Mares.

We're always moving (I like to say we're always hustlin') around here and this week hasn't been any different as we made the move to expand our herd again.

If you haven't been horse shopping lately (or ever) you know that buying a top level warmblood FEI level prospect is $$$.  While I'm obviously not averse to doing that on the rare occasion, realistically, I'm a cheap skate and like my deals.  I also have REALLY enjoyed producing my own babies the past two years and am a bit sad that we don't have any incoming foals for 2017.

I've also been looking for project horses to start this year and have been coming up short on something that I want to work on.  I HAVE however, been finding some awesome mares that either have temporary dings or weren't bred last year or have just been sitting out to pasture.  Many of these have had PHENOMENAL (to me) pedigrees and look exactly like what I'd want a foal out of.

I have a wonderful dog training client that had mentioned a Hanoverian mare that she had had available and I messaged her after a particularly discouraging horse hunting day and while that one was sold, she mentioned that she had another horse for sale.  A thoroughbred home-bred mare that had ended up on the back burner.  She was lovely and so was her pedigree so we made the deal and Czarina came home with us after a lesson.  Glitter Please?  Yes please!  Raja Baba? I'm in.  #eventersneverdie Thank you Morgan!

So things should have ended there and the stallion shopping commenced buuuttttt... I couldn't get this one ad for a Hanoverian mare in California by Feiner Stern out of my head.  Back in the day when I was trying to breed and it all went horribly wrong and I ended up broke from the effort, Feiner Stern was the man that I knew I wanted a baby by at some point.

Yum.

This mare had been bought at a kill buyer type auction and the lovely people that I bought her from bought her and got her back on her feet and fed back up.  They rode her and used her on trails and their lesson program.  They were asking a tiny tiny price for her and I just couldn't help but ask if she was available.  She was and I hired a shipping company to grab her and bring her back to Texas.  Just wow on that whole week.  I expected a donkey (like a true hee haw hee haw) to come walking off the trailer and the joke would be on me (risk taking doesn't always pay off yo) but instead a calm, gorgeous, well fed, and taller than expected bay mare came strolling off the trailer in the dark.  I was smitten and overwhelmed at how well this had worked out (I'm still waiting for the other shoe to drop but so far so good!)

Sale Video

Pedigree

Photo by Royal Ridge Eq Center

So that's how we upped our mare game in one week's time.  I'm super excited and while I'm always checking out stallions and stalking their offspring, I get to DO something about it this year with the shiny warmbloods.  Not sure where I'm going to head first (its a bit like kid in a candy shop right now) but I can't wait for this part of the journey!

As if that wasn't enough, we added Sarah's mare to the group so we now have a boarder as well.  Plus Sarah gets to see her mare regularly so all's happy.