3-in-1 Open Show: Results with Pawnee

This past weekend was the 3-in-1 Open horse show out in western Washington. Saturday was a two-judge affair, followed by a single, different judge on Sunday.

I went in a total of five classes; three of them on Saturday. We weren't too impressed with the Saturday judges nor our Saturday results. Pawnee was being more of a fidget that day, though. :P

However, I am completely happy with our Sunday results! Pawnee got 5th in mini mare halter, even though she did rear up in the show ring from being mad. xD Guess the judge didn't see that, lol.

Then we did adolescent (3 years or younger) trail-in-hand. The course included sidepassing, a gate, backing an L, and lots of trotting. I had already seen one horse balk on the backing, so when Pawnee had a near-perfect run I figured she'd place pretty decently. Also, her sidepassing? It was a dream. She has never, ever done so well at it. In fact, the only thing she maybe messed up on was wanting to speed up to a canter.

Anyway, it completely shocked me when I heard that Pawnee and I got first. We got first!

Here's a pic of Pawnee and I with our first-place ribbon. So proud of my girl. :D

Pawnee and I with our first-place ribbon from winning Sunday's adolescent trail-in-hand class.

Lungeline Jumping the Minis

I cannot remember if I already mentioned it or not, but when it was still nice and warm we lunged the minis. Over elevated cavaletti poles. It was fun!

The basic setup was easy, but it did require a lot of running (for both horse and handler) and the horses wearing either wraps or boots to protect their legs. Generally when lunging the handler should stay in one spot, but for this it was pretty essential to move around or the horses would be lazy and avoid the jumps.

When I recorded this (and that's my awesome horsey friend doing all the hard work!) Angel was on the lungeline, but sometimes during the session we would free-lunge them both. Free-lunging is lunging them without using a lungeline. :)

Awww, Pawnee!

I had the opportunity to groom on Pawnee the other day, and it was so cool! Pawnee is a *very* human-oriented horse, and when I'm in her stall she doesn't want to leave my side. If she isn't circling my legs to obtain attention, she's either walking in between my legs (and itching the sides of her body on my jeans), nuzzling on my boots and jeans, or doing some other adorable action.

Generally horses don't make my heart melt, but Pawnee did. She was so adorable.

<3

The stall was dark, and I only had the cell phone with me, but I managed to get some shotty images of Pawnee and her dam Deceivious. It was difficult because Pawnee wouldn't stand still for me. :)

Pretty dam with a blue eye :)

Oh hi! I really like her muzzle. I highly suspect she carries the splash allele.

Pawnee circling me.

Not sure what she was doing here, but she didn't want to stand still for me. :)

She really likes the curry comb.

Hey can I follow you? (:

Stylish

Stylish is a chestnut roan and white mare that came last year. It sounds like we'll be selling her - but she does have the potential to throw nice foals, so perhaps we can keep her.

Caught red-handed! (Yep, Stylish is the boss of Royale.)

Oh hi.

Lol.

Celina Royale

We've had Royale for a bit now, and I *finally* took images of her!

She's a very light palomino, and also quite short. She is related to Sonny, ergo we shall either breed her to Buster or an outside stud.

Here are the pictures of her (the other mare in with her is Stylish, by the way). :)

Sonny!

Last Friday evening after the bathing, I had an opportunity to get some shots of Sonny (the grulla miniature stud)! I'm really quite pleased with how they turned out, and how (I think) they do Sonny justice.

He is so pretty.

The dorsal line.

The other side.

Silly boy, standing crooked.

Looking at Toy. :P

This is how his forelock usually looks!

I love his mane in this shot! He looks so awesome.

Breeding Time

It's already that time of year again! Time to plan for next year's foals.

I fortunately am not (and won't ever be) *there* when...everything happens (:P), but I do get to know who's being bred to who. Which to me is quite exciting, for I can think about foal color possibilities!

To Buster we'll be breeding all four of the mares: Tess, Flicka, Stylish, and Royale.

Tess is a tiny gray mare that carries the dun allele. She's either a bay dun or a black dun - I'm not sure which yet. Flicka is a tobiano-splash black silver dapple. Stylish is the mare I worked today; a chestnut tobiano-sabino, and Royale (the new mare!) is a Welsh-type palomino.

From Tess we could get a variety of colors. She's had black-based foals before; it's possible that she could have a bay-based foal, as well as a chestnut-based foal since she's going to Buster. The dun and cream alleles are also present.

There are almost endless possibilities with Flicka. The silver, cream, tobiano, splash, extension, and black alleles are all there. It'd be awesome if the foal was bay-based, because that would tell us that Buster is Aa for Agouti.

Stylish with Buster is pretty basic. They are both chestnut-based (ee), so it will have to either be a chestnut, palomino, chestnut sabino, chestnut tobiano, chestnut tovero, palomino sabino, palomino tobiano, or palomino tovero (if we are lucky).

And then there's Royale, the solid palomino! Her to Buster means 50% chance palomino, 25% chance chestnut, and 25% chance of a cremello foal.

Next year will be very busy foal-wise (four foals compared to the one we had this year). I'm excited. ^_^

Some Pictures of the Mini Girls

Here are some pictures of Toy Toy and Angel the day before (or was it the day of?) Pawnee's birth. They're both pretty cute, and I didn't realize till looking at these pictures that Toy does have facial markings, and possibly carries some splash (note her star, stripe, and snip). Or, maybe she just has markings and doesn't carry any pinto alleles. Ah well, time may tell. :)

Pretty tails.

Nom nom. 

"Oh hi!" says Toy Toy.

Hi, do you have any treats for me this morning?

Now it's Angel's turn to say hi!

"Darn," Angel thinks, "she didn't give me any treats."

I like Angel's thin muzzle. It's cute. (:

New Foal: Pawnee

Yay, Deceivious' foal is here!

We hadn't known the mare's actual due date as we had bought her already bred, and she had been pasture bred (no knowing when she actually took). Because of that, MiniOwner and I had to remember to check her and be watching her for signs of a soon birth.

Friday morning, MiniOwner told me that the birth would be soon. Usually because horses "don't know" the rules about showing signs of a soon labor, they won't follow them. Of course, similar thing this time - Deceivious had to break that rule by following the rules for normal signs of a close labor - bagging up (a ton; her udder looked similar to that of a milk cow :P), not eating much, lengthening of the vulva, relaxed croup/dock of tail area, shifting weight on the hind legs, and yawning.

Both Friday and Saturday night, I was able to do a foal watch at the stables. My younger sis and I did it with MiniOwner, and HorseyFriend also joined us on Saturday night. The plan? Sleeping in the lounge and checking on the mare every two hours (10, 12, 2, 4, 6, and 8).

As you can probably tell, the mare did not foal out Friday night. Or Saturday night. It was Sunday morning, probably about 15 minutes before 4 AM. Around eleven the previous night, Deceivious had been yawning and the foal had been visibly moving around a lot. A little past that, MiniOwner checked on the mare and noticed that when the mare urinated, the liquid was coming out in such a way as to imply coming up and over the foal.

All of us stayed up another hour or so (no progress on the foaling yet) and then hit the sack. MiniOwner checked at 2 AM, but nothing new. At four, MiniOwner said HorseyFriend and I could go check on the mare, and to call her cell phone if the mare gave birth yet.

HorseyFriend looked through the front left window, didn't see anything, I checked through the right window, and there's a foal on the ground. Yay! :D

After that, it was a mixture of stuff. Calling MiniOwner, watching her dry the foal, give the mare some medicine, put some medication on the foal's navel, give the foal some enema to aid digestion, and taking a lot of pictures.

Anyway, if you read all that, congrats! Here are pictures. :) The first is before labor, the next ones are taken 45 minutes or so after the birth, and the outside ones were taken when the foal was about seven hours old.

A couple hours before labor.

The foal laying on the ground (and the afterbirth).

Drying the foal.

Standing up. :) 

Aha! She finally found it. 

Oh hi. :D 

Running with mommy!

What you doing? 

And let's RUN back to mommy!

She is so adorable. :)

You can kinda see the dam's blue eye in this shot.

And, nice clean trailer to return to. :)

Foals - Satin

Satin was a mini filly born last year on either June 24, or a couple days following that. She is Angel's half-sister, as they had the same dam (Babe, a silver bay tobiano). Her sire was Pepper, the buckskin sabino stud that we lost last year.

Combining all the alleles that Satin's parents carried, she could have (not did) inherited the cream, tobiano, sabino, and silver alleles. Being as both her parents were bay-based (buckskin and silver bay), it isn't a surprise that Satin herself is a bay. It is a surprise, though, that she didn't inherit either the tobiano or sabino allele. Ah well.

We won't be selling her because she's a Pepper baby. Next year we'll start showing her, and once she's done with that she'll be added to the breeding stock. :)

Here are some pictures of her a couple days after she was born. :)

Images by Theresa Hautala, used with permission.

Oh yeah. Aren't I cute.

Mhm. She really must have been thinking that she's queen of the muck pile. :P

Awww. :)

A slightly better shot of her conformation.

Finished Clipping on Angel

Last Saturday, MiniOwner and I finished clipping up on Angel after what we started on Friday! I just did the easy stuff - getting the majority of the hair length off using the variable clippers again. MiniOwner was the one to use the finishing clippers to get the hair even shorter, as well as get more technical about stuff.

The result? This. :)

(Also, I did get some pictures with MiniOwner's real camera, but don't have those yet. I'll upload them when I can.)

Standing in the cross ties while being clipped. The hair-length difference from the draft versus finishing clippers is pretty noticeable.

Giving Angel a break between the clipping and a quick bath.