December 25, 2006

Christmas is here.  It is a time to be thankful and a time that I cherish all of the old memories I have of Christmas when I was growing up.  I can remember every year wanting a pony for Christmas and the disappointment I had when there was no pony  under the tree.  One year, I was surprised when my parents took me out to the old barn behind our house and in it was the most beautiful Shetland pony I could ever imagine.  Her name was Ginger and she was about 7 months old.  I thought that I was the luckiest girl in the world.  From that time forward, horses have always played a part in my life.  I can remember going to college in Oshkosh, Wisconsin so that I could take my horse with me and keep her at the fairgrounds.  It only goes to show that girls who grow up loving horses never get over them.  I know that is true about me.

Horses have brought me many friends through the years.  I am so thankful for both the old and the new friends that I have.  Every year, Ronnie Salmons calls me from Kansas on Christmas.  I just got off the phone with him.  I remember when Ronnie called and was going to bring his mare to breed to Impressivist and he told me that if he got here and didn’t like the horse, he was taking his mare home.  Needless to say, Ronnie left the mare and we have been friends ever since.  My dear friend, Mary Simons always stays in touch with me.  She brought a home-made cheese cake a few days ago.  Mary and I traveled a lot when we were young---of course, always to look at horses or visit horse people.  Sometimes I think I don’t tell people enough how much I appreciate their friendship. 

I have been thinking about how the horse business has changed over the years.  In the old days, the shows had huge halter classes. I remember when our Wisconsin Futurity had over 100 weanlings in one class alone and it would take a long time to judge it.  Now, we are lucky to have 10 or 12 in a class.  I ask myself what has happened to change all that and I really don’t know.  Some people blame it on the cost to show, others blame it on the politics of the horses shows, but I believe it is because the shows have become more of a business instead of a time when people get together to have fun and enjoy each other. 

I have also been thinking about how our horses have changed over the years.  When I was growing up, our horses were about 14.3 to 15 hands and had a lot of mass.  The hocks on them were not posty and we very seldom had leg problems. It was not unusual to see horses show at halter in the morning and performance in the afternoon.   Now, it seems that we have to have horses at least 16 hands tall and we tend to overlook a lot of faults.   Heads are no longer important, nor are hips or straight legs. I have been told that the head is "only a place to hang the halter". I know what I like in a horse.  Heads, hips, backs, high necks and good hocks are very important to me.  In an age when a lot of horses are cheap, I have found that the good ones will still bring good money. I feel it is important to buy the best you can possibly afford.  Not only does it cost the same to feed that horse, but you will find that the return you will realize on the foals will be much greater. Of course, a lot of the horse business is a gamble as the same mare will have different quality foals in different years sired by the same stallion.  Although that may be true, it is still extremely difficult to raise a quality foal if the parents aren't good individuals. I still believe that your best chance is to try to match your mare to a stallion that will “hopefully” improve her where she needs improvement and not hurt her good features.  Enough said about that for now.

I hope you have noticed that the “For Sale” page is up on the web site.  Along with the two mares on it, we also have the two fillies that we have left for sale.  They are Frostie, who is NN and out of Miss Bunny Tardee and Sherry who is NH and out of Phenomenal Affair.  Both are sired by Exceptionist.  Rexine has also been working hard on new graphics and I love the gray mare head shots on top of the for sale page.  Her Christmas card is really neat and I love the bright red color and the snow on the card.  She has also added new pictures to the “Winter Gallery” and I will continue to take more pictures for it.  We have not had much snow or cold weather but I am sure it is coming.

Foaling season is coming fast.  Angelica is due the 14^th of January and I now have the live foal cam working.  She should be  on the camera very soon.   Kids Classic Style will be the sire of the baby and your guess is as good as mine as to what color it will be.  I have been telling everyone that we are starting a new color.  I would appreciate any opinions as to what color a gray mare and a buckskin stallion will produce.  I would imagine that the graying gene will eventually prevail and the foal will turn gray (but I don't know that)   I have a lot of new and exciting news to tell you but think I will save that for another day. After all, it is about time that I go in the house and eat some more “sweets”.  

Sandy  

November 26,

It has been such a long time since I have written news.  I hope that I can remember all that has happened, and there has been a lot.  

On October 19, Mike, Dickie, Molly (the dog) and I went to Mississippi.  What a wonderful trip it was.  We went to look at the horses that our partnership owns together.  They were awesome and we decided that we needed to bring the 2 mares to Wisconsin. One is the June two year old filly by Shanes Bake and the other is her mother, Shanes Lady Romantic.  With all the things going on at home, we decided to leave the weanling Exceptionist filly there for the winter.  I will show you pictures of the 2 year old mare and also the weanling filly.  The two year old mare, Twice the Romance, is NH and is absolutely awesome.  We will sell her and she will make someone a great show mare and an outstanding broodmare.  The baby filly is something else.  Talk about muscle on an NN filly.  Her nickname is Caroline, and wait until you see her in the spring.   The dam of both of these is Shanes Lady Romantic and she is in foal to Golden Gunslinger.  If she crosses half as well with him as she has with the other two studs, we should have a great one. 

When we got home, we had visitors from Lousiana and Mississippi.  Garrell Chiasson and Jimmie Allemand came to Wisconsin and during the time that they were here, we had the most miserable weather imaginable.  Now, in Wisconsin, we can have cold weather but this was something else.  The wind blew and we had rain and sleet and I was amazed when they told me they wanted to bring their wives back to Wisconsin.  I told them that we normally don’t have wind, but the way it was blowing, I really don’t know if they believed me.   They left with a trailer load of horses.  They bought Mickey, Sadie, Benny and An Exceptional Affair.  Garrell made a great purchase and bought Call Me a Renegade and he will leave him here and we will promote him for the upcoming breeding season.  I intend to have his own page on the website.  Not only is this a wonderful NN stallion, he has the sweetest disposition imaginable.  You will be hearing a lot more about him from me in the coming weeks. 

No sooner had they left than Tom and Josephine Flory called from Ohio and wanted to come to see the mares.  I couldn’t believe that they drove here and back in one day.  Well, we had no intentions of selling PJ Prophets Cool Skip (Patty)  but somehow it happened.  She has been one of our favorite mares but she will have a great home with the Florys and they intend to breed her to Carribbean Kid, who was bred by my dear friend Carri Jones. 

Next was the trip to the Quarter Horse World Show.   I flew out on Wednesday and as usual had a wonderful time.  This time was extra special as Jackie Hardwicke and her group from Australia  were there.  I had never met Jackie in person, but she and I are like sisters.  We visit on the phone and on email so much and meeting her was only the icing on the cake.  There were about 10 people from Australia there and what wonderful people they were.  Lanis and I couldn’t get over the accent and some of the expressions they had.  It amazes me that Jackie and I have the same taste in horses but I guess when you visit as much as we have, that happens.  The Florys who had bought Patty were there, as were Dr John Tan and his brother James.  The filly that the Tans own by Elusive Kid placed 4^th in both amateur and open and we were all so happy for them.  One evening we ate with the Australians and the Tans and another night with the Florys.  All in all, it was such a great  world show  due to the people that we were with.   It was also a good time to get together and visit with a lot of my old friends that I see only once a year.  Lanis and I decided that we need to make a special trip to Texas before Christmas to look at the stallions as we really couldn't make any decisions at the show.

I got back from the World Show on Sunday and Jackie from Australia came to visit me on Wednesday. She brought me a gift of an actual kangaroo hide.  I will treasure it.  We took her to the Outback Steak House that night. She told me they don’t have any of the kind of food in Australia that they have here.  It was like telling a child that there is no Santa Claus, now that I know that Alice Springs Chicken doesn't exist.  Lol   Jackie spent Thanksgiving with us and then on Friday afternoon, Lanis and Monte May arrived from Mississippi with the 2 gray mares.  We all went out on Friday night and then I took Jackie to the airport on Saturday afternoon so that she could meet with her group in Las Vegas.  I really hated to see her go and hopefully it will not be so long between visits again.  I would love to go to Australia and I guess I just need a push to get me to do it.  These doggone horses seem to keep me at home.

Lanis and Monte left for Mississipi this morning and they took Daytona and A Legacy with them.  Monte is a wonderful horseman and trailer  and the stud is such a good moving horse, we decided that we would let him ride him for a bit before breeding season starts.  We intend to turn Daytona out for the winter along with the gray NN filly and bring both of them back to Wisconsin in the spring.  I forgot to tell you what is going on here.  Dr Katharine Fox, our vet is going to run her breeding operation out of our place.  We have been rebuilding the laboratory and now have a breeding dummy set up in the arena.  She is excellent at embryo transfer and freezing semen and it looks like my life if going to be busier than ever.    I think it will be fun and educational besides.  Since we have only 3 foals coming for next year, I will not be overwhelmed with the foaling.  We intend to collect and ship outside stallions here.  There are already 2 stallions committed that breed a total of close to 175 mares.    I have expanded the recipient herd so that we will be ready to do more embryo transfers also. I don’t think my life is going to be boring.

Somewhere along the way, I forgot to tell you about the new mare that we bought.  She is a black 2 year old NN mare and is double bred Mr Impressive.  She is close to 16 hands now and is really a nice mare.  Her name is Easy Off the Tee and I will show you some pictures of her.  She has winter hair but you will see her quality.  I intend to sell her, so if anyone needs a black NN mare for Christmas, give me a call.  Seriously, she would be a great cross with our modern day stallions as she has no Kid Clu or Obvious in her bloodlines. 

I think I will close for now.  I need to recover from a month of overeating.  I had been walking two miles a day and really need to get back on track with that.  Our weather has been awesome but according to the weather channel, it is about to change.  Snow is not far away.   I will try to keep up to date better on the news.  Rexine kept telling me to do it, but as time went by, it got harder and harder to do.  My resolution is to update it more frequently.   I probably forgot a lot of what happened at Ellis Quarter Horses already, and if I remember, I will include it in the next update.

Sandy