Cap under saddle

A quick update - we have been riding Cap and he is coming along just beautifully! He is so eager to please and learn it is a treat working with him.

Spring Training

This year I have more horses to put under saddle than ever before. First up are Captivision - our coming 18 year old Arabian stallion - yep - he is nearly 18 and NEVER been ridden - well, that isn't quite true - we have ridden him these past couple of days. Cap is doing extremely well - he is brave yet very attentive to his handler and really loves to be finally going to work. Stay tuned for pictures of him as his saddle training progresses - we hope to do a couple of endurance rides on him this year! Cap is available to outside mares too!
Next up is little *Lexy - yep - he is nearly three years old now and we are starting him lightly now. He is afraid of "nothing" - very confident, easy going, non spooky, eager to learn and never ever speaks to the mares unless given permission. *Lex is really going to make his mark both as a young stallion (four foals due this year!) and as a wonderful riding pony. *Lex is available for breeding and he is also for sale!

The third horse I'm working on right now is Cordova True Colours (aka TC). She is my BIG racing bred Appaloosa mare. TC was injured as a weanling and was very lame for most of the past 3 - 4 years. We are very happy to report that even though TC is a really wonderful broodmare and has produced two exceptional Curly foals for us, we will now be able to enjoy her as a riding horse too! She is now SOUND and I am saddle training her. What do you think - think she is enjoying herself?

Awesome picture of Bijou and Cappy

I turned *Bijou and CC out in my big field the other day and was all ready with my camera - I was really happy with this great picture of *Bijou - look at that extension!

I also got a nice one of Cappy. And you wonder who Cappy is......well, he is my purebred Arabian stallion - he is a son of Bask AND Aladdinn - an incredible horse! Cappy will be bred to *Bijou this year and he is also available to outside mares. Here is Cap - he is a very sweet boy.

New Year - New Horses

A couple of months ago I was lucky enough to lease a lovely Arabian mare Ana-Alisia, aka Lisia. In 2006 Lisia had a lovely foal with *Sandman so I'm looking forward to a repeat. You can see pictures of *Sandman's Babe here. Anyhow, the great thing is that Lisia is also a neat riding horse - big and powerful and a real been there done that kinda girl - here she is with my friend Maryan the other day.

The other exciting news is that I have two new Curly mares - *DSF Cassandra who is a fantastic Curly pony - about 14 hands, black going grey AND *Poplar's Bijou *Bijou is a half sister to our *Sandman - she is a lovely, friendly, extreme, feminine version of him - how lucky am I to have these two great mares!

A new year!

Well, I haven't been adding much here recently, but I plan to do a TON of riding and training this year so I thought I would try to write a bit about how it all goes.

Even though we have more snow here than I can remember in the past half a dozen years I've been riding every day this week. My favorite riding horse Amazing Gracie aka Gracie is open this year and I have plans to do all types of riding with her - trails, showing and maybe even endurance - I'm really looking forward to it! Gracie is a fullbred Curly with a smooth coat - I find it hard to explain this to people sometimes LOL - but there you go and she is one of the most hypoallergenic horses we have too.

So on this day, January 7th, 2007, three of us went riding; me on Gracie, my daughter Anastasia on her Curly gelding *Cuervo and my daughter's friend Sam on her Curly gelding *Kobee - *Kobee just happens to be Gracie's son! He has become a great trail horse and this young ladies best friend.

How about a pint sized Curly???

I

I have been casually looking for the past couple of years for a mini mare that might we suitable to breed to a Curly stallion - well, a few weeks ago I heard about a little girl that sounded like she could be suitable so I inquired about her and as of November 26th, 2005 she became a happy new resident of our farm. This is Strawberry Shortcake, she is supposed to be about 36 inches tall, but I haven't measured her yet...

Now if you know my farm at all you may be wondering if I would use *Sandman with her and while the lure of his ability to throw 100 percent Curly foals is there, his filly with *Cinnamon was quite large (as all his foals seem to be), so no I would not risk this cross with a mini mare. Luckily, I have *VJB Man In The Moon, aka Lex here at our farm and having struck a deal with his owner Wendy Hale, I will be using him with both *Cinnamon and Shortcake - wow I can't wait for my 2007 foal crop already - talk about living in the future - LOL.

Now Shortcake came with an incredibly cute "companion" - this is Shadow, he is a little bit smaller than her and he is a "dwarf", fortunately he is gelded - this should never be bred into any type of horse. Having said that, he is INCREDIBLY cute - he is soooo sweet, gentle and kind - what a wonderful pet he is! Fun on the farm!

New Addition

When I heard that an own daughter of *Sockeye was available for sale right next door in Alberta, and she was an extreme I just knew we had to add her to our herd. I have long wanted to add an extreme mare and this girl looked really good (thanks Denise for telling us about her!). Enter Maryan, my friend and riding buddy and voila! we partnered up to purchase *RR Black Magic Woman. Now that is a long "handle" and while a pretty name (all the horses from Verlin's breeding stock are named after songs!), we needed a barn name for this girl. Verlin was calling her *BMW, but while that is slick it just didn't roll off our tongue as we would like and so what else could we call her but "*Beamer" LOL. It suits her well.

*Beamer is a 2002 mare and she will be saddle trained over the winter/spring of 2005/2006, we are strongly considering having her trained for reining - wow has she got the moves! Beamer will also be bred in the spring of 2006, but we will not be crossing her with *Sandman as we do not want to double up on what is likely a double dominant gene in both of these fine horses. So Maryan and I have the winter to decide what type of stallion to choose for our pretty new girl - what fun!

Check back as her training begins - she is a pretty girl and so sweet and sensitive!

Another wonderful day

Today I rode Bloom on the trail, Anastasia rode *Cuervo and Shane took *Cinnamon - my friend came along on her Peruvian so it was a wonderful day - the Autumn weather is absolutely fantastic! Bloom is doing well and really learning to go forward nicely now - I had my first canter on her - can you say SMOOTH???

Does it get any better?

Well, I'll have to post a couple of days on this post..... Sunday, I rode Raven and two of my friends rode with me - wow did we have a fun time exploring some new trails up the hills. *Raven is fast becoming my pal and a favorite for me to take out riding - she is "such" a character. We took this picture on our ride - pretty nice huh?

Canadian Thanksgiving, I took two of my kids riding - me on *Raven, Anastasia on *Cuervo and Shane on *Cinnamon - it was a wild and windy day though so we didn't go to far, but we did have fun setting the self timer on the camera and getting this picture.

Sandman's turn (well, Bloom too)

Today was Sandman's turn to take a turn around the arena with me. He was a really good boy and I had one of my best rides on him ever. He got lots of "good boys" I'll tell ya! We did a little hopping over a X pole and some trot poles to help him get the idea to pick up his feet and he did a great job.

Bloom was up next and today we spent the time lunging. She is going well under saddle, but is still behind my leg so I thought I would do a few days of reinforcement to keep moving forward with a bit more animation. Of course animation from a drafter is a bit more challenging, but she did seem to get it today, her transitions were snappy and she held her gait when asked to. I then hopped on her to do our 1/4 mile driveway to cool her down - she is so sensible, what a great horse.

Lisa came over after that and rode Summer - we worked on getting Summer to canter a bit slower - wow can she boogie.

A riding day!

Well, today 4 of my horses got a nice work out. I am fortunate to be able to half lease out some of my riding horses and today three of the ladies who ride my horses and myself went for a super ride together. Summer, Cuervo, Gracie and me on Raven all got to go. Summer is my Canadian/Percheron mare, Cuervo is my daughter's Curly palomino gelding, Gracie is my own favorite riding horse and Raven is my current work in progress. Today was Raven's 6th trail ride and she went out like a pro - she even led the way part of the time.