Welp, that happened

Dragon turned 2 last week, and I thought to myself, "Oh, yay!  Time to break out the dumb party hat!"

And you know, for a 2 year old, she was very well-behaved.

Until she kind of lost patience and spooked at something, during which she stomped the shit out of my foot.

This was like 2 hours later.

Nothing's numb, everything bends, but FUCKING OUCH.

I can't even be mad, because it was legitimately a baby moment - she spooked, threw her feet out to the side when she went to run, and just... stomped me.  Now, her being a bit of a shit after that, when I was taking her back to the pasture and couldn't walk straight?  Yeah, that I was annoyed about.

At least Cessa was being cuddly!

Little Mr. Bishop is off at baby boot camp - or as our trainer dubbed it on the invoice, "Kindergarten for Giants."  So far, he has learned about tying and that when he's being led, he actually has to, y'know, walk forwards instead of stalling out and having a human push him backwards to get where we want to go. lol

In which I spent far, far too much time on pedigrees

So Dom's post about Lucy's pedigree got me thinking about Dragon's pedigree... and then I started looking back further... and things happened and I bought a program and got a subscription to AllBreed so I could fix some things that were blatantly wrong, and... well.

I maybe got carried away.

So, if anyone wondered, you can in fact find in Google Books the following:

• The Percheron studbooks, both American and French, up to about 1930
• The Shire studbooks, both American and British, up to about 1940
• The American Hackney studbook up to 1925

They're PDFs!  Varying level of scanning quality and scanning completeness (there's a couple missing pages), but... neat and occasionally maddening stuff.

I'm gonna break this text up with random pictures.  Like Bishop wearing Cessa's fly mask as a hat during our Time of Plague.

"Maddening?" I hear you ask.

Yes.  Dear god, yes.  When you get far enough back - for the Shires, it's book 1, for the Percherons I never really found the point where it started - you start running into "by Stallion X, owned by Mr. Y."  Or, better yet, "a (some color) stallion owned by Mr. Y."  Sooo... are these all the same stallion?  Are they all the same Mr. Y?  The world may never know.  (Well, ok, I'm sure if you dig back into the right primary sources, you can probably figure this out, but... look, I'm working with docs available on Google Books here.)

And that sounds ok, right?  Except it's really not.  It's not as bad for stallions, but ye gods, the mares.  There was a point, when I was deep in Percherons, that I was feeling the deep, deep need to build a time machine and go back to 1700s France exclusively to kick the ass of every Percheron breeder who named a mare Bijou.

 "It can't be that - "

Thirty-seven.  There are 37 mares named Bijou in Dragon's ancestry.  Including one that I could only label as "Bijou dam of Bijou."  There are also 2 Bijou IIs.  And that is a small fraction of the colossal number of Bijous in the studbooks, a significant number of whom are just referred to as "Bijou owned by Mr. Y."

Dragon's grandma

That was, of course, before I started looking at the Shire books in Bishop's daddy's ancestry.  I shit you not, there are 43 separate stallions named "Honest Tom" in there, and another 40 or so each of "Farmer's Glory" and "Champion."

Honestly, I think every breed may have that name somewhere.  I'm pretty sure the one for Hackneys is "Pretender", judging by the number of them I found in Dragon's pedigree.

There's a whole related, deeper rant I could get into here.  The sheer number of mares known only as "by Stallion X" across all the breeds I found in these pedigrees is just... shattering.  I know some of this is just that things have been lost to time - at least one line of horses I found reference to the stud having burned and taken all the records with it - but no matter how much a friend of mine tried to tell me that this is just... how things were, that it was easier to keep track of the mares because they had fewer foals than the stallions and that they treated the mares like livestock rather than individuals as a matter of course, it feels like a whole bunch of sexist (and maybe classist) bullshit that these mares don't have recorded names.  Because you know they had some kind of name, even if it was just to the grooms and stock managers that handled them.

How shattering?  Of that 16k name list, just over 2500 mares have no identity beyond who their sire was.  Seven others are just "dam of" and a stallion or mare name, and a handful are just "Owner's Name Mare" or "Mare Owned By Owner's Name."

By comparison, I found seven stallions that are just "son of X."  Maybe a dozen that are just known by where they came from or their owner's name (like all those "Arabians" in the Thoroughbred lines in the 1700s).

That devaluing of mares carries through in other aspects as well.  Take the Shire studbooks.  The first few studbooks, the mares didn't have registration numbers.  They didn't get registration numbers until twenty years after the stallions.

Just.  Nngh.  It bothers me, ok? 

*sigh* Yes. He's a mouthy little shit. And all of Dragon's year-mates let him get away with it, too.  Thank god we took off the nuts as soon as we could.

Speaking of stallions - did you know that apparently all Percherons are descended from a half-Arabian stallion named Jean le Blanc?  Had no idea, but there's an article about it here. He also, according to one reference I found, lived to be 32, which is neat.

"Jean-le-Blanc died at the home of his owner M. Miard senior, at the advanced age of thirty-two, free from any defect. It is to this remarkable stallion that we owe, more than to any other, a great improvement of the breed. He was recognized as a true Percheron and nevertheless was a direct descendant of the famous Arab stallion Gallipoly..." 

(Witness my Google translation from French. lol)

Another random find: blog post with photo/scan of a 1906 registration with the French Percheron registry.

I do not recommend trying to go into AllBreed and sort out what the ever-living fuck is going on with the Morgans, Saddlebreds, Standardbreds, Tennessee Walkers, and Narragansett Pacers back in the late 1700s and early 1800s.  I'm pretty sure spending too much time in there is a verifiable cause of loss of sanity.  About the time I realized that two Saddlebreds made a Morgan and two Standardbreds made a Tennessee Walker, I realized that either I could go spend even more time looking up old studbooks, or I could just... take a deep breath and not worry about it, lol.

We put our ears up for selfies in this house, young lady!

"Wait, those are light breeds?" I hear you ask.

Yep!  Because of how the Sendera breed was started, and is continuing, there's a bunch of Appaloosa in there, in some places more directly than others (Cessa's mom was an App, for instance).  And while I know I at least am guilty of thinking of Appaloosas sometimes as... well... what they've become, the breed as it was incorporated isn't just QHs and Nez Perce stock.  There are pure Egyptian Arabians, Morgans, Standardbreds, Thoroughbreds, and assorted draft horses in there, just among my horses' pedigrees; I'm sure there's other breeds out there as well.

As a side note, if AllBreed is at all accurate about early Morgan pedigrees, the level of inbreeding is... terrifying. lol I was thinking QHs were bad (they are), but early Morgans are something else entirely.  (Though to be fair, the Percheron stallion Lynnwood Dixiana II is kind of horrifying just by his lonesome.  Yes, that's half-siblings for his parents...)

I did get a chuckle out of the Arabians.  At a certain point, I started encountering some kind of odd names and ran them through Google Translate.  Specifically, I translated A Saqlawi Zubayni and A Saqlawiyah Zubayni, which Google Translate says mean "I polish my customers" and "a Sicilian client," respectively. Now, there's all kinds of variables I can't account for here - including Google Translate being a useless bitch. But I can't help but look at these names and think, "Well, there's a stupid European buyer who didn't know Egyptian involved here, and an Egyptian with a sense of humor..." Like... some of these seem like line items on an invoice, a joke, or outright guesses.  lol GT says "A Kuhaylan Umm Surah" is "Is Kahilan or his image?" "A Kuhaylat Ajuz Al-Harqah" is "A burning old man's trick."

Number of shits given about rhythm beads: zero.
Number of times he tried to eat his lead rope that day: uncounted.

I recognized two of the Standardbreds!  ...Granted, one is a Breyer (Dan Patch) and the other is Marguerite Henry's fault (Hambletonian), but still.  lol

The Thoroughbreds, as expected, were something of a trip.  They have their own version of AllBreed - turns out that's a thing you can pay for?  Who knew. - and it is delightfully comprehensive.

Which is how I know my kids are descended from some of the Reines de Course mares.  Also how I realized that I learned slightly more about TB bloodlines than I thought I had, thanks to Walter Farley. (Me: "I don't know much about TB bloodlines."  Also me: "Hm. Broomstick... why do I - oh, right, Whisk Broom."  Thank you, Walter Farley, for your Man O'War book, which was evidently formative in my brain.)

That book is also is why I'm delighted I found Man O'War.  But I'm also delighted that I found Pot8os.  (Did I spend an entire evening when I found that randomly giggling and muttering, "Potoooooooos," to myself?  Yes.  Yes I did.)

Dragon and her grandma

Apparently the first Thoroughbred sent to America was a 21-year-old stallion named Bulle Rock, imported in 1730.  Did not know this.  Kind of neat.  (Found him, too.  As sire of a mare bred after he was imported.)

And then there were the names, lol.

• Three names that are honestly racist, though only one was That Word
• A few names that read as culturally insensitive today - like Hiawatha
• To the namers of Plenipotentiary and Vicissitude, I salute your boldness and pity the race callers.
• Treecreeper.  What?
• A son of Pot8os named Asparagus, which for some reason is almost as amusing to me as Pot8os
• How to tell you're in the Victorian era without looking at the birth dates on a pedigree: there's an animal named Albert Victor. Or Semper Victoire.
• You go, mid-1800s breeder who named the daughter of Wisdom and Enigma "Tact"
• The Slayer's Daughter.  No, her sire wasn't The Slayer.  I don't know, but I'm delighted.

Quite possibly the best photo of my dog I've ever taken... lol

So, all this wandering through pedigrees... what are these kids?  Well, Sendera Drafts.  But specifically:

Miss Dragon is 62% Percheron, 12% Clydesdale, 6.5% Shire and Hackney, just shy of 4% Appaloosa, and 1.5% Thoroughbred.

Cessa is 56% Appaloosa and 44% Percheron.

Bishop is 38% Shire, 34% Percheron, and 28% Appaloosa.

Surfacing

So, uh.  I'm still here?  lol

It's been an interesting couple of months.  I kind of dived head-first into pedigree analysis, to a level that... erm.  Well.  I am an adult and I know when I'm hyperfocusing because I'm stressed out and dealing with it by doing random shit.

And about the time I got done with that, we had a strangles outbreak at the farm.  That's finally cleared up now, but it's taken... god, six weeks?  Two months?  There's a whole wacky chain of how it got on the farm in the first place and how it kept coming back up that involves the neighbors of our vet, breeding season, and two sneaky-ass cases of bastard strangles, so it feels like it was forever to even figure out what the fuck was going on.  I can't say everyone's fine, because the BOs lost a horse, but Cessa and Bishop are fine despite contracting it and Dragon either never got it or had such a mild case that nobody noticed.

But y'all.  Why did no one warn me how fucking gross strangles is?  Seriously.  Walter Farley and Marguerite Henry did not prepare me for this aspect of horse ownership.

I'm going to do some sort of post about some of the stuff I found in various pedigrees, but for tonight... Here, have a baby pony video:

And a yearling picture:

Dragon, why are you as tall as your dam? You're 18 months old and ribby because you just grew again!  Stop it!

And a fed-up mareface photo with her lovely strangles bowl cut:

She is so done with humans poking at her. So done.

Boo, summer

It's hot, y'all.  And worse than that, it's more humid than normal, so it's just... miserable.  There's been a lot of going to the barn, petting the ponies for like half an hour, and then running away to where the air conditioning is again.

Which, I mean.  When your mare has a baby at her side and your other two are far, far too young to even set a saddle on them... it's not like you're gonna ride!  (I mean, I could set the saddle on Dragon, not that I'd do anything more, but... why?  It'll be too big.  And she's a yearling.  It's all good; I can wait.)

So mostly, I'm taking silly pictures of the ponies, giving Cessa some attention, and trying to keep the gang of yearlings (there are six of them!) and the baby from assaulting my husband too badly. lol

Dragon has already perfected mare stare.  And I hear she tried to run the gang of yearlings when Cessa and the baby were pulled up for Bishop's gelding.

Bishop and his half-brother Gryffin.  Two good geldings.  Mouthy geldings, but good ones.

She COULD walk over to say hi.  Or she could just stand there and wait for you...

Three is the magic number

When we realized that Cessa had dropped a black colt, there was a long talk had with my husband.  He's not really... horsey.  We don't actually need a third horse - it's more expense, and if he drops out on me, then I've got three animals to try and interact with.  That's not as big a deal right now, but later when they're all under saddle?  There's only one of me!

Yeahhh, wanna guess who lost that discussion?  Much to the total lack of surprise of my barn friends?  lol

So, Bishop is staying.  He's adorable and mouthy as hell (baby, boy, and seems to be a trait Daddy passes on) right now.  No idea what his registered name is gonna be yet, but the balls come off in about a month.

And now that he's out in the paddock, I can get decent pictures!

If only that stupid weed wasn't there!

Not sure why you're still holding me still...

He's kind of an awkward browny-blacky color right now thanks to the foal coat.

Whaaaat is the clicky thing?

Also... y'all, my mare is almost normal horse-sized again.  lol Still not exactly svelte, but not a complete whale!

Ok, now lose more weight so we can actually find your ribs and something resembling a waist...

Surprise!

 

Well, my morning was exciting - how was everyone else's?  lol

Let me start off with the most important details first: it's a boy!  Earlier than expected!  Solid black, with a blaze like a stick with a crescent moon on the top.  As of when I left, he'd done all the things except pee; he gets his IGG check tomorrow, but at this point he seems to be happy and healthy.  At least at the moment, we're calling him Bishop (daddy has a chess-themed name).

Now... details? :)

First of all, can I just say that text chats when the BOs are nocturnal and you're not and the mare has the baby first thing in the morning are fucking hilarious?  Like... this morning's was a picture of Cessa with a white stripe behind her butt, followed by a series of, "Wait, what?", "Is that... a baby?", "I don't know, we're getting pants on to go check," and "Are you even kidding me?" messages.  Which I'll grant you is far more coherent than the last time, when there were five different "baby"s in the chat, with various punctuation, before any of us managed more words, but still pretty damn funny.

We weren't expecting Cessa to foal for another couple of weeks!  She's been in the barn and under camera for a while anyway, because it's been raining constantly and it's way easier to leave her in the stall for vet visits, and because she passed 320 days about a week ago.

So this morning... the BOs went to bed; I got up.  Half an hour after they'd gone to bed, one of them got up and happened to walk past the cameras just in time to see baby boy sitting up out of the bag.

Cue hilarious text messages.

I called in sick - which I'd actually been considering that before realizing there was a baby, because my ridiculous dog decided to refuse to poop until 5 AM this morning and if there had been a chat bubble over my head, it would have just said "..." - and drove up there, and we all sat around chatting and watching momma and baby do momma and baby things until he'd hit most of the milestones and we were all varying levels of "ready for bed" and "starving."

We were all hoping for a girl, except for my husband, who was hoping for... a black boy.  lol So more to come on whether this little guy gets sold or stays...

Bachelor #3

When I wrote my post about Dragon's ancestry, I mentioned the third stallion at the barn (at the time - there's four now!) and how I didn't have any good pictures of him.  Well, turns out he's the boy that got Cessa knocked up, and we ended up taking pictures of him this weekend.  

So now I have pictures!

As for my girls... Oh my god, Cessa is huge.  Poor baby.  She's decided that the stall where they stuck her for her shots when it was raining last week is just... where she lives now.  ("They bring me food, they bring me water, they turn on a fan... why would I leave?" lol)  She's so big, she can't roll over.  And she's uncomfortable enough that she's actually turning down food sometimes - which, y'all.  The only animal I've ever met that was as food-motivated as this mare is my dog, who was half-starved and 15lbs underweight when our friends found him in their back yard.  Poor mare is miserable.  

And Dragon is currently huge too, but in that whole, "Oh my god, will you stop growing vertically, please?" way.  We haven't sticked her, but she's gotta be pushing 15 hands at this point.  Not quite there, but close.