First, you should know, I don't like babies. Of any species. The main reason most people like babies is that they're cute and a blank slate. I understand the idea that you're not "undoing" anything in the horse/dog/child/etc but I've retrained so many "broken" horses and one thing I like is that they KNOW something. You HAVE something. Sure it might be irrational fears and such, but there's a thought process to dissect. I feel like baby animals look at me like this:
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| Derp |
Just a blank "chew the cud" sort of look and I just look back like :/ Seriously? Is anything going on? And then they usually make bizarre choices and I'm stuck working through that.
The one thing that's changed as I've gotten older (and took on three wonderful project horses in the past year) is that my available time and level of tolerance for other people's mistakes over time has dramatically decreased. I'm sick of fixing people's issues. This isn't just related to horses though, its pretty much my life right now. If I'm getting paid for it, I don't mind but otherwise I get cranky. I'm proud of where I've come with my current horses, especially considering my crazy life of working, family, and school so don't get me wrong. I just kinda want something that's "mine."
This had started when I got Piper. I'd debated a young horse to work with and had found some nice ones. Anything under 4 is a "baby" to me so anything related to that world was confusing and weird. I found THIS mare and went to visit her. She was in town and the idea of having someone help me along with the whole "World" "Futurity" etc type of showing was really appealing. The horse was very kind, calm, and personable. She seemed very well trained but it was pouring down rain that day so we were restricted to just the stall that evening. I went home feeling good and then freaked myself out over the idea that I'm in no shape for a "baby" horse of 3. I wouldn't do her justice, etc.
I do sort of kick myself about passing on that mare, but its all good. I've interacted with more babies and the retraining of Arthur has basically been what I'd do with a baby. And I like that. So I began the great debate of breeding.
Another point of interest here, I DID attempt to breed exactly TWICE in my prior life. I had bought a killer thoroughbred mare and tried to breed her to a great Oldenburg guy. We tried and tried to get her pregnant and when my vet bills/breeding bills sans stud feed hit $2000 I backed out. The stud owner was very understanding and I sold the mare to pay the debt. The next owners found out that she was allergic to semen extender. Derp. The other time I had bought another really nice prior eventing thoroughbred mare. I loved her and she was built truly like a warmblood. Her lines were similar to Athos' and she was just a joy to own. When I bought her, she was already 7 months pregnant to an APHA overo stallion so I went with it. She was as big as a house so I was thinking "oh no, twins!" but seriously, she would have aborted them by then, right? Apparently not. One stormy night my mare had two very gorgeous black overo foals. The filly was normal sized and just wonderful, but still born. The colt was tiny, wry nosed (badly) and while a fighter, just too tiny to do anything. We euthanized him that day and I swore off breeding. I sucked it up and rebred since I was "owed" a breeding to that overo stallion and exactly a month after breeding her, Tess' stomach ruptured and she died. Huh? OBVIOUSLY THIS WAS NOT MY FORTE!
So here I am now. I want a baby horse. Nothing I find online is what I want. I'm looking for an APHA jumping type that is over 15.2h and not built like a tank. How hard can that be?! Honestly, super hard. Then it hit me... I OWN that except she's 14.1 hands. But other than that, Piper kicks ass and meets all the requirements I want. It would mean delaying her show career for a year, but then again, we're not known and it would be much easier to get a foal from her now, then go party on the show circuit.
So I'm breeding Piper.
Due to her tovero (I didn't know what that was previously lol) color, she contains multiple white producing genes. I have really no way of knowing WHICH ones exactly so I decided to just find a nice tall paint stallion. Every one I found was an overo and most carried the frame overo gene. Not wanting to flirt with a lethal gene, I decided to play it safe and go with an APHA recognized thoroughbred. I'd get the height I'd hope for (anything taller than Piper basically) and not bulk out the offspring into a bloated tank of a thing.
When I had had my first TB mare, I'd fallen in love with a thoroughbred stallion at the time. I looked through my old links and found him.
He's an honest 16.3hands but still refined. I'm not in love with his trot but I love his personality, trainability, work ethic, and canter. He jumps well and obviously more than I need. He also carries a white gene himself so that should give us about a 75% chance for a colored baby. The fellow's name is Man In Motion and I hope this works out the way I want.
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| We gots hops |
Naturally upon dropping Piper off (after she came screaming into heat and had to be rushed 4 hours across Texas last minute for her date), she began dismantling their nonelectirc fences and giving bareback pony rides to their children. She also wanted Mr Man SOOO badly... but there was no way he was going to do THAT to her. In the end there was a breeding achieved with Miss Thang and we have 14 days to wait to find out if there's something cooking in the oven.
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