JULY UPDATE 2006
At last I am sitting down to write a much overdue update, but do not blame me for this but the H.P.E.C Message Board as I have discovered very addictive and time wasting but great for communicating help etc, if you have yet to sign up for it suggest you do!!
Last year ended with a very near miss for our Riding Club quadrille qualifying for Olympia, Ensay had come in ridden be Sian as a late replacement having had the misfortune to lose her foal with severe colic when it was two months old, has since made me wonder could it have been grass sickness and have young foals ever had it?
Then a week later Ensay and Holly as a scratch pair competed at the London and South East Dressage championships and had a great day, Holly 2nd in the open Pas Seul and both ponies as a pair 2nd in the Pas de Deux, not bad as we only had the time for one practice.
Ensay and Sian/ Deirdre and Holly/The 2005 Quadrille
Following on we had the great surprise of Holly being highland Pony of the Year again in the H.P.E.C Performance Awards I certainly did not expect it as although she had had a busy year compared to some of the younger generation I did not think she had done enough but she is a very versatile pony who can turn her hand to anything and whilst we do not do many show classes as most judges round here do not think she is a highland as she is bay she was 2nd in a huge class at Edenbridge and Oxted Agricultural Show and went on to be Reserve champion, the pony who beat her was a connemara who had qualified for Olympia and who was I think champion ridden M and M at the recent Hickstead Derby Meeting so we were well pleased with that.
Most of the winter was spent going out to dressage with Holly, Ensay and Ceilidh who at 22 showed he is still a power to be reckoned with and ended up in April this year winning the British Breeds championship although by the smallest possible margin, .1 of a mark, Holly and Ensay were 6th and 7th only 2% less than Cedilla so all the marks were very close!
Rhalea of Dunrui was beginning to show marked talent for being a dressage pony but despite the fact she was 5 I decided to let her have a foal as she still needed time to mature so she was covered by Ronay and I stopped competing on her in the autumn. Towards the end of the winter I was approached by people who wanted to buy her as a dressage pony and ended up offering me enough money to replace my ancient horse box, catch was show would move to very smart dressage yard, never be turned out so do not know how the foal would have fared and when she became rideable spend most of her time either on the horse walker, being lunged or ridden in one of their arenas, if she had gone there I think she would have lost her enthusiasm very quickly and would then have just been kicked out and another expensive animal bought, no life for a highland pony. Out of the blue Feona Laing contacted me and Rhalea ended going back to her original home at Grantown on Spey, a home for life, hacking on the farm and may be just one or two shows next year and at some stage more babies. I gather the foal a colt is not too popular as following in dad’s footsteps its quite athletic.
Thanks to the HPEC Message Board I discovered that Tina Dando had sold Hope of Kewstoke and some sharp eyed member had seen she was advertised again on Horsemart for more money and in less than a fortnight, to cut a cloak and dagger story short I bought her and with the influence I think of all the chat and upset there had been on the board about this and the influence my own website had on her new owners got the price dropped to more or less what they had paid Tina. the owners offered to deliver her to me (5 hours in a trailer from Burnley) but what I had not anticipated was that I would get a phone call at 8pm in the evening and Hope would arrive at 3am in the night dripping in sweat not good news as I dare not go to bed and poor Hope was greeted by ponies that slept in the school leering at her over the electric fence and as I has switched the lights on all the bantams descended from the rafters as they thought it was morning! Hope not surprisingly was not very enthusiastic about the new abode. Tina had said she always got on well with other ponies and liked people which to the long term saved the day. to start with she was lethal with other ponies kicking at everything but had obviously had some sort of trauma as she ran away at the same time, luckily she still trusted people, now she’s fine and one of the family but it just shows how quickly things can go wrong. Shortly I will have to start teaching her to go in the lorry as after her experiences I doubt if she will be over enthusiastic about travelling.
Here is Hope in the field/with Shorcha /with Summer and Ensay
Just sneaking in a Pic of Summer at a show.
We have been busy going to shows and good to see some of the ponies I have bred doing well but the last major excitement has been McInness of Fourmerk, another long story with one’s emotions ranging from hopeful anticipation, disappointment, excitement when he was finally coming and problems when he did!
He had been sold originally to Germany when he was 3, having got his HPS stallion licence and covering just one non highland mare to learn his job, after he went to Germany he had just two mares and then no more contact with the females species., and although he was a much loved pony lacked the natural company of ponies of his own kind. He was finally given to Janet Roberts and provided I paid his transport to the UK Would be on loan to me for the rest of his life and hopefully have some wives as his bloodlines are very precious due to his father dying of colic soon after he left this country. All being well Joan Alexander will end a mare to him next year. It was a good job Joan told me he had a good temperament as 24 hours after arriving here he totally blew his mind as he suddenly realised there were girls about and he wanted them at any price so we had a fairly fraught time, to the point a man who’s kept his horse with me for a very long time enquired whether I had made provisions for all my other livestock when that THING killed me. Each day Mac settled a bit more and is now more or less settled in to a routine and proving to be a very sweet pony apart from when we contemplate girl work which still has its problems He has now covered two mares as we need to know he can get mares in foal before we contemplate taking one or two outsiders and I would like to cover something else this year so may well end up with foals in September. He has also had health problems and his feet have needed a lot of attention especially as in the past he has had laminitis in all four feet but with my farrier trimming him now each month he is a lot more comfortable and beginning to move much better. his teeth were so bad that he really had problems eating anything but dentist helped a lot there and is coming back again next week. third health problem he has major breathing problems if he does not have dust free forage so is having to live on haylage so has turned out to be a much more expensive pony than the budget had accounted for so he will not be very popular if he doesn’t father some nice babies, but with all this I have done nothing about riding him and will not until his feet are totally sorted out.
Pics of McInness
Because of this I must now seriously consider selling some of my youngstock which I will soon put on my sales list and advertise in Native pony Mart as having been lucky enough to have mostly filly foals recently the numbers have crept up so those I have not bred myself will be the first to go.
I have only had two foals this year, both fillies who again I may sell at weaning.
Pics of foals
In the middle of June Julie Robertson organised a show at Vicarage Farm, a real fun show with classes for everyone. Brenda and Carol took Feargus and Carole took the plunge and did her first ridden show class, Walk and Trot. Unfortunately it was a last minute decision and no one had told her what to do for her show and being called in first she had no one to copy, but she kept her cool and ended up 2nd beating some much more experienced riders Brenda came home with a couple of in hand rosettes and a very cross Holly who was not amused having to stand in the lorry for nearly four hours before she did anything was “and in the ridden 3rd in the RC pony where of all things a pigeon was sitting on the jump she had to jump and flew up literally as she took off, we’ve got pigeons here but have never had that happen so not many marks for style.
I had a quick trip to the Royal highland show for 2 days and then just one day before our RC Area Dressage Qualifier, huge entries on rock hard ground and a very long day’
Despite me still suffering from the RHS Holly excelled herself, won the Dressage to Music qualifier against all odds and qualified for Addington down side its the day after the quadrille qualifier so she will not be in dressage mode. She also won the Pas Seul for the London and SE championships and surprise surprise was 2nd in the Riding Test having been press ganged into being in a team for that, team were 4th and she qualified for Lincoln as an individual but may not go as its a long way to go for a five minute test judged on rider’s position suppleness etc, as I crawl to the osteopath and tell him he’ll have a good laugh that we beat all the young supple ladies!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Pic of Holly
We had a good day at Chipstead riding club summer show, actually raining for the first few hours, ponies thought bliss. Holly won the large ridden M and M and qualified for the Balanced Feeds championship, Brenda and Feargus won the in hand coloured and Sue and Whisper were 3rd in the large M and M in hand so a good day was had by all. Holly in particular is a different pony when the temperature drops and really hates the heat.
FINALLY PLEASE DO NOT
FORGET TO USE dunalick@tiscali.co.uk as the Fleetmead Stud one is
temperamental and unfortunately still with my name on HPEC members list
SUMMER UPDATE
An update is long overdue but it has been such an unpredictable year that every time I have a good bit of news it seemed to be followed by problems!!
However it was very pleasing to see Sherramore and Rum flying the flag at the Ponies UK Spring Festival at Ardingly, a really good idea as you could enter, qualify and take part in the final without having to be a member of Ponies UK although obviously non members paid a bigger entry fee. The natives in hand were all breeds up to three and Rum ended up 3rd and Sherry 4th very pleasing as the judge breeds top class Welsh ponies and they had their first taste of indoor atmosphere as the final was in the evening with lights, music etc. Rhalea and Sue Taylor’s Absol Ruathair had also qualified but I had not realised that non members could compete, we will know better next time unless they change the rules.
1 Rum and Sherry Ponies uk Festival ardingly Spring Show.
. 2 Rum and Sherry
Preliminary judging
I
have always wanted a pony of Rhum breeding and when a friend told me that one
of the Torlundy ponies was for sale the temptation was too great and to cut a
long story short I ended up buying Summer of Torlundy.
The good thing was that she had been backed and produced one foal,
perhaps the downside was that she was only Appendix registered but as she had
no aspirations to be an Olympia pony and hopefully is destined for the
performance world it is of little consequence and even if it is more expensive
to register any foals she may have by a purebred highland stallion we lose
very little by her not being in the main stud book
It was arranged that she would travel south with Gillies as they were
picking up several ponies from the Fort William area but typical of my luck
when she was finally due to travel a large part of the British Isles
disappeared under a blanket of snow so her departure had to be delayed. She
finally left on a Friday had an easy trip South with a couple of bed and
breakfast stops en route and arrived in very good order the following Tuesday.
Luckily for me as my neighbours house is on the market for one and three
quarter million the low branches had been cut down in my lane and so Gillies
could deliver her to the door. When
they fetched Shuna to take her to Cumbria their biggest lorry could not make
it and she had to be loaded on the main road, she was fine but I was a nervous
wreck by the time she was in the lorry.
In view of recent chat on the HPEC message board on the
website people may be interested to know that I had a slight hiccup over her
papers and this was with a breeder of long-standing who should know what was
required! Summer was supposed to travel with her papers but due to delays when
she finally came Siobhan Carver was away on holiday and so not surprisingly
she came without, after she returned I was sent her passport and thought as
she was an appendix pony perhaps this was all she had, I did check though with
Susie Robertson and was told that she would have had a registration document,
I went back to Siobhan and told her this and in fairness to her the
registration was found and sent promptly to me, she said that she thought the
passport was now sufficient and with all the hassle we have all had over
passports one can understand how easy it is to be confused and how important
if we buy that we check that all documents are available. Summer settled into
a routine very quickly and is now good chums with my twenty nine year old part
bred arab Fiesta, perhaps way back Summer goes back to the arab the Syrian who
was an HPS approved stallion nearly a hundred years ago or perhaps it is
because Fiesta is chestnut and Summer registered as chestnut but Christine
Stevenson saw her very recently and said she was in fact a fox dun
Summer newly arrived from Fort William,Summer early
days. 3 Summer progress
As
April approaches one eagerly looks forward to the arrival of foals although
having had disappointments over the years I know that even with natives things
can go wrong and for no known reason an abnormal number of people seem to have
had the misfortune to lose foals etc and I have now joined the club
This year Swona was the first to produce and I was delighted to get a
very strong filly who looked as though it would be black but my joy was short
lived as it was a very large foal and although it wanted to drink was
incapable of sussing out where the milk bar was, Swona was no help as having
had the foal she reckons she need forty-eight hours in bed to recover so I was
forced to milk the mare and bottle feed the foal, the problem always being the
foal will start to look on me as mum, luckily the second night she decided it
would be easier to drink from mother and in that department never looked
back..At ten days disaster struck the foal had been a great galloper and
seemed exceptionally strong and luckily the mares had not moved to Kitty’s
lovely grass for the summer as I was waiting for all the foals to be born When
I went out to feed in the morning the foal could barely move, had too large
legs and its temperature was rising fast so it had to be a vet job.
When the vet came she thought it was joint ill, put it on antibiotics
and said ideally the foal ought to go to the surgery to have its joints
flushed, fluid taken to confirm the diagnosis etc etc and the cost would be in
the region of £1500!! Even if I was a millionaire I would not have agreed to
surgery treatment as Swona has lived out most of her life and only tolerates
being stabled for a very short space of time having wintered happily out. The
foal finished its course of antibiotics and seemed to make a brilliant
recovery. As she was now turning double somersaults the vet agreed she could
be turned out in a small area. I have a small patch of grass that I was
proudly turning into a garden wild and natural not like Pitmenzie and although
they were flowering late ,because inevitably I had planted them late I had a
splendid show of daffodils that I was very proud of. Guess what, within twenty
four hours the foal had flattened the lot with its galloping and I only
managed to save a few mutilated blooms for the bungalow.
By
this time two more foals had arrived, a yellow dun filly out of Sanday and a
cream dun out of Succoth Holly so the foals moved into a section of field
saved for them by the houses. Next
thing Swona’s foal went off suck, no temperature but no interest in food of
any kind, so back to the vets and more antibiotics after about twenty four
hours it began to suck again and all seemed normal. The next day the same
thing happened to Sanday’s foal only this time her mouth was very swollen
and although there was nothing to see she could not bear to touch anything
with it, she recovered totally within about twenty-four hours. We have no
proof but we now believe that one of the animal loving residents in the houses
put weed killer in the field!
Hoping
all was well at last the foals moved into the special field reserved for them
until they move to Kitty’s. However the owner’s of the field( scotch) had
an urge to tidy up and for the first time in twenty years completely destroyed
a huge patch of brambles which had proved to be an impenetrable barrier even
for highlands and a very good source of blackberries for my wine making
sessions. Needless to say sharp eyed Sanday who works on the theory that the
grass is always greener on the other side of a fence and has been known to
leave really good keep just to explore a farmer’s newly sown corn, spied a
thin bit and led all the mares and foals into the neighbour’s field next
door, plus navigating a huge ditch still filled with water at that time. I
used to use the field but cannot anymore as it has recently been sold for a
quarter of a million, twelve acres, this was another case of blackmail as some
of you may have seen in the press that gipsies are buying up land threatening
to move in and forcing the locals to buy the land at a prohibitive price just
to stop this happening. I have lost the use of the field but how much worse if
the gypsies had moved in as my property would have become unsaleable and life
would have been a constant misery. Luckily the new owner did not see eight
ponies stuffing themselves with grass as I managed to retrieve them before we
were caught.
Foal Pics
Rhalea
had been going much better and we were looking forward to competing in the
British Breeds Dressage Championship although with the standard being so high
her chance of actually being placed this year was almost nil, horses of all
standards up to Advanced compete in it and the whole thing is judged on a
percentage although in fact it was an elementary horse who won .
Ceilidh and Holly acquitted themselves well and were both in the
ribbons, particularly good for Ceilidh who is now twenty one. Rhalea however
never made it as she’d walked on something nasty when going through the mud
down a nearby lane and was off some while with puss in her foot, she finally
was sound enough to show in hand at the South of England Show, we were
actually parked off the showground in company with a lot of others and again
managed to walk on something and ended up bottom of the class as the judge
quite rightly said a really nice pony but not sound, so back to more
poulticing and time off work. One of the problems with all this she is only
shod in front as she can be a bit unpleasant to other ponies and so the sore
bit of foot is always in contact with the ground.
seems like she is back in business now fingers crossed and has been to
a couple of dressage competitions and is gradually as she matures getting
stronger and much better balanced, because she’s a big strong pony one tends
to forget that being a late foal she is even now only just five.
Rhalea South of England
Because of the tyre problems we left earlier than intended so
did not do any jumping but Sue and Brenda had a go at in hand le trec with a
difficult water obstacle that defeated most people but still a very big thank
you to Julie and all her helpers who made it all fun and thanks to Michael
Sharpley who came a very long way to judge and also did the ridden clinic for
me as we were struggling with homeless ponies etc .We made it home without a
drama although Sue drove back very slowly and I sat there waiting for a bang
and burst tyre but was it a relief to get off the dreaded M25.
As
well as Rhalea we showed Sanday and foal at the South of England show and
although there was no foal class it was good education for the foal, she
loaded into the lorry without a fuss and after she had been on the showground
a very short length of time was
taking everything in her stride and totally unbothered by the vast show
jumper’s lorries that were coming almost past her nose, Sanday was 4th which
was pleasing and although foal could not compete the steward was sent to
follow her out of the ring and present her with a highly commended rosette,
foal thought obviously she was champion, she has now been christened Stroma.
Rum and Sherry had been shown in the youngstock class and did well by
being 2nd and 3rd, although it does seem Sherry being a year younger always
tends to be beaten by those older than herself. Afterwards we had a family
gathering, Sanday and her niece Rum and Sanday’s two daughters Sherramore
and Stroma.
I
had always wanted to go to The Royal Highland Show and this year I finally
made it. Janet Roberts organised everything and ChristineStevenson and I
joined up with her and Linda Impey and flew by Easy Jet to Edinburgh from
Stanstead, with hindsight it would have been much easier for me to go from
Gatwick which is only about twenty minutes away from here. We had the luxury
of a room in the hotel on the showground which made life very easy. It was an
unforgettable three days and wonderful to see so many ponies together and gave
one a tremendous insight into the breed as a whole, in stark contrast to the
county shows down here the stock being shown had pride of place and apart from
the display by the Pipes and Drums of the Black Watch and parade of all
winning livestock there were no other displays to entertain the public. It
would seem the Scotch people have great pride in their livestock as the
grandstand was always well filled throughout the day. I could write for ever
about what I saw but the heavy horse turnouts with teams of four Clydesdales
filling the ring was an impressive sight.
I
saw many ponies I liked but when I came home I was still well satisfied with
mine and what I am trying to breed and
even if they do not always find favour in the show ring they are all active
free moving ponies averaging
13.3hh to 14 hands in height and capable of turning a hand to any job ,
predominantly duns with some black which have always been my favourites.
It does seem though that the less knowledgeable seem to think all
highlands are grey and for that reason I now have one or two grey ponies as
well.
The Royal Highland
I
was looking for a pony for a friend and Janet Roberts let me have Lyncrest’s
Mia-Nita here on trial as she had been ridden but not for some while and I was
basically looking for a rideable pony. Nita was very fat when she arrived and
although I have a good selection of saddles even Rhalea’s was not wide
enough to fit her and in the end I managed to borrow one from a friend who had
a very fat cob, catch was it was a very old show saddle and apart from
stirrups really little different from riding bareback, I had also planned to
take Nita to Malvern to shown in hand but having got a saddle Nita decided the
best thing she could do was have a cough, so no Malvern either!
It cannot have been a virus as none of the ponies she was with got it
but now seems likely that the hay she was having was a bit dusty and putting
her on a straw bed was a disaster. She is now on a haylage diet which seems to
have solved the problem. My friend
was a bit put off with the delay in sitting on her but finally decided she was
too small and ended up buying a huge Section D welsh cob who did not look
typical of his breed and she has now admitted he had no papers which reputably
had been lost and no passport either, luckily I had not got the room for him
to live here. I have also recently sold AnnieLaurie a part bred highland by
Ronay who is beginning to do really well in working pony classes and jumping
and so felt I had the excuse to buy Nita and see how she progresses and
hopefully show her next year but the winter will be spent getting her out and
about so she begins to see the world and then I can decide what her future
will be. Being a mare with good old bloodlines one has always got a second
option if the riding side does not go according to plan.
Lyncrest's Mia-Nita
We
have been practising our quadrille like mad and having endless problems with
lame horses rider’s all working at different times of the day so getting the
team together was a logistic nightmare, Holly was getting more and more fed up
and was totally unimpressed by the rider’s inability to remember where they
were going and so before we went to Malvern I had to do some serious
schooling, she reckons now she knows everything and it is totally unnecessary
and if you take the rider away she is probably right. We did though go to
dressage at Crabbet Park( famous for being the home of the late Lady Wentworth
of arab fame and now sadly gradually being gobbled up by a large hotel
catering for people using Gatwick airport), unfashionably for the South East
the dressage was on grass, but old turf and despite a little bit of rain the
previous night despite the fact I did not use studs the going was as near
perfect as it was possible to be, Holly knows the tests better than I do and
sees no point in walking as she knows faster bits normally follow but she was
so pleased to be on lovely grass that she went better than she has gone for a
long time and was second in both classes beating some very smart horses in the
process.
The
next excitement was Malvern, Kyra gallantly took us in her lorry, her mother
Sharon did a lot of the driving and Meg came to help as groom, rider and
general dog’s body as we lived from moment to moment, we went the night
before and had a delayed journey with a big traffic jam as we were getting
near Birdlip on the A417 I think and again when we had nearly got to Malvern
another hideous hold up as we came off the M5, I heard from Sue who arrived
later to give us all moral support that the police had closed the Malvern turn
off and traffic was diverted to the next exit. The weather was perfect on
Friday, Holly did her ridden class and seemed judges liked greys best as the
two bays entered kept each other company the wrong end of the line, holly did
not go well for the ride judge either who gave her a big kick to get her
moving and as she’s very responsive and quick off your leg she set off
faster than the judge anticipated, by the look on the conformation judge’s
face he thought she was horrid too so no rosette there, not that Holly or I
were bothered as if the judge likes her she can do very well and if not tough,
she takes the view being boss pony on this place that people can take her as
she is, she is very special to me and a super versatile pony who has a vaste
repetoire of skills, she ought to have a foal before she gets much older but
as she is irrepaceable as a riding pony it may never happen. I have been
criticised in the past from breeding from ponies too young but the big
advantage if you’ve done this is that normally
there then should be no problem if you decide to put them in foal in their
teens and when I have done it I have always had the approval of my vet who is
an expert on breeding.
After
her ridden class Holly and I did our dressage test, the slight hazard being
the agility dogs who were practising their skills behind the hedge adjacent to
the dressage arenas and who obviously timed roaring through their tunnel just
as you were as close as possible, despite this Holly won the class and I was
very pleased to take home the trophy that Ceilidh had won several times and
which I thought I was unlikely to get again as he decided to retire from that
particular competition two years ago when he was nineteen, he did however show
he is still a force to be reckoned with by winning the ridden veteran class
and so took another trophy home for Kitty to keep till the next show.
Brenda
Goldring took Feargus, who is another part bred by Ronay and as he matures
turning into a really nice all round pony, sadly there was a hiccup and she
missed her in hand class but it was a steep learning curve for both of them as
it was the first long journey he had done, first night away form home and he
will have learnt a lot from it, throughout his behaviour beyond reproach.
I
made a last minute decision as we had a spare place in the box to take wicked
black Sorcha, who had been quite a problem to break and then had nearly
eighteen months doing nothing as she was intermittently unsound due to two
minute splints, how I wish now she had had a foal during her enforced rest.
She loaded without any hesitation into the strange lorry, travelled well, but
was very upset in the stables when the door was too high for her to see out,
she disgraced herself by calling nonstop when she was out of the stable and in
the ring and it was very fortunate that Kyra showed her for me and could cope
with her uncouthness, she tried the judge’s patience to the full by
fidgeting but although she was bottom of the class for fairly obvious reasons
he spent a long time looking at her and could not have been fairer or kinder,
such is the benefit of exhibiting under a knowledgeable judge as opposed to
the experience I read about on the HPEC web site message board of
Grey Molly at her first show. I
wondered if Sorcha would want to go back in the lorry to come home but good
pony loaded straight away so a steep learning curve for her.
I
took Sorcha to the riding Club show at Ardingly the following week and this
time Sian who owns Sherry showed her for me, she was quite excited when she
got there but settled on a lunge quite quickly, was much less vocal and apart
from dragging Sian out of the ring when they had to trot one at a time,
stupidly my lorry was parked right by the entrance, was much better behaved,
stood quite well for the judge and did a good trot up and won her first
rosette. The pleasing thing was that although it was only a riding club show
we had Mrs de Quincy judging a very knowledgeable lady who liked Sorcha and
thought manners permitting she could be a very nice ridden pony, time will
tell and the catch showing down south is that she is black and has a very
strong opinion of what she thinks she should do, she has got three very good
paces and if she learns to concentrate and get used to the outside world could
be a very good dressage pony.
Sorcha ARC Show
Finally
Abigail and Euan are having a great start tohis ridden career and although
this year is just to get some mileage on the clock and to give him more time
to mature he has been placed high up the line on every outing including
winning a strong class that was a Ponies UK qualifier and although Abi had no
intention of taking him this year it bodes well for the future. As soon as she
sends me a pic of him being ridden I’ll put it on the web as it is great to
see ones one has bred doing well and even more important having a home for
life.
The next update will I hope not be so late in appearing.
I have been having problems with my fleetmeadstud email
address so if you use it and get no response please use dunalick@tiscali.co.uk
Deirdre
Latest News And Show Results
Sussex Horse Society Show
Kyra and Rhalea and Sue and Whisper braving the arctic conditions at Ardingly on the 9th Feb!
Just recieved theses photos of AnneMarie and Ceilidh and me on Holly Pas de Deux Champions!
Aswell as Holly with 100 yr old kilt! Which I mention in the update.
JANUARY 2005
A VERY HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL FRIENDS AND VISITORS TO THE FLEETMEAD WEB
AND A HAPPY AND ENJOYABLE YEAR WITH ALL YOUR PONY HAPPENINGS.
High time again that our news was updated but somehow with the short
days and dark evenings ones’ enthusiasm for battling with the computer
wanes!
I have now started riding Rhalea a little more seriously and have started taking her out to one or two competitions just to let her see different surroundings and hopefully let her realise that everything has just got to be unpressurised and enjoyable, she has got a very long way to go before she becomes a Grand Prix dressage pony although once or twice when she’s been showing off in the field she has produced a very good line in passage, arab style tail carriage thrown in, though I was not quite so sure about the size of bucks that accompanied it. She has also produced another string to her bow which may be very useful as the dreaded foxes are back and one was sitting in her field admiring the view and contemplating whether to move in on my bantams, she stood and watched it for quite a long time and then without warning the ears went back, head down and she charged at the very surprised fox who decided it unwise to stay and be trampled on by a very angry pony, perhaps this would be a new lawful way of hunting, fox pursued by pack of ponies and ‘dogs’ following behind, anyway I gave her twelve out of ten for that as we have had a tragedy on this place as my beautiful tame arucanna bantam Essex man has been murdered by the fox, perhaps a little bit my fault as he had no fear of dogs , vehicles or humans and was wandering further and further away from the safety of the indoor school and company of his bantam friends, his favourite wife has been murdered too and all that was left was a sad pile of feathers. The second competition I took Rhalea too was at The Royal Leisure Centre which can be quite daunting for a young pony who has to leave the warm up area and any horsey friends and go into a fairly grand arena with lighted gallery glassed in down the C end and always people there moving about as it is very warm and pleasant for human spectators or those wanting refreshment and although it is an indoor arena there are flags all down one side which move a lot on a windy day, plus a lot of noise from the elements and guess what it was very windy and pouring with rain!!Rhalea has a very long way to go before she’ll do top class dressage but her attitude to the strange and difficult surroundings was brilliant and she put a number of very smart expensive dressage e horses to shame who were leaping all over the place and to my surprise she qualified for the British Breeds championship in the spring so looks like I’m caught up in the qualifying racket again.
Holly and Cedilla too ended the season in a blaze of glory at the
London and South East Championships. Holly
was 2nd in the straight dressage to music championship, judged by a judge who
normally marks her down and beaten by just.5 of a mark, then she won the Pas
Seul (dressage to music in
costume) with me wearing a kilt I had found in a charity shop and which had to
be at least a hundred years old, it was so heavy I could hardly lift it but so
warm I would have been protected from the severest weather. Finally joined by Ceilidh ridden by AnneMarie Breasley
against all odds dressed as very unauthentic Scots and determined not to take
it too seriously and enjoy ourselves to our highland Fling Routine we won the
Pas de Deux and in the process beat the very smart pair of dressage horses who
had won the Riding Club’s National Dressage to Music Pairs Championship at
Addington a couple of weeks previously, I don’t think they were very amused
to be beaten by two very hairy ponies. In
the same vein it was great that the native ponies won the quadrille of the
year at Olympia although their secret weapon was an enormous amount of
dedicated hard work from everyone involved and the help of Dot Willis renowned
for all her talent into training Ginny Leng for all her eventing successes.
Finally at theH.P.E.C A.G.M to my surprise and delight Holly won the Highland Pony of the Year Award, I was surprised as although I have done quite a lot of different things this year I had made no effort to chase points and had just been determined to enjoy ourselves and pleased as she really is an exceptional performance pony who can turn her hand to anything, enjoys doing it provided both her rider and other ponies realise she is the undisputed boss pony on the place!
Holly Dressage
Ceilidh too had his moment of glory as whilst he does not do enough to
be placed high in the Highland Pony Society Performance Awards I hoped he
would be in with a chance as a Veteran and I was really pleased that he was
placed 10th overall and won the veteran award, like wine he has mellowed as he
has got older.
The ponies that have gone to new homes over the last twelve months are all doing well; Rum and Sherramore have gone to one or two local shows just for experience and each time the judges have commented on their active paces and fact they should be good ridden ponies which is what I am trying to breed.
Euan is very happy with Abigail in Essex and hopefully will be a top ridden pony and is of course closely related to Gillian McMurray’s ponies who have had such a tremendous season
Abigail and Euan
Shuna has stopped climbing walls in Cumbria and is now being broken and Liz has promised the next photo will be of her ridden.
I went to Olympia native pony day with Kitty Lucas and it was great to
see so many highland pony people who had travelled from all over the country
to be there, sadly there is never the time to have a good gossip with everyone
but we all secretly hope we’ll have a pony who qualifies so we can ride
there again. Having said that I
only live about thirty miles away but if I had to travel down from the far
North I would wonder at the time and money and effort it took to get there and
then when the moment comes the ponies hardly have a chance
to settle properly, a very quick show and hasty
conformation judging and then its all over, but still a tremendous to
get there. It did seem this year
that no pony was totally in a class of its own, although Comet is a very
lovely pony and a worthy winner but perhaps this was because the overall
standard of training and production was very high and no pony disgraced
itself, so we have a lot to aim for.
Lizzie of course sends her regards to everyone but says although she loves people watch out if you come uninvited after dark.
hopefully now the evenings will start to get a little bit lighter and
with the next update our minds will turn to spring and anticipation of foals
to come. At the moment it is dark, cold and windy outside so seems a good
moment to open the bottle of sloe gin I was given for Christmas.
Deirdre
Latest News And Show Results
Summer Update
Rhalea and Bonny Ceilidh and Deirdre
AUGUST UPDATE
Deirdre writes-
At long last I am making the time for a long overdue update time seems to have flown this summer and since loosing my aunt last autumn I am now able to go further afield with my judging which I hadn’t been able to do over the last few years and amongst others judged at The Royal at Stoneleigh although sadly it is such a vast show I could only see a small part of the show after I had finished judging and a return visit to the Royal Lancs which is one of my favourites and still what I believe a real county agricultural show should be like, particularly in the South East of England it seems that permanent showgrounds are being forced to become more and more commercial to keep their financial heads above water, (but that is my opinion)! So far Kent County seems to have escaped this trend and I was particularly pleased that the champion of the Hack Breeding classes which I judged ended up supreme in hand champion of the show and qualified for Horse of the Year Show. It is just as nice to judge at some of the little local shows where some of the competitors may lack the expertise of the professionals but their enthusiasm and pride in their animals more than makes up for this and it is a pleasure to escape the agony of yet another class qualifying for something and competitors burrowing through pocketfuls of cards to get the right one signed, this sometimes seems to take longer than judging the actual class!
On the pony front we have had a busy year showing, dressage etc and Ceilidh at twenty has still shown he can do smart dressage, we have joined the Veteran Horse Society as well and done a few qualifying shows ( he said he would like to go to Olympia again) with mixed results, turnout counts and I am sure I lost marks on occasions because he was not plaited as the standard and way the classes were judged varied enormously, and on one occasion the judge told me he was a thoroughbred person which made my heart sink but despite that he has always come home with a rosette and we plan to try again next year. They are very good classes for the older pony who still likes to go out and keep busy as the result has no bearing on an animals past success in the show ring and so even if you ended up bottom of the class it is not shaming for the pony.
Holly and Ceilidh had a busy time recently at our Riding Club Area Dressage qualifier at Gravesend where on one of the hottest days of the year they did Pairs Dressage both with and without music and ended up a very creditable 2nd and 3rd beaten ironically by my own riding club and one of the anglo arabs I had bred. To win now the animals have more or less got to go stride for stride and although Ceilidh and Holly go very well as a pair their length of stride is very different and so it is impossible to get music which suits both of them. Holly too was 3rd in the Dressage to music class and could well have won if there had not been a major problem with the music which was started at the wrong time and as the whole class was affected in some way or another with the music equipment being inadequate one had to just do the best one could and not complain, but she still got the highest marks for the artistic bit although obviously was beaten in the technical section by big moving quality horses
On the home front there have been changes in the pony population which if I had had the benefit of hindsight I might not have done. I had had the extreme good fortune to have all filly foals last year and sold Sherramore when she was weaned. I earlier this year offered Shuna to a friend Liz Garner who now has a hill farm in Cumbria as although she has bred really good stock for me being closely related to my two stallions there was no great future keeping her here to breed from, the idea being that she could become a proper croft pony and learn to turn her hand to all tasks, I had hoped to have some photos of her in her new home but so far these have not been forthcoming. I gather she spent the first two weeks climbing over stonewalls, having been used to an electric fence but is now settled and happy and firm friends with Liz’s part bred arab who I bred twenty three years ago.
On the strength of this Alan Ellwood a farmer neighbour of Liz was interestested in having a highland filly to start a highland stud and to cut a very long story short he ended up having Skye and Harebell as we all thought the two would be happier than one pony on its own and the reports that have come back is that these two are very happy in their new home and hopefully enjoying something very close to their native environment. If I had known I was going to lose Sarah I would not have let both go but having promised I had no option.
On the strength of this I decided to get another mare and ended up buying Rhalea of Dunrui who came all the way from Inverness, her arrival here was another saga as she finally travelled south the day before I judged at The Royal and Sue Taylor made the mistake of saying she would come here after work and see the pony in so I could go to my nephew at Oxford for the night as I had an early start judging next day and the option would have been to go to Stoneleigh very early next morning. Lucky for me as the pony did not arrive here till 1.30 am Tues. morning and Sue had to be in her London office by 8am, luckily we are still friends.
Rolo as she is known is now settled and good friend with Holly B (Succoth Holly) but I have not ridden her yet as she was very fat only four in June and had a large split which would not be improved by the hard ground but which is already improving, Fiona Maclean who bred her rang me after I had her which was nice and hopefully we can stay in touch and I can let her know how we progress as for a youngster she has been a well travelled pony and changed home several times, from a breeding point of view she fits in with my other ponies as being by Viscount of Whitefield she is closely related to Holly and Sorcha who are both by Sargeant Major of Whitefield.
Sadly Sue Taylor had to come to the decision of parting with Tambourine as she needed a more active lifestyle than Sue’s work would allow and has now been replaced by an Irish gentleman who ironically was known as Whisper so had to change to Whisper Too’
Brenda is establishing a happy relationship with Feargus and is showing him in hand at a few shows this year.
Finally the poultry population has grown as at long last I have managed to get some purebred Arucanna bantams and so Essex man will have some pure bred wives, I have lots of part bred arucannas if anyone out there wants them as at the moment the fox situation has improved but doubtless this is only a temporary reprieve, to the uninitiated they lay green eggs,very tasty. The bantams managed to hatch out some Khaki Campbell ducks as well and as the result was four drakes and one duck looks like I shall have to by some more as I cannot see the drakes ending in the freezer as they are getting too tame.
Lizzie sends her regards to everyone and is turning into super dog, very friendly but when in the bungalow is now self appointed guard dog.
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FLEETMEAD STUD WEBSITE MAY UPDATE!
A quick update this month as I’ve been suffering from too many disturbed nights when I’ve got up to check mares etc and have wasted a lot of time looking for schedules and other horsy information on the internet!
May has been a month of very mixed fortunes starting with judging at Woodbridge show in Suffolk when I don’t think I have ever been so wet or cold in my life, apart from the weather it was a good show and particularly nice to have a brief look at some of the judging of the Suffolk Punches a much rarer breed than the highland pony and for those of us who love the countryside very much a part of England’s past.
some of the shows we were going to were rained off so most of the competing has been dressage indoors although last weekend we took Ceilidh to a Veteran Horse Show ( a new venture for us) and much to hid disgust he ended up last but one in his class, judge obviously not impressed with native pony still partially in its winter woollies and obviously unplaited so having dreamt of a new route to Olympia we’ll have to try again!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1
there has been a recent tragedy with Succoth Sarah, my founder highland mare and Alick’s permanent wife being kicked and just when she was improving she got cast in her box and broke her injured leg not helped by the fact she was heavy in foal and due in three weeks time, she will be much missed but has left a wonderful legacy of Sanday her grandson Ronay, Shuna who is now settling in her new home in the Lake District and her other five children all settled in a variety of homes.
On the plus side two foals have now arrived safely, Seonaid producing a very attractive colt and Eilean a lovely filly so our Carrick and Trailtrow bloodlines are being reinforced and we’ll keep you posted how they progress.
Brenda Goldring has now made a good start with Feargus and is building up a very happy relationship with him although she is having to progress slowly as she has spasmodic back problems herself
Sue Taylor had problems backing Tambourine as she was terrified of anyone actually getting on and as it was totally out of character with the mare one wonders whether when we had troubled with the local yobs riding motorbikes etc in everyone’s fields whether one of them had tried to get on her, sue had lunged and long reined her over quite a long period of time and finally we were put on to a young man near Uckfield who specialised in breaking and in less than 10days he had virtually got over the problem of getting on and Sue can now ride her easily herself and because of the time spent working her from the ground she is now working in a perfect outline for a young horse and no gadgets being used either.
Bonny too has been backed by another young man who lives near here Chris Baldwin and although she wants time to mature I shall ride her on at home through the summer.
the bantam population has been very busy increasing and there is a serious housing problem trying to find homes for them all! despite this we are still looking for a couple of pure bred bantam wives for my ancona cockerel Essex Man so someone out there on the web might be able to help him.
we’ll be back again next month with more news and pictures
Deirdre and the Ponies
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MARCH 20th SPECIAL UPDATE-
HI EVERYONE
Thought it high time I introduced myself and some of the other unknown residents at Fleetmead Stud. My name is LIZZIE LONGLEGS ( I hope you saw my message in the guest book) I am a very smart black nine months old whippet and since I came here I have gradually educated Deirdre into fitting in with my life style! She had a little garden she was quite proud of but I soon sorted it out so that now she has no lawn to mow or flowerbeds to care for and some of my excavations have made it resemble a cross country course, now spring is nearly here it will be interesting to see what wants to grow in it this year but if I have any choice in the matter it will just be her honeysucle as I like the smell. I am a very athletic whippet and can run faster and jump higher than any of the dogs you may have seen on TV at Crufts so have no wish to compete there as I know I am the best.
I sometimes think D may be a bit of a witch as she has four cats , two of which are black and some nights she’s doing things with bottles and making magic potions, I think it is called home made wine, it puts a spell on people and makes them laugh a lot but so far I have not been able to try it.
There are a lot of feathered things as well on this place called bantams and doves, they’d be good fun to chase but I am not allowed to and have to be on the lead when I am near them which is an awful bore. The bantams have lots of babies which the cats say make a nice snack if they have hidden the nests but far worse are the foxes which just want to murder them and even come in the daytime to try and kill them Deirdre has a very handsome ancona bantam cockerill who was given her when someone bought Ensay’s colt about a year ago, he has got lots of wives but is desperate to have two or three of his own kind so I said I would see if anyone reading this can tell him where he can find them, he is called 'Essex Man’ as that is where he came from, the children he had last year are now laying green eggs which is very clever but they are only half ancona. There are doves as well which live with the horses and D says it is good for them all to live together and they all seem very happy. Sometimes a racing pigeon drops in for a rest and some decide to stay as they like it here so now some of the doves are like odd coloured horses. I forgot to say there are four other whippets hereas well as me, three of them are really quite old and there is Tuppence who is now six, but it is nice they are here as I don’t want to talk about ponies all the time. Have a lovely summer with the ponies.
Love
Lizzie
p.s. Deirdre has also wrote an update which is after my pictures..
Lizzie and friends wanted to get in on the action.
Two of Fleetmead's Highlands Seonaid and Sorcha just wanted to make an appearance as well.
SPRING UPDATE 2004
DEIRDRE WRITES -
An overdue update as its been such a gloomy winter, everyday a grey day with endless rain and the clay soil we live on turning into a quagmire which meant all the ponies had to sleep indoors to have a dry bed to sleep on!
The end of last year’s competitions ended on a high note with Burnside Holly, (Holly) ending up a very creditable 7th in the Riding Club’s National Dressage to music championships at Addington, being one of the smallest and certainly the hairiest we were delighted as the standard was very high and there were 42 starters, having been a member of Ardingly riding Club’s Cats Quadrille the night before she was not in dressage mode particularly as all her team mates had gone home the night before. she followed this up in a blaze of glory at The London and S.E dressage to Music championships when partnered by Ceilidh they won the open section of The Pas de Deux in costume class, dressed in fairly inauthentic Scottish attire they performed their version of the Highland Fling to traditional Scottish Dance music and thoroughly enjoyed themselves in the process and had the added satisfaction of beating their smarter rivals who took the competition a great deal more seriously!!
Ceilidh who is twenty this year, still enjoys going out and has had considerable success this winter in unaffiliated dressage competitions, in the South East there are a great many centres specialising in top class dressage horses so the standard in any competition is always extremely high, one does wonder how many of these same very expensive horses will still be winning at twenty even at a lowly level as for a lot of them they lead an extremely regimented artificial life and don’t have the fun and variety the ponies have.
The down side of breeding is that one must always part with a number of youngstock and over the last few months some of the ponies have gone to new homes. Of the partbreds Sue Taylor has taken on Tambourine and Brenda Goldring has taken on Feargus both are being broken at this moment. Rona has gone to a new home in Hellingly famous for its lunatic asylum so I hope she does not end up there. the pure breds Rum and Sherramore have gone to Belinda Jacques and Sian Greene who live locally so hopefully we will see them around the shows this year. there is now a major chance that Shuna may be moving to a friend in Cumbria who have now taken on a hill farm at Ulpha and if she goes Shuna will have to take on the role of crofter’s pony and turn her hand to anything which will be great and if she goes I will keep you updated on her progress. I will be sorry to see her go but as I have only used her as a brood mare she has little future here as she is too closely related to my own stallions but she has left me Ronay as a legacy.
Hopefully the next update will bring news of foals but being a pessimist I never count them till they have arrived safely, Ronay now is a much happier pony as he has a permanent wife Eilean who has taught him to be respectful of ladies and who I very much hope will produce a foal now she is running out with him, she had declined to do so the last couple of years. Stocks Seonaid is another possible mum as ever since she came down from the north she has been slightly unsound which mystified the vets but my farrier was more constructive and thought it a very low grade laminitis caused by stress, of all the horses and ponies I have had on this place I have never had a pony that was so completely shattered to leave her original home despite the fact she came with her own mother, I had planned to make my fortune and sell her on but I have a feeling she could well become a permanent resident.
The other exciting pony in the pipeline is Stocks Sorcha, black which may confuse some of the southern judges, and best described as having attitude, she will take a long time to learn what the world is all about as she had seen little before she came here but she has three outstanding paces, is naturally very well balanced and automatically does correct flying changes on the rare occasions she canters on the lunge if she is on the wrong leg. As it now hurts more if I fall off I have a very able young man Chris to sit on them a few before I do but I have now ridden her and hope shortly to have some photos to put on the web.
I AM PLANNING TO UPDATE THE WEBSITE MONTHLY DURING THE SUMMER SO KEEP LOOKING AND WE WOULD BE DELIGHTED IF YOU WOULD SIGN IN IN THE GUEST PAGE
Deirdre writes-
An update is long overdue but Deirdre gets the blame as she has not yet acquired the skills to put news or pictures on the website herself but hopefully she will acquire the necessary knowledge to do so in the near future having enlisted the help of Keith from Page Computers who at the same time is going to tidy up the site and change to an easier address which should make it more accessible for everyone to find..
WEBSITE UPDATE SEPT 7th 03
It was an incredibly lucky year with the in foal mares as they all produced fillies, Succoth Sarah, Alick's permanent wife was the last to produce and her daughter was particularly welcome as Sarah lost her foal last year due to it being malpresented and was finally born dead despite Philip Glyn's expertise at sorting it out but at the time it was more important that Sarah was alright. The other mares, Fleetmead Sanday, Succoth Holly and Swona of Carrick all had foals by Ronay and I was particularly thrilled that Swona's was a mouse dun girl as I hope she'll keep the Carrick blood lines going in the future, (Ronay is of similar breeding being by Carrick Raasay). Sadly two of the foals will have to be sold at weaning as I can't keep them all and should be suitable either for breeding or mature into top performance ponies.
Ensay has had a busy year doing dressage and could either be really good or totally horrid as sometimes she allowed her sense of humour to get the better of her, she's had some success too in the showring but found the standing around something of a bore! The chief thing though is that she's stayed sound after all her early stifle problems but I think the chief secret of her success is to stop her getting fat. She was one of the ponies we took to the Malvern Highland pony show and I had great hopes that she'd do well in her dressage class but despite all our efforts in which I deliberately missed one of her show classes and being in a queue for the dressage for some while, in desperation I took her into the Novice ridden having been assured the dressage would still be going on when I got back only to find that the class had closed and after a long morning's judging the judge had diappeared for a hard earned lunch so it was not a good outing for Ensay.
Sue Taylor who also went, took Absol Ruathair and had a similar fate finally just managed to do her dressage test only to find despite the fact she was sitting on the pony and ready that she too had missed her ridden class. It seems that one of the biggest problems at the show was that it was impossible to hear the loudspeaker unless you were in the vicinity of the main ring. Holly fared a little better and managed to do her dressage test which she was placed in, was 4th in a good ridden class and then equal 1st in the side-saddle, an unusual result but perhaps Caroline Nelson who was judging felt sorry for the competitors sweltering in their habits and as there were only two forward did not like to put one down!!
Kitty Lucas's Ceilidh was the one that really upheld us as a t 19 he was making his last appearance at Malvern. He did two classes with Kitty's granddaughter Sophie and was placed and then despite the fact he hated the very hard ground did an incredible test to win the open dressage scoring mostly 9s, a great way to retire from the Malvern show, having first competed at it when he was 5 with Kitty riding him when he won his novice class and then over the years he did consistently well being ridden champion and winning or being highly placed in the dressage at every show, it says a lot for the breed that he could produce almost the best test he has ever done when many horses would have retired from active competition by now. As he still enjoys going out he will still compete locally but the emphasis being very much to enjoy ourselves and as the nights draw in he can dream in his stable at night of the times when he was a big winner at the county shows and qualified for Olympia twice, not bad for a home bred 13.2 pony.
Holly has had a good year too and was placed again at the Hickstead Derby Meeting and has concentrated mostly on musical dressage which we both enjoy, she goes exceptionally well side saddle and as well as dressage to music in costume did the Concours D'Elegance class at the Edenbridge and Oxted Show which was great fun, ( she always likes going in the main ring at the bigger shows.
Succoth Holly (Holly B).
She and Ceilidh have represented Ardingly Riding Club in Pairs Dressage classes both with and without music and have had a lot of success and recently qualified for the London and S.E. Dressage Championships, at the moment she's working hard practising for our quadrille team with the Selection Trial being at Addington on Oct 11th, hopefully you'll see photos of some of these activities in the photo gallery.The other big excitement was that having been left a small legacy I decided to spend it rather than pay some bills and after some sleepless nights wondering if I was being stupid managed to purchase Brenda Birmingham's Stocks Sorcha. I particularly wanted her as she was out of Swona of Carrick by Seargant Major of Whitefield who is also Holly's father. Brenda emailed me a photo of her and it was love at first sight as despite the fact she is black her head is a very similar shape to Holly's, but I did not want Brenda to know that in case she put the price out of my reach!. She was not very popular with Gillie's transport when she arrived as she had taken a very long time to come out of the lorry the night before when she was stabled en route on her journey south. Since her arrival I have done some horsebox practice and she now goes in and out quite happily and has been to one show just for the ride and was quite content munching her hay whilst the other pony in the lorry went off and competed so that is one hurdle safely crossed. I had intended to start breaking her soon after she arrived but put it off as it was right in the middle of our heat wave and as she is a very forward thinking good moving pony I didn't want to put her off before we started but now the shows are easing off I shall start in earnest soon. Provided I do the job properly I think she could be another special pony although some of the southern judges may not know what breed she is as many seem to think a highland should be fat, slow moving and grey! This is not true of course of the knowledgeable ones .
DON'T FORGET IF YOU ARE LOOKING FOR A PONY I HAVE A NUMBER OF BOTH PURE AND PARTBRED PONIES FOR SALE, MOSTLY FILLIES AND ALL BRED TO PERFORM, AGES FROM WEANLINGS TO FOUR YEARS, MOSTLY MOUSE OR YELLOW DUN.ALSO SUITABLE FOR BREEDING AND RELATED TO CAMERON, JURA OF WHITEFIELD ETC. PRICES ARE NEGOTIABLE AS I AM OVERSTOCKED AND MUST CUT DOWN DUE TO LOSS OF GRAZING THANKS TO INTERFERANCE FROM THE LOCAL YOBS AND THE RISK OF THE PONIES BEING LET OUT ON TO A BUSY MAIN ROAD.
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Current star of the ridden ponies is Burnside Holly who having at
long last managed to win the Highland Pony Society's Performance
Award, has had a winter off as she's had no real holiday since she
was broken, she is now just going to compete when she wants to and
is determined not to be pressurised into winning rosettes but to
just go out and enjoy herself. Last year she had a go at Le Trec
which both she and Deirdre enjoyed very much and time permitting
would like to do again. She is going to do a few show classes but
although entered has not yet competed as having been un-rugged all
winter she's wisely hung on to her winter coat longer than normal.
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Ensay has had a busy winter competing in dressage and has had a lot
of success but she also did some fairly hideous tests when it was
cold and windy and made it quite plain that she was not prepared to
be perfect all the time!! It's a bonus that she is back in work as
she's had stifle problems with the stifle locking and was operated
on to try and rectify this but was lame as a result. She then has
two years off during which time she produced a foal Euan who
celebrated moving to his new home by jumping a large five barred
gate putting himself back in the stable despite the fact he had
grass adlib. I plan to do more show classes and dressage with her
during the summer and she is short listed for our riding club teams
so we'll keep you posted about her progress.
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| Two of the mares which I had meant to ride this year have just produced foals, great excitement as Fleetmead Sanday has produced a lovely yellow dun filly and Succoth Holly followed suit by having a filly as well. It will be interesting to see what colour it ends up as it is yellow dun at the moment, however Holly was also registered yellow dun and is now cream. The weather has been so unpredictable and cold and wt and both mares were late having their foals choosing a lovely warm sunny day to do so and so goodness knows when the other foals will put in an appearance as the weather has taken a turn for the worst again. Anyway that's all for now but once the web site is up and running and I have mastered the skills to keep it updated I will keep you informed about our progress. I am acquiring too many ponies so one or two of the foals will be sold at weaning. |  |
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Miss Deirdre Robinson, Fleetmead Stud, Blindley Heath, Lingfield, Surrey, RH7 6JX