Baby Horse 2.0

So I've done a lot of thinking and with the acquisition of fancy pants sexy black horse Jade, I've made the decision to sell Nigel and Arthur for sure.  That should offset Jade's cost for the most part and yay.  Now the next order of business is Piper and more specifically Edison.  As a paint, he's useless right now and as a possible event horse he's useless too.  I hate to say all that, but its true.  No spots doesn't get you much (especially when your dad is an event/jumper bred TB) and eventers are going to want a young horse that's got good foundations.

So yep, looks like Mr Edison is here to stay for now and I feel pretty good about that.  It'll give me a chance to learn about babies and continue this fun journey we're on.

That brings to mind what I do in the meantime.  Piper is basically out of commission until after weaning which will put her around fall.  If it rains then like it's rained now, then I'm out another year with her soooo...

LET'S MAKE ANOTHER BABY!

I'm still wanting my awesome APHA sporthorse so I decided to just do the cross I wanted to do last year but was too cheap/nervous/worried to do at the time.

Meet The Huntsman:

He's a paint, he's versatile, he's homozygous for tobiano!  So basically I'm going to make a painted APHA paint no matter what and I'm breeding to a guy that's done it all (all over the country) and is just a sweetheart of a horse.  He's done Battle of the Breeds, Jumper Derbies, and possibly the most important thing: trail horse all over the US and Canada in mixed herds.  This guy has train ability and temperament to spare!

I'm excited about what's to come and there are some fun color opportunities I hadn't thought of that would be possible (homozygous black and tobiano filly anyone?) and that's exciting as well.  So hopefully I get everything on my wishlist.  The actual breeding was a little harrowing going from Canada to here and some phone line issues but everything got sorted out and we found out Piper is cooking a new baby 14 days later so whew!

If you like genetics and coat color, here's the calculator results.  Basically, black and white baby 50% chance of homozygous tobiano.