worked so hard with Andy for weeks on end. She was disappointed but didn't complain and did a fabulous job with an unprepared pony. They scored 53-54's in their Intro test classes..
Diamond and I tackled the Training level tests 1 & 2. I must say, riding those "simple" tests is a lot harder then I thought it would be. We struggled thru our first test with blown canter leads and me talking to her all the time (I didn't know you couldn't talk to them!! :-).. scoring a 53.182.. not a stunning score, but somewhat respectable.. Our second test went MUCH better, if I do say so myself. The canter leads were correct and I kept my murmuring to myself. We left the ring very pleased with ourselves and scored a 59.231% !!!! I couldn't have been happier!
Sept. 2003~
Anne started riding Quark in the afternoons when she gets home from
school. Since he is just under 12.2h, he really is to small for me to do much if
any of the riding, so I asked Anne if she was game to try it. Surprisingly she
was very excited at the suggestion. To be honest, I wasn't sure she was going to
like the idea of starting a 3 yr old breeding stallion, but she gave it a
whirl.
I
am not surprised to report that they have been doing AWESOME! Quark is amazingly
calm about the whole process, offering neither bucks, nor spooks, nor distracted
stallion behavior. It only took a few days for them to progress to the point
where she was riding him off the lungeline in the ring at the walk and trot,
both bareback and with a saddle. It is Anne's goal to be able to take Quark to
the area dressage shows next year and show him for me!! Way cool, little girl!!
