Monday, November 14, 2011

Three *Sandman girls

Well, I looked at my blog to see when the last post was and I was kind of surprised to see it was August!  I guess I have had a pretty busy Fall and while this is a good thing for the progress of my horses in training obviously other areas got neglected.... :)

I was really lucky this year to be riding and training THREE young mares from *Sandman, all at the same time.
*Spiffy Curl is a 2008 Curly pony mare that I trained to ride and then she went on to her new home with a family that has allergies - they came to meet her, tested her and decided that she would be a welcome addition to their family.  I got the fun job of training her for them and she was really wonderful - accepting of all that we did and I really got to enjoy her for the time she was under saddle with me.  Here we are out on the trail - not too long before she went to her new home:

The second one is *Sandman's Serenade - she is a 2007 Curly/Arabian mare that had a really bad injury to her shoulder muscle as a weanling and it has taken her literally years to heal.  She is nearly sound now and as part of her rehab I have been riding her 4 - 5 times per week.  An unexpected, wonderful side benefit of this riding is that "my" chronic neck injury seems to be benefiting from *Serenade's smooth stride and her calm and easy going nature.  We are getting sound together!
Here I am with her on the trail the other day:
I know these two girls look much the same, but they aren't that similar - well, they are half sisters of course, but both were born black and have the grey gene from their (different) dams.  *Spiffy is only about 13hh and *Serenade is close to 15hh so they are different in that aspect!

The third mare is our lovely copper dun 2005 mare *Shesa Magic Charm.  After about 18 months off to have her filly Ballet Dancer, it is like *Charm had no time off from riding at all - after a short lunging session I hopped right on and she was just super!
*Charm is offered for sale - she can be rebred to our new young Curly stallion *BCF Icon for a really wonderful sporty foal!  Here is *Charm with Anastasia the other day:

Well that is it for now!  I hope I can post more updates more often now that Winter is just around the corner.... but I have sure been enjoying all my time in the saddle this Fall!
Shelly
http://www.curlystandardplace.com