Handsome boy

I think I mentioned elsewhere that my BOs have offered me a baby to replace Justice; this is so incredibly generous of them, and I can't even put into words how much I appreciate it.  They're even letting me pick who mom and dad will be!

After some deeply considered thought and a lot of indecision, mom is going to be either the best broodmare on property or her daughter; they ended up deciding to breed both and let me pick rather than make me pick between the two mares.  (The other baby will be for sale, I believe.)

Dad was the easy part.  Farm's got some really nice studs, most of which I've known since birth, but I've kind of had my eye on this guy.  Just... the pictures I've had of him until this weekend looked an awful lot like this:

Which, I mean... he was a cute baby, but "cute baby" and "actually worthy of breeding to" are... not necessarily the same.

Especially when he's grown up a little!

Or a lot.  :)  He's 4 this year, and this will be his first crop of foals.  He got lightly started over the winter, and he'll be going back for training in a few weeks so he can start showing.  We already know he'll clear a 5 foot fence handily.  (No, that wasn't planned.  It also wasn't to get to mares.  Guess he was bored!)

Regardless of which mare... Although color is not a factor here unless all other things are identical, both babies should come out black or bay/brown, with ~ 50% chance of spots.  Both will also be high draft percentage - somewhere in the 75-90% range, as I recall.

The stallion isn't perfect; neither are the mares. But I wouldn't cry to get an exact reproduction of any of the three of them, either, and the worst parts are things like "a little long in the back" or "a little short in the neck" or "your foot is a dinner plate and looks a bit disproportionate" or "that... is a lot of feathering."

I am very quietly excited about this baby.  Cessa is 15 this year, and part of what I was looking forward to with Justice was doing some showing and other events that I'd be hesitant to push an aging broodmare with allergies to do.  The other part was having a horse that my husband could ride, if need be... which this baby totally should be, given the personalities of the equines involved.  (I would be hesitant with Cessa - she could surprise me, but I'd rather not bet my distinctly non-horsey SO's safety and happiness on it.)

All's Quiet

So hi!  It's been a while!

Turns out, when it's raining every freaking weekend but two for the last three months, not much horse stuff gets done. lol I mean, I've seen Cessa?  She's fat and happy?

Not that you'd know it by photos. Silly mare.

The two weekends it didn't dump inches upon inches of rain on us... we couldn't really ride because it's breeding season, and between three stallions and a boarder whose horses can't be out in the big pasture with the rest of the herd, there's no room (and none of us are comfortable enough yet for trail riding!).

So it's been quiet.

And wet.  I mentioned wet, right?  Like, I don't want to complain too much because it's better than the decade of drought we had, but... um.  Could the rain maybe happen on Monday instead of Friday or Saturday?

At least my roses are happy.