Looking ahead 2011

Its winter and we are looking foreword to spring foaling/breeding and summer training.

This time of year we are thinking about breeding combinations for next year. Like other breeders we all start out with a “wish list” that includes a lot of new stallions. This goes to a “short list” and we are at that stage this time of the year. We look at the criteria for stallions which we will use next year. We tend to be conservative breeders in that we like to go with stallions which have proven themselves and we have seen the offspring. Then we push out a bit with some new blood.

We normally use all frozen semen due to our location and success with frozen. It is difficult to get fresh from the USA on a dependable basis with the possibilities of hiccups in border clearance. Also, our location at the Eastern end of the country does not help fresh semen delivery. We do not consider this a disadvantage as we have had good success with frozen semen over the years. Our over all conception rate with frozen has been 65% since was started in 2004. We use a lot of Team Nijhof stallions because we like their stallions and the logistics of working with one supplier makes it a lot simpler.

At this time we are looking for more breedings to Sandreo because we really like our Sandreo horses. Lots of athletic ability and very trainable making them just the horse for amateur rider but they look like they will have the talent to do higher levels. Our oldest (Bastion) is five this year and we like what we see. There are three mares due to Sandreo for this year. We have another pregnancy to Johnson and we plan to use him again this year. We would like to have a Florencio. We imported one Ziane , now with Erin MacQuarie and showing the super hind leg which is his trademark. The Florenco/Jazz we saw at the stallion show last year makes us think we should breed our Jazz mare to Florencio. We think he needs a long mare of a good height. We will probably breed Vuzarma back to Eldorado depending on what her fold this year. That is where our thinking is at this time.

For training this year we have four horses under saddle. Wiseman (Lord Sinclair/Lancet), now eight, is in Virginia with Martha. She also has the four year old Calypso (Sandreo/Jazz) in training. Bastion (Sandreo/Floristan) , five year old , is in training with Meg in Truro. We expect to have these three to develop and show for next season. We will have two to start this summer. We normally saddle and sit on the two year olds. This year we have Excalibur (Donnatelli/Welt Hit II) and Enieta (Brentano II/Jazz) to start.

With six of our seven brood mares to foal,starting in May,we will have a busy summer.