Well, its almost the New Year!

Oh where oh where has time gone!! I sit at our kitchen table and look at the rain pound the ground like sludge hammers, glad most of the ponies came in for the day, but will go out once I get back from my dressage lesson with Oreo.
Quite a few things have happened since my last blog. My trip to England, shows, elk hunting, barn remodel under way. It is gonna be an exciting new year, that is for sure!! Oh yeah, the addition of our French Bulldogs! Ready Fire Aim Jack and I call it LOL
​I am gonna leave off at my last entry, Red blessed us with a real fab colt we are keeping to grow out. He will either be stallion worthy or one amazing show gelding and will be trained to ride and drive. Prada gave us a beautiful colt just like Master Mind! How lucky are we:)
My trip to England this year was wonderful! I got to go to TOYS with the Down ladies and see some wonderful Gypsies and watch Anna and her fab SD mare take the overall championship at only 3yrs old!!! I also bought a filly on this visit. She will be joining us in the states next month and we are elated about her quality to our program. She is one of a kind and will never be recreated and we are truly truly honored we were selected to purchase her:) She will be in our show lineup next year along with a few other babies! Man, I am gonna need to rotate who I show as I have so many I want to get out there for people to see. That is the only reason you will find me in the show ring at breed shows, to let people see our quality. Only way to show people the difference, is seeing in the flesh. Other than that, I hold little faith in the breed shows judging system. Most of all the breed judges are primary other breed judges and don't have a clue about Gypsy conformation, quality, and expectations in breed standards.
At the end of the day, you are paying for someones opinion.
We also don't train all of our breeding stock to ride or drive. Some make a big fuss over this, but each to their own. I feel some of my mares are far to valuable in my breeding program to risk injury or anything else that can happen. Granted, anything can happen, but when our mares give us a few foals we give them a season off. We move them to our 40 acre pasture to live the life of luxury for the season. We do not have to win any titles or ribbons to prove anything, the quality of their off speaks for itself. I do not want to put thousands of dollars into training and years of time on a mare that can't produce. Same goes for our stallions. All stallion prospects will be bred to a few select mares at two to determine their strengths and weakness. Once the foals arrive, we will determine the next breeding based on the foals. We will then determine by the age of four, if the stallion should be gelded or continue on. Buying Oreo was a risk, as we had not seen any of his get, but after seeing all he has produced in the UK, we couldn't be happier to have foals arriving by him next year. Well, I need to head to the feed store, so that is all I have for today. I am gonna be more diligent about posting LOL