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Stallions
Another drizzly dreary day for the first day of shotgun season. We heard shots right after it turned light enough to see. Not sure if anyone out here got one. Rachel warned us yesterday to not walk on the dam. We had no walk today as Joan had Co-op and needed me at mom's by 8:00 am. Now that mom's lift chair is fixed she is so much more comfortable. She was already in the chair with the blanket that Shirley gave her when I arrived. She really likes that blanket. We had a quiet morning with a lot of laughs as we watched Andy Griffith. Ruth came just before 1:00 pm and brought a pumpkin dessert, she made. She followed Imogene's recipe and it was good. All 3 of us enjoyed that tasty treat. On the way home Evan was out grazing, amazing with this wet mild (well 40s and 50s) weather the grass is still growing. He laid down to roll.
In 2009 our star performance mare Jenis gave birth to a colt by Raven which we decided we MUST keep. Below is Raven's son Valiant.
We knew we wanted to keep some of Raven's daughters plus we wanted Valiant to have a companion so we started a search and found Evan who is just a few days older than Valiant.
These two were best friends for 3 years. They went everywhere together. They performed together 3 years in a row at the IL Horse Fair
It was only after we started using them for stud that they became worst enemies. It got so bad that for a while we needed two breeding stands because if they could see each other they would glare at each other and ignore the mare. We were thrilled with how Evan turned out, he is compact has the mega hair gene and is so very gentle, he loves people and is a favorite with guests that stay in the foaling apartment.
Valiant is also gentle with people and loves attention. Valiant is taller and more the sport type so we have had really great choices on which stallion to use on which mare and of course Valiant's daughters can be used with Evan while Evan's daughters can be used with Valiant. The problem we now have is we kept Dancer who is related to both Valiant and Evan as she is a Raven grand daughter and an Evan daughter and now we have Dahlia, Rosalie's filly who is also related to both. SO we bought Oliver. Oliver is FHANA registered, registered name Xander, his sire is a 16.3 FHANA approved stallion Tsjalle 454 and his dam is a 15.3 hand FHANA registered mare Nynke
He is pictured below at 2 years of age.
We will see how he does when he turns 3. If he is fertile, grows tall and throws nice foals we may keep him.
