Friday, January 27, 2017

It's 2017 Already?

I didn't realize until I logged into my blog that it's been since the beginning of October that I've done a post.  Unbelievable.  November was "write 1700 words/day on my novel." December was "still obsessed with  my novel," holidays, family, etc. January has been "holy shit, I'm a teacher and I've been ignoring a shitload of work for the last two months" kind of thing...so, that's my excuse. Now, we're five days away from leaving for the Stallion Show, and I need to play catch up.

All kinds of horse activity has been going on at SSF. There's nothing particularly noteworthy to talk about, however.  We have a bunch of hormonal mares who are either not pregnant and having screwy heats or pregnant with future stallion prospects in a year when I want to keep fillies.

Sad news:  Gazania, our Bon Bravour mare, lost her Governor foal at 7+ months.  Perfectly formed colt.  She has an infection.  Always something.

Carol and I visited our two boys at Phil and Emilie Shipman's Lockehaven Farm.  Katmandu (Governor x Samber) and Kublai Khan (UB-40 x Vincent) are both looking really good. They've been in manners training for a few months now, and, according to Phil, Kublai needs to go for his MD or EMT rather than KWPN approval.  We'll see.

There are no particular stallion or stallions' offspring I'm excited to see this year at the Stallion Show, but I am excited to spend the weekend with Keagan and Michaela and catching up with friends.  It's always one of my favorite weekends of the year.  Next year, knock on wood, we'll have one or two of our homebred boys headed to the Brabanthallen...maybe we'll convince Carol to spend a weekend surrounded by horse people for that occasion!

It looks as if we dressage breeders are going to have a few more options for fresh cooled semen in 2017.

Olivi has a rock star pedigree.  He can produce small and he can produce hot, but he produces movement and strong dressage ability.  He's definitely worth considering.

Ampere has certainly proven himself to produce some super moving horses.  I'm not always crazy about the type; they can be heavier than I like. I'm also really suspect of some of the stifles.  Our table at the Stallion Show is front row, exactly in the spot horses head to when they're coming across the diagonal in the free movement.  Many Amperes have really loose stifles.  That doesn't mean I wouldn't consider him, but it does mean I would be careful to whom I bred him.

I'm pretty sure we're going to have a couple more option, too, but I can't talk about those just yet...

I would talk about my breeding picks for this year, but Carol gets mad at me when I give away my stallion choices too early.  She doesn't mind when the breeding season is over, but she likes us to be at least a year ahead! So far, I've only purchased five doses of frozen, so there's not that much to tell.  of course, we're in a transition period and have fewer mares to breed. Hopefully, Orchis is having her final foal, though she, with her very pregnant-looking belly, was teasing to the teaser stallion tonight; Nemels won't keep a pregnancy; so that leaves us with only eight mares to breed this year. Although, we are having thoughts of trying ET with both Galearites and Nemels.  No more offsite mares, however.  We'd have to find a couple of recipient mares I could follow and time with our girls.  I'm only interested in doing direct transfer, not transported and leasing mares.

Anyone going to the Annual Meeting for the KWPN-NA? Michaela and Keagan have been devoting so much energy to developing and promoting the Young KWPN-NA, I 'd love to go for their sake--their both going to be there, but the life of a teacher doesn't allow me as much flexibility as I would like. I am donating a painting to the silent auction.  Oh, yes. You could own a Scot Tolman, original, floral painting.  It could adorn your wall for years to come, be passed down to generations of a family members, accrue pennies worth of value over the next 50 years...what an investment!  In other words, bid on my painting so it sells for more than $5.00. It will probably cost you more to ship it home than you'll have to pay for it.

Oh, and, really big news:  We are now Platinum Level Breeders in the KWPN-NA.  That puts us among the top five breeders in North America!  So excited!

Again, I'm sorry it's been so long since I've written in my journal.  I miss the correspondence and commentary it used to generate. That being said, there's been a lot going on over the last few years that have pushed me over the proverbial edge--just haven't had the time or energy to devote to keeping up this this blog.  2017 promises to be a fantastic year.  Michaela and Cho are getting married, we have an exciting foal crop on the way, all five of us have lots of travel plans that are taking us al over the globe, and we're surrounded by love and laughter.  Could a guy ask for any more?