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

Endurance Rides Again!

July 31st was the date for our second endurance ride of this season.  This ride was less than half an hour from our house so we took the horses up the night before to have them vetted and then we took them home and turned them out.  We loaded up early on Sunday a.m. and went to the ride.  I think this was a very good decision on our part as our horses were calm and relaxed - obviously had had a good rest at home before the ride.

I was especially pleased with Tessa - she has had some issues this year for sure and yet at this ride she was wonderfully calm and had a great attitude.  As soon as I got on her I could tell we were going to have a great ride - and we did!  She paced herself very well and reached 60 bpm easily when we returned to camp for our mid ride vet check.  She also pulsed down at the end of the ride pretty much right away - this is a big improvement from the last ride and I was very pleased!

Tessa and I placed 11th, WSL placed 12th and Anastasia and Bijou placed 13th - this was out of 48 horse/rider teams so that was a great placing IMO!

Here are a few pictures that someone took of us at the ride - there are more somewhere, I will find them eventually!  This first one is WSL, me and Anastasia heading out on our first loop.

 This second one is Tessa at her first vet check - hmmm a bath might be in order here LOL!

 And this is Anastasia and Bijou - what a great team!

Shelly
www.curlystandardplace.com

Newest addition

Here at the Curly Standard Place we are continually striving to improve on breeding outcomes and in order to do this we are always on the look out for outstanding horses to add to our riding and breeding programs.

We were lucky to be offered the truly lovely young purebred Arabian mare Soledad.  She is a 2009 registered Arabian and we are really looking forward to seeing how she grows up!  She is to be used for riding, of course, but she will also likely be contributing to our breeding program eventually as well.

Please welcome Soledad!

Ballet Dancer

We are just "LOVIN'" this foal.  This is the sweetest, most friendly, darling foal that we have had born here - she is just exceptional!

Newest arrival

Well our final foal of the season has arrived!  This foal is a first in many ways.
She is a first foal for our homebred mare *Shesa Magic Charm (aka *Charm)

She is a first foal for our homebred pony stallion *Bobble Head

 She is the first *Sandman grand-foal born here (*Sandman is *Charm's sire)
She is the first foal to be one of three generations here on our farm - very cool!  So, without further adieu, here is the beautiful red dun filly foal from *Charm and *Bobble!

Honorable mention MUST go to the Quarab pinto pony that we used to own Absolutely Charming (aka Abby).  Abby is *Charm's dam.  Abby is here for a few weeks for a riding refresher, so she got to be here when her grand-baby was born - it is really neat to see all three generations together!
Here is Abby:

Shelly in Summerland
Curly Standard Place

Easter Delivery!

Easter Sunday - at the lovely hour of 8:30 in the morning, our beautiful snowcap Appaloosa mare Poplar's Sea Pearl gave birth to an Easter baby :) yet, another filly - this has been a year of fillies for us so far!  So far this filly has minimal appaloosa colour in her coat - but she has all the characteristics markings of an appy, which mostly likely means she will get more colour as she matures.  Here is a picture of her dam:

Here are photos of the lovely filly :)  She belongs to my friend Joan Collins.

Shelly
http://www.curlystandardplace.com

Curly Standard Place happenings

*Icon and Divinity are settling in - Anastasia lunged D yesterday and they did great :)  I gave *Icon a bath yesterday and he was such a good boy!  He will have to be good for baths, with all that white on him!  Here are a couple of pictures of him stretching his legs:

He sure is a beautiful boy!  I am just so excited to have him!

We went for a trail ride this weekend and got this photo of WSL and I - it was a great ride!

Shelly
http://www.curlystandardplace.com

We have been afforded the privilege of adding to our herd an incredible quality black pinto Curly stallion *BCF Icon.

*Icon comes from the top notch Curly breeding program of Bashcurl Farm in Jefferson, Georgia.  He made the long trip from GA to our farm in Summerland, BC in March of 2011. 

We are incredibly thrilled to have this horse here now and we will promote, show, breed him to the best of our ability.  He will be and exceptional cross with our *Sandman daughters and he will also be available to outside mares for breeding.
Shelly in Summerland, BC Canada
Curly Standard Place

DKH Lacey has a girl!

In the early hours of today (March 28th, 2011) DKH Lacey, our s/c Curly mare gave birth to a HUGE Curly filly!  Lacey was a very good girl and event though she is still hesitant around people she was very tolerant of us being in attendance of her giving birth.  The filly is huge, healthy happy and vigorous!  I am going to regretfully offer her for sale - these big Curlies are hard to come by though - so someone will get a really special horse!

Anyhow, our foaling season is going well - two safely on the ground, two to go!  We couldn't be happier!
Shelly
http://www.curlystandardplace.com

Beautiful new baby girl!

March 20, 2011, our beautiful and athletic purebred Arabian mare Mirage has given birth to a perfect, bright red, sabino, purebred Arabian filly.  Here she is!

So far we haven't yet named her, but stay tuned as we will come up with something perfect for this wonderful new addition to our farm.
She is perky, athletic, healthy and very very friendly - typical Arabian!  These are just some of the reasons that I love to cross our Curlies with Arabians.  This filly will be an eventual replacement for our mare Mirage, but we have plans to rebreed Mirage to *Icon for a 2012 foal.  Wow, that will be another exceptional cross!
Here is one more of the little sweetie.

Shelly
Curly Standard Place

More exciting news!

*BCF Divinity - yes, this is our second big announcement.  This "exceptional" mare will be coming to our farm at the same time when we get *BCF Icon.  This mare is all that a sport-type Curly horse should be, here is what her former owner says on her website about Divinity:

2004 Curly Sporthorse Mare  -  Infinite  Potential
If you want to take a curly Grand Prix competitively  - This is the horse for you.
The experts say this one has what it takes to go ALL THE WAY !! 

We are incredibly excited to have this mare at our farm.  Anastasia in particular as she intends to ride and show Divinity!

Stay tuned on how she does for us :)

Shelly
http://www.curlystandardplace.com