2014 Resolutions

It's that time when everyone reflects on the year gone by and looks forward with hopeful eyes to the future. While a lot of people I know have stopped setting resolutions, I strive on goals and accomplishments. Having something to chase down and try for: it makes the journey that much more entertaining and rewarding.

Over the last year, I've done some pretty awesome things:

• got a job with a fantastic structural engineering firm, that has a great work environment
• tried NANO for the first time, and won
• purchased one of my grail GCs for a great price
• got not one, but two Stone Morgan Santa Fes
• bought my first used car from a dealership 
• in February, I bought the dog I've wanted my whole life-a Doberman

I'm sure there are many more, but I tried to focus on the brightest highlights. 

Now, I'm excited for a whole new year, with new possibilities. And even more so because 2014 is the year of the horse. That means a great many things to come, hopefully many of them equine.

My goals/wishes/dreams for this exciting year:

• Lease or buy my own horse. I'm looking for a black gelding of Quarab, Arabian, Morgan or Morab breed.
• Buy at least two more Santa Fe Morgans
• Win NANO for the second year in a row
• buy more models (yes, this is a goal. I am lucky to be in a position where I can afford to increase my collection, and I want to glory in the amazingness of it)
• Finish off my GC collection. I have ~30 classic horses left to get and a random assortment of other sizes, many of which are difficult to track down.
• Fully pedigree every horse on my website.
• Find IDs for all my orphans (and I have a LOT)
• participate in the racing and showing clubs more actively this year
• breed 100 foals from my stable, Golden Hart Estates
• get GCMHC up and running again
• finish the personal pages for all my horses (eek, but I can do it!)
• participate in IPABRAs secret santa
• host a secret santa for GCMHC
• get Naomi and Wynonna and/or Susecion and Le Fire
• post at least once a week on my blog

I have a lot of personal goals for myself, as well, but I won't bore you with all those typicals, too. 

Well, it looks like I have a lot of work to do. Better get on it!

It's Coming!

Flaxen Thoroughbreds

So, being one of the not-so-well-understood genes, flaxen is still hard to tell what sort of parents you need in order to breed a flaxen. Lacking any better options, I went with the "two parents with flaxen is sure to produce a foal with flaxen" approach.

However, finding a Thoroughbred with "proven" flaxen turned out to harder than I thought. I say proven because there are an awful lot of people who claim their horse is flaxen, but their mane and tails look exactly the same shade as their coat. In order to be sure, I wanted very obvious flaxens, so I went on a hunt.

I'm not going to detail my process here like I usually do, and instead just get to the list of flaxen Thoroughbreds that I found. I can add more as I go, but it makes for a good starting point for others looking for them as well.

Imps Baby Girl (Mr. Explosive x Imperatorial)

Tranquera (Show a Heart x Tahnee)

Trick Ski (Rory's Jester x Rossignol)

Velonski (Falvelon x Skidoodle)

Marq Dane (Danehill Star x Marq Phil)

Right of Light (Tyrant x Daisy June)


All for now. Got more? Please share!

From Lippis to Norikers

Yesterday I was researching Lippi pedigrees and trying to find stallions of the Tulipan and Incitato sire lines, and instead stumbled across a wealth of information for Norikers! (Does that make me a great researcher or a bad one? Tee!)

My flow was this:

Searching Lipizzans, I saw a neat-colored mare called 578 Trofetta VIII. If you haven't checked her out, you should! Well, one of the links I checked out was this forum discussion: http://www.horsegroomingsupplies.com/horse-forums/colorful-horses-427735-20.html which included several other neat examples of colors, but no less than a spotted Noriker. I recently rescued a spotted draft from an antique store and had planned on creating a new Sugarbush Draft, but the picture of Nacho Salazar reminded me of their spotted drafts and prompted me to investigate. The link provided led me here: http://www.muller-equine.cz/reprodukce-koni-1/inseminace/katalog-hrebcu-2013/bacar-ze-zubri.htm.

Instead of groaning at yet another non-English site, I get excited! These usually mean that I am closing in on actual pertinent information, and my hunch was right. A gorgeous website and red roan stallion greeted me, but he was not the spotted version I was looking for.

So I backed out and did a Google image search for "Nacho Salazar Noriker" and scrolled through the images. Normally I don't waste my time clicking through each one and checking the websites. If you hover the mouse over the thumbnail of the photo, it will bring up a short idea of the website the photo came from. At that point, I was looking for anything not English. And I found a photo of a spotted draft mare and her foal. The linking website was http://www.farma-stipa.estranky.cz. Perfect!

The photo must've been one of Nacho's foals, and I clicked around the photo albums until I found what I was looking for--a chestnut leopard instead of the typical black ones. On his page I found what I was really looking for: a link to his pedigree, held on a database website. SCORE!

Now, I won't take you to his because I plan on using his pedigree for myself *wink* but I will share the website:  . The webpage has a hard time loading for me, so if you don't see it at first, be patient and try reloading or opening it on a different device.

That's it for now, but it should get you started on pedigreeing your own Noriker!

Too Many Words

...describes my life lately. Mostly for two reasons. I just got done with my first Nano Wrimo experience, and I won with ~30 hours to spare. For those that are unfamiliar, winners are authors who write 50,000 original words between November 1st and November 30th. It took a lot of time and concentration to come home after work and sit in front of my computer and write 1600 words to stay on track after working 10 hours doing hard engineering math. But I got through it! I did fall behind, but luckily I was able to catch up over the weekends and I did 6400 words today (my last day) to pass the 50k mark. It was insane, but definitely worth the challenge. I am now two whole books down from my quartet. The third is already about a quarter written. But now I'm not sure what I'm going to do for next year! It will be all brand new. Scary!

The other thing that requires too many words is how to say how thankful I am. I am constantly being reminded how awesome my life is. I could always have less fat and more money and better clothes and more models, always more models, but overall, my life couldn't be going any better. I have my own house that I bought all on my own, a huge two story with a double-high great room and a balcony and huge walk in closet. It is the biggest accomplishment so far in my life (besides writing two books), and I am proud of it. I'm the proud owner of a stunning black Doberman, who has his own set of issues but is ridiculously loyal and worth all the struggles.

I have an amazing family who are my support system through any moment in my life. My grandparents and my parents live in the same state, and close to the same city, that I can visit them whenever I need to.

Although I sorely miss my best friend, who still resides in Wyoming, we have a bond that will never be broken and I can't wait to see her again.

I have a fantastic job. Two years since graduating, I've landed a job with everything I need and could ask for. It is tiring, but challenging work. I've learned so much already, and have a long way to go.

I have a loving boyfriend whom I've been with for 6 years. It's hard to explain that to everyone--many people have been married for less. Just because we haven't walked any aisles, doesn't mean we haven't made a commitment to one another and kept it through some pretty tough times. He also supports my horse hobby, and for a collector, how can you ask for more than that?!

I am thankful for internet, and the ability to post and write and Facebook chat with my online friends, and meet new collectors, and participate in Breyer's clubs, and otherwise have a social life that as an overworked engineer I might never get to have.

I am thankful for the sun. Oh, man, do I love the sun. It is no wonder that I moved to sunny, sunny Arizona. I am a morning person, and a day person. Night time makes me anxious, and I am glad we sleep then, so it makes the time before the sun returns go that much faster ;)

I am thankful to you, my readers! You are one in a very rare few who support my blog and my very tiny model horse writing sphere. Someday I may be as large and great and grand as my idol Braymere, but until then, I'm enjoying the journey. Cheers to you!

Small Update

It's been awhile since I last posted, sorry about that!

Lots of things have been interrupting my normal schedule--loss of internet, working overtime at my new job, and now NaNoWriMo. It's my first year taking part, and between work and writing, I haven't had much time for anything else!

However, I did manage to finish a cm today before it got too windy.

Meet Dealer's Choice.

Yes, he's a Grand Champion. Yes, his body is made with the rough "hair" like that. And yes his mane and tail are a little bit funky. But he's a cutie. He's got little "Batman" ears. *squee* And he's son to my very first classic GC custom, Court Jester.

Selling Models, especially Grand Champions

There's been a lot of contention recently in the Facebook world about how selling models should be done. There are pros and cons of each type, and I have no real preference one way or the other, except lately I've personally decided to back out of auction-style sales for several reasons, the largest one being the ridiculous prices that some of these horses are going for. I've likened it to a sharkfest, and tho I've never been in the pit during Breyerfest, I can imagine it's similar to the online version of it, at least as much as can be made over the otherwise infamous GCs, haha. Models are selling for way over their worth, merely because newcomers to the hobby are trying to play catch up and get all the "rares" they're missing. The thing is-- Grand Champions didn't really make any rare models. They made some that were only released in Europe and not the US, sure, but they're fairly abundant on that side of the world. So much so that they show up regularly on their eBay. I can only imagine how their flea markets look. Besides the trick of finding a seller who will do the international shipping, tracking down the European horses is only a matter of patience and shelling out a little extra dough to cover it. When my last engineering job was well underway and I had extra funds, I was importing models by the week from over there-- and I wasn't paying out the wazoo for them, either.

I have an idea about how and why the Grand Champions prices started getting so out of control, but I'm not at liberty to discuss, and the person it involves is still largely active on the groups. I made a comment about the selling-styles several weeks ago on my group page, and it was a bit of foreshadowing of what was to come. Now, the groups are trying to figure out a way to keep the peace, as many buyers are unhappy with the results.

The two main ways to sell are this-- list a model with a set price you want for it and sell to the first person who claims it and pays that amount, and put a model up for offers for a set period of time and sell to the highest bidder. Both options are available on eBay, although the BIN option is not used as often. Why?

Because people want to get the most out of what they have. Money drives the world, whether people want to admit it or not. Just because someone is willing to put up an amount of money for something, doesn't necessarily mean it's worth that much. The problem with collectors of any sort of object is that they get so wrapped up in the hobby and the grails and the money and the excitement, that they sometimes forget there's a world outside of it. Just like Grand Champions, where the model horse world expands into Breyer and Peter Stone and Artist Resins and so on. When broadened to compare to that, the prices being paid for these 'toys' are laughable. A Breyer person wouldn't pay squat for the hard to find Grand Champions because they're not worth it to them. Try selling a resin model horse for $500 to a random somebody on the street. Probably not going to happen. My point is this-- avid collectors that are doing the *grabby hands* for all the pretty horses they want do NOT set the value for models. The economy of the world still does. Who was buying a bunch during the recession? Not me, not really. People were selling at rock bottom prices just to move the models. And we're still coming out of it. Customizers are still suffering.

I've been thinking lately about alternative ways to list horses. The first that came to mind was a yard sale-style. How does that work? Well, you tell everyone the time and place you're going to list your products, and they come and see what you have all at the same time. That way, they are aware of when they'll be listed, and the first come-first serve basis is more fair. Many complaints are due to the fact some hobbyists are across the world from each other and can't get on certain times to catch the sales. Honestly, I've set alarms for 3:00 am just to be awake the time an eBay sale ended to make sure I won it. If you really want something that bad, you'll make it work.

The other idea I had was this-- list the model and see who all is interested in it, same as an auction. But instead of having them post prices and let the money do the talking (and as much as people hate the word, but when money is what is talking, it's called greed), get names of everyone who wants the horse, and then do a lottery to choose who gets to buy it. Picked at random- totally fair by way of chance and luck. And it doesn't completely knock out the people who have children or going to school or can't afford to pay $100 for a horse that's not worth it anyway. The horse can still be sold for what the seller wanted it for, but not by what the masses battled over it for.

Just some thoughts I've wanted to spill out since this whole debacle started. I haven't been buying much lately anyway so mostly I'm in the stands being entertained, but I'm interested to see how it all pans out. Either way, some people will find cause to complain :P

Everyone Starts Somewhere

Several years ago, I decided to move my collection online and make a website. I was inspired by the two stables I first came across- http://thundervalleyfarmhorses.webs.com/ and  http://vnvstables.net/vnvsdlist/sdindex.html. I knew I wanted to create a photo gallery-style website to display my collection. But that meant taking pictures of each and every one of them. Back then, I had a basic point and shoot camera, and limited materials. My first setup was horrible.

The background was printed out from the internet, and my grass was a cheap mat bought at a hobby store. I tried taking them inside, and the cheap camera insisted on flash. This caused pretty sharp shadows and an overall dark picture. There was also no separation between the mat and the background.

Gradually my setups got a little more realistic. I added an arena wall and arena sand, with a more natural background. The lighting was still uneven and caused unfavorable shadowing. Half of my photos were in focus, the other half weren't. Again, these were taken inside, mostly because I lived in Wyoming and there was a blizzard outside on any given day.

A little after this time, I bought myself a Nikon D3000. Ah, what a difference it made! I also purchased a better grass mat from an online store and experimented with new backgrounds. Some came out very well!

Nowadays, my photos have a much cleaner color, focus, and shadow placement. My background merges better with my footing and has proper blurring to not distract from the model. I could still make a lot of improvements, but I have to say I am very proud with my results!

Remodel

Every so often, I get the urge to remodel my website. It happens when I see something I think could be better. In this case, it was my old background. It was a red one that tiled a bit in the background, and the edges annoyed me. I set out to find a better one. And I was attracted to this:



In fact, a whole set of them: http://www.ibjennyjenny.com/2012/07/12-free-tumblr-backgrounds-in-colors.html

I love the color silver, and blue and silver are my absolute favorite color combo. I wanted to go for a vintage feel, because I was hoping to be able to use the fancy fonts like I always craved, but could never get to look right. I chose a dark blue and light blue text color to offset the gray, and changed my text to look a lot prettier.


I'm hoping this not only brings more customers in, but keeps them at my site longer. I also have to see it a lot, so might as well make it something I love looking at!

That being said, I also redid the look of my blog to have similar colors and a fall theme for the background.

Auctions

Today was filled with auctions- MHFC's Fall Auction ended last night at midnight, and Golden Hart Estates made quite a haul, bringing home 13 horses of mostly different breeds. Keeneland's auction live feed video played in my background today, as I waited for the bids to hit the $1 million mark. I missed the first ones, but I wanted to see what a million dollar horse looked like.

Among our new horses:

Barr Nunn Kickin Gunn, Mustang stallion

Qizzette, Akhal-Teke mare

Torrente, Andalusian stallion

We would also like to welcome the first Pony of the Americas to our stable! We do not specialize in pony type breeds, so we are excited to have a quality mare to begin our herd.

Koalite, POA mare

More to come!

Alter Real- Chasing Chestnuts

Yesterday I accidentally found myself about to pedigree an Alter Real. It was a Grand Champion that came with a bio card with his name and parent's names provided. I like to use Breyer or Collecta bodies usually to fill in those BSO parent names on the cards. That particular model's card was super hard to find, until a friend on Facebook finally hooked me up.

Royal Real, GC Alter Real stallion

My brief overview of the breed turned up two obvious problems-- Alter Reals are essentially Lusitanos, bred at the Alter Real Stud in Portugal, and they are predominantly bay. GC has a bad habit of attaching a breed to any type of body, so I've learned to ignore that as much as it may bug the living heck out of other collectors. But the chestnut proved to be a much more challenging problem. My initial search showed two conflicting views-- Alter Reals are ALWAYS bay, and Alter Reals can come in chestnut, black, or gray as well. I figured this meant the breed had gone the way of the Cleveland Bays-- too many bays would flood the genetics with E_A_ individuals, which may or may not be homozygous against the chestnut or black gene. This probably also suggested that chestnuts had existed, even if they were a few generations back, which would mean I could breed it forward by carefully selecting mates that were not homozygous EE themselves.

Unlike many non-English speaking stud farms, the Alter Real one is not hard to find- http://www.alterreal.pt/
(If you are using the Google Chrome browser, it automatically offers to translate it to English for you. I opted for this and explored the site.) The most important part was to the top right of the logo- "Stud Book". This provides a searchable database. Simply enter the horse's name in Nome do Equino and search. But what names to look for? Where to even start?

In searching for terms such as Alter Real chestnut, I stumbled across a blog about someone's visit to the 2008 Alter Real Stud Farm's auction. There- the mention of a black Alter Real, with an accompanying photo. http://horseless.blogspot.com/2008/05/alter-real-really-great-day.html (And Sorraia's! Must investigate that another day). His name was Xuhado, and though his name didn't appear in allbreed, his sire Hircino did, but of course with no color listed. Looking back in his ped, I found the closest chestnut- a 1960 mare named Brasilia. A bit of a stretch (I don't like breeding BSOs in between if I can help it), but she would do if I absolutely had to.

I also found a site- http://www.interagro.com.br/ or http://www.lusitano-interagro.com/ for the English version. Under Interagro's Auctions, it leads to a wonderful 2013 catalog for horses and foals- http://www.interagro.com.br/2013/index.asp. But how to tell what is Alter Real? I prefer using the original website- go back to that and check under Leiloes Interagro, and a couple more links pop up. I've found that the English versions of sites often cut out "excess" links, but when you're digging for info, these links are sometimes crucial. In this case, it leads to the past auctions. Could be uber helpful for someone, but not quite what I'm looking for.

I decided to put Xuhado's name in that pedigree database I found earlier. Jackpot- this shows his birthdate, as well as Pelagem (Color) is black ("preta") Google kindly translates this for me. Unfortunately, no pictures. Clicking the bottom left button, "Ascendencia" produces a short pedigree that is linkable. Score! His sire Hircino's  Pelagem is shown as Castanha. Google translates this to chestnut. Okay! Maybe we're on to something. I trace this back several generations, but then I notice something odd. ALL of the horses are showing up as chestnut. My gut doesn't think this is right, and I switch tactics. I do a search on Portuguese horse colors and stumble across these amazing charts-- http://www.oocities.org/thoroughbredpr/CoatColorsLanguages.htm.

Sure enough, these charts support my belief that Castanha is in fact the word for Bay. Meanwhile, Alazao is the term for chestnut. This makes much more sense, as I've come across the spanish term Alazan often in my research of other breeds. I use this knowledge and do a new google search for alter real alazao, but nothing comes up. I try again- this time using ALL the resources at my disposal. First, I go to allbreed and find up the chestnut mare's name from earlier-- Brasilia. I plug this into my searchable stud book. Several come up, but only one was born in the '60s. Under her info, I find the key- Pelagem- LAZÃ.  This is what they call the chestnuts!!

Now, Google search "alter real LAZÃ" and chaching! Up pops some links including Cavalonet- an auction site for Alter Reals. Now that I am familiar with the basic terms I am looking for, I do not translate the site. I don't want Google mistranslating anything this time.

The link I pick is the 2008 auction- the same one the blogger had written about earlier: http://www.cavalonet.com/pt/eventos/programa.php?idevento=3653

Sure enough, scrolling down, I see 28- Xuhado. There are also several LAZÃ pelagems that I can then go ahead and plug into my pedigree database, cross-checking with allbreed when needed, to figure out a sire and dam that work for me!

Not only was this search successful in finding chestnut Alter Reals, but I found several blacks as well!

If this helped anyone, please let me know! I love doing this sort of research and would like to hear if anyone has been able to use it to your advantage!

P.S. In the end, I had ....

SFC Royal Real

Royal Real, bay stallion that can produce chestnut, as well as a BSO chestnut mare that is available for many older years (come one, come all!).

A Job

Thank you for everyone who prayed and hoped for me to get this job. I heard this morning after waking up that I got it!!

We celebrated with a late lunch at Joe's Crab Shack after spending the day browsing IKEA and Dicks Sporting Goods.

It looks like more models are in my near future!

Arabian Halters- GC Version

My first effort with beaded halters paid off. By marketing to Grand Champion collectors, I was able to bypass the difficult to handle Breyer and resin buyers, who expect top-notch LSQ work, something I'm not even close to being able to create. GC lovers want fun and pretty, and that I can do.

My first halter I made for myself was asked about, and that turned into a family set!

The mare's was the original. I had created it to fit on the Arabian pose mare, but luckily the browband was adjustable, and it easily adapted to the classic mare's head.

The stallion's head is a bit wider, so his was custom made to fit his broad face. Also, the star piece I used had an extra loop at the bottom, so I strung a set of beads between it and the side rings.

It will look great sitting on a shelf, as it's much too delicate for too much movement. The rhinestones are supposed to be self-adhesive, but they don't stick very well through on-again off-again motions. I didn't want to use any ribbon glue, in case it stiffened the breastcollar and made it not flexible.

Either way, it turned out very cute!

Prayers

A bit of a personal post. I got laid off from my job back in October of last year, and have been working as a photographer at dealerships for a little bit of income, enough to pay the bills, that is. It hasn't left much room for savings, pet care, dental, etc, let alone more model buys.

Today I was told by my boss that yet another dealership is having issues, and not to go there for a bit. I'm down to only two dealerships, and it's not enough to get me by. So I came home and jumped on craigslist, and there was ONE ad about a trainee engineering position, by a company I'd tried last year and never got a response. I figured I would give it a shot again, and sure enough, I got asked in for an interview.

I'm just asking for prayers or fingers crossed by everyone I can get, that I do well in the interview and if possible get this job. Having money worries taken off my chest would be fabulous right about now. It's literally enough to turn my life around; that's how important getting this job could be.

The interview is Monday. I'll let everyone know how it goes!

My Breeding Project- Overo Arabians

First, a bit about me:
I am an anti-critic. Whenever someone criticizes a book or movie, or dislikes something for no real valid reason other than out of spite or to be 'different' than the crowd, it makes me want to defend it more. I enjoy things. I really like food, and all kinds of books, and all kinds of movies. And to relate this back to our favorite topic-- all kinds of horses. There are several breeds that cause a lot of debate, and one of these is the Pintabian. It is considered a 'designer' breed and yada yada yada. What matters is it's beautiful. And it's mostly Arabian. Arabians with color. Really? You can't get much better than that.

So I wanted to make my own beautiful breed. Same concept. Just....I've always fancied overo slightly more than tobiano. And I had several models of Arabian type sporting a frame overo pattern. Why not? The overo gene is lethal in its homozygous form, but the goal of my program would be breeding back to pure Arabians, which would never carry the gene and allow it to become homozygous; therefore, the lethal aspect would not exist in my program. The only stipulation of course, being that an Overo-Arabian (Ovab? Overabian? Arabero? so much fun!) could not be bred to another one of the same type. And of course this pretty much negates the idea of being a real breed. A breed in which members can't breed to each other? Nonsense!
I can only imagine all the critics now. But the great part is-- this is model horses, and everything is hypothetical and theoretical and fantasy, and fun.

So, I had the idea and the motivation. The next step was the models. My end goal was to create him:

SFC Fire Song, 99.2% Arab

Not only did I have to breed up the overo pattern, but the cream gene as well. Finding models (I do not like creating a string of BSOs for breeding projects, as that isn't enough of a challenge for me) with both would be tough, but I was sure I could make it work. In fact, I had a huge group of pinto patterned horses awaiting IDs, too many to make all of them Paints!

Honestly, I could've made him a Paint-Arabian cross and called it good, but he is one of my favorite Arabian molds and I wanted to keep him as high percentage as I could. If I wanted to mimic the Pintabian, 99% was high enough. It takes seven generations to reach that from two parents of different breeds. I decided mares and stallions could produce foals at 4. I started with a mixed list of stallions and mares until I figured out an acceptable year to begin breeding. That happened to be 1988.

SFC Sultan of Luck

I started with an ambiguous foal. No one can tell exactly how a 50/50 cross will look, as genes don't always influence exactly half the time or in the same way. So I knew the first foal did not have to contain a lot of Arabian characteristics. He was also a passable buckskin, so he was a good start for the cream gene. 

I crossed Sultan on my Arabian mare, SFC Desert Night by Cass Ole(r) and got a lovely palomino filly with a more expressive form of frame-

SFC Desert Sun

She was bred back to our stallion SFC Ambition by Paarden (r) to create a stunning palomino colt SFC Desertion.

SFC Desertion

SFC Desertion bred with my Arabian mare SFC Pirouette by Padron (r) to create a smoky black mare SFC Dark Ballet.

SFC Dark Ballet

Dark Ballet was a custom done for me by my good friend Cari. She was originally pedigreed in my stable as a Paint, but I knew her Arabian features and flashy color deserved a more important role. She was bred to SFC Fire At Bey by Huckleberry Bey (r) to produce SFC Bey Ballet, a fiesty buckskin colt.

SFC Bey Ballet

By this time, Bey Ballet was foaled 2004 and 96.88% Arab. I still had a few breedings to do before I reached 99% Arabian, and that foal would be too young to immediately produce 'full' Overo Arabian foals. Of course I opted to make that last horse a stallion so he could sire multiple foals his first foal crop.

Bey Ballet covered SFC Sirens Song by Ruminaja Ali (r) and produced SFC Ballet Song. She is the key-at 98.4% Arabian, when crossed with a pure Arabian, she would foal 99.2% foals. And she only had two open years- 2012 and 2013. 2012 went to my foundation stallion Fire Song. 2013 went to auction, to hopefully be won by someone with as much vision as I have for my special project.

SFC Ballet Song

I am so happy to finally have it finished, but I will be even more excited in two years when Fire Song's first foals start making their debut.

I plan to breed Bey Ballet again to create another 'key', this time a stallion. This key will have the ability to produce 99.2% Overo Arabians even though they aren't 'full' themselves. That way I will have a half sibling I can use to promote in the next auction, as well.

My next goal will be to breed up the roan gene with the overo, but I don't have to tell you how hard those models will be to find! Looks like I might have a lot of cm'ing to do in my future ;)

I was a little disappointed that most of my breeding stock turned out to be foals, but that just happened to be what I had needing to be ID'd. Hopefully my roans will be more adult bodied than foal.

Thanks for reading about my breeding project!

Grand Champions Model Horse Club

Back in 2010, I was still relatively new to the online model horse scene. I was just setting up my s/d list and getting my horses into photo showing. But I learned very early on that GCs were not rated very high in the community. And yet I found little pockets of collectors strewn throughout the web of collectors, so I created a forum specifically for lovers of this retired brand.

It lasted a year before real life swamped many of the regulars, and first the photo showing and then the club died down to a bare trickle. New collectors came along, wrote a post, and then faded out when no reply came. Much of the hobby migrated to Facebook, and forums were used mostly as bases for photo showing clubs, as much of the main interactions including buying and selling took place on the popular site. It seemed like there was not much use for the old forum format anymore.

So it was to my surprise that a discussion, albeit small, had cropped up on -surprise, surprise- my old club! The posters were lamenting the ghost board, and wishing for more activity. I responded, gauging their interest, and then went back to the forum to scrounge around in the dust and see what I could dig up. Although many of the posts were old, the framework was solid. I knew in a couple hours of cleanup, the club could be as good as new. I set to work. The worst that could happen was it flopped again.

My first step was upgrading. Proboards offered a Version 5 format to their forums. I knew in order to get a fresh start, the forum needed a new look. I went ahead with the upgrade, and then fiddled with the color palettes for awhile before settling on an earthy set. As much as I wanted pink, I wanted something that felt homey more!

Here is the final result (although I think you now have to become a member to view it, if I did it right!)--

www.gcmhc.proboards.com

My favorite upgrade was the addition of the shoutbox, a feature that allows all the members to interact in a chat room, something none of the clubs I am a part of focuses on. Facebook can come close, but often people pop on to post and then pop off, only returning to respond to an inquiry on their post. I feel like if there was more real-time discussion and communication in the hobby, a lot of the cattiness would fade and people would become greater friends. Obviously it could never come close to hanging out in person, but for a group of strangers, it's a start.

V5 allowed me to send a mass email to all members, something I would normally never do, but in this case, I wanted to let everyone know that there was a club to come back to.

Now, the only thing to do it wait.

Crafty

I'm not normally a crafty person. Nor am I a very sporty person. Let's just say that unless it involves more than some complicated button mashing on a video game, I'm not a very coordinated person.

However, lately I've been feeling the heat and its making me all stuck-in-the-house moody similar to how the Wyoming winter made me feel. So I've managed to turn that into a 'let's make things!' mood.

First it was a spontaneous Stablemate halter....

The only chain I had available was a bit big, but not bad for a 15-minute halter at 7 am on a rainy morning ^.^

A few days later, I felt like trying out another blanket, after buying nice new black material for my base. The black fabric I'd been using before was much too thin for my liking. I added some rhinestones to spice it up. Looks great on my gray mare! Very Western Pleasure.

And then I made a big venture--an Arab Presentation set for Grand Champions! I knew I didn't have enough experience or skill to compete in a Breyer market, but I think Classics and GCs are much underdone, so I set about making one to keep, or sell if anyone showed interest. Thankfully, two people did!

I'm still working on adding all the beads to the breastcollar. We'll see if the buyers are interested in the collars or just the halters. Either way, looks like I hit a small field of interest!

Sorraia Mustangs

For only having said 200 head of horses, this "breed" was not too difficult to look up. Granted, the pedigrees are limited, although not as bad as you might expect. It was fairly easy to find early '90s horses with parents and grandparents' names listed. Much more than I could have hoped for!

I do find it sad that many of the "Mustangs" in the model world get lumped together under BLM or some such generalization, and called good. That's almost the equivalent of lumping the stock horses together and saying QHs, Paints, and Appaloosas are all one and the same because they share similar ancestry. (A valid argument could very well be made to that point, which I would not be disinclined to listen to, but the point being is that each respective owner of each of those breeds will hotly debate that their breed is tougher/better/smarter/patterned prettier than either of the others). MY point being that while we have models we can buy at relatively cheap prices compared to whole horse prices, why not put forth the effort and give them a bit more meaning and dig a little deeper into what makes them special? BLM Mustang or not, certain mustang types are absolutely gorgeous and do deserve a second glance.

Sorraias are one of those breeds. Almost entirely made up of grullos and bay duns, it is a dun lovers dream.

Althought this time, instead of leading you through my whole process, I'll just provide you with the links that I found helpful.

http://www.spanish-mustang.org/SorraiaMustang/SorraiaMustangStudbook.html

http://www.sorraiamustangs.net/mares.htm

http://sorraia.org/for-sale.html

http://www.sorraia.com/Sorraias/sorraias.html

And the links at the side of this blog: http://ravenseyrie.blogspot.com/

Other information I found helpful that I will highlight here--

Sorraia Mustangs are categorized into three divisions (aside from being purebred or not): Permanent, Foundation, or Tentative. Horses will be registered with a letter (P, F,or T) followed by their number based on what division they are in. Permanent means the horse fits every criteria the Sorraia mustang should display. Foundation means the horse is close, but lacks a minor detail such as too much white. Tentative means the horse has the basic characteristics yet a significant difference from the goal, but is expected to produce foals of Foundation type or better.

There is also evidence that foals are named by their parentage (fillies with the first letter of their dam's name, colts with the first letter of their sire's).

I now have bay dun and grullo parents available!

Until next time~~~

Italian Heavy Drafts, Revisited

I originally tried to research and pedigree my lone Italian Heavy Draft mare back in January, but it did not have a fruitful ending. I left my followers with a few links, to a farm website and a breed organization, as well as one "under maintenance".

SFC Vegas

For a brief recap-- Italian Heavy Drafts are more commonly known as Cavallo Agricolo Italiano Da Tiro Pesante Rapido, or TPR for short. They are bred for meat, and they are relatively rare as horse breeds go. Their most common color is chestnut, but they do come in bay and roan. I have not seen evidence of gray, nor of sabino. There *may* be rabicano.

I took up the challenge this past week, and I had much much more luck! For starters, I revisited the breed's main website-- http://www.anacaitpr.it/ . Unless you can read Italian (?), I would suggest using Google's translate, which can translate whole websites for you, into your preferred language.

On the front page, there are several links. SOGGETTI IN VENDITA means something along the lines of For Sale, and I found a lovely older mare to fit my purposes of filling a stallion pedigree to accompany my broodmare, so I would at least have a breeding pair. I still intended to find a roan, but that would come later. And so, I pedigreed SFC Richter as a full sibling to Remi (r).

SFC Richter

There are also other helpful links- Stalloni in F.A. loosely translates to currently available stallions, as I understood it, and there are three very attractive, albeit young, stallions to choose from. The other links lead to other possibly helpful pages for the more avid researcher, but those two led to the best picture/pedigree sources.

The biggest breakthrough came when I checked the website that had been under maintenance last time, caitpr.org. It was back up and running, and boy was it helpful! The most important link is at the very top- Archivio Fotografico CAITPR, Photo Archive. Here, they have pictures of current stallions and mares, as well as names of their sires/dams/damsires. Goldmine! I found not one, but a couple roans that I could choose from, and happily pedigreed my mare. I also crossed her with the lone bay stallion I could find to create a 2013 bay roan colt in my stable. He won't be able to breed for some time, but he will have a fuller pedigree and a hard to find color, once he does!

SFC Georgi

Other important information for us Pedigree Assigners--

The horses are roughly named with a certain letter per year. I copied out the "formula" below:

A- 2007

B-2008

C- 2009

D- 1990/2010

E- 1991

F- 1992

G- 1993

I- 1994

L- 1995

M- 1996

N- 1997

O- 1998

P- 1999

Q- 2000

R- 2001

S- 2002

T- 2003

U-2004

V-2005

Z-2006

From D on, each successive letter is for years after 2010, so E=2011, F-2012, etc. Another way to remember it is that they are 20 years apart (20 letters of the alphabet used), so D=1990/2010, E='91/ '11, etc. This helps when you want to backtrack into the '70s and '80s. Using this, you can gauge what year a sire/dam was born based on the first letter of the name, as well as what years they had foals.

Other helpful vocabulary to know, as far as I could deduce:

Stallioni- stallion

Fattrici- mare

Puledro- Colt

Puledra- Filly

Ubero- roan

Baio- bay

Sauro- chestnut

Please leave your comments below, especially if this article helped you, or if you have any questions for me. Thanks!

Burnout?

Those people that know me know that I am a pretty positive person. Even when I'm making a serious comment, very often it's with a smile or in a joking, lighthearted manner. I really only get angry when people directly attack me or my friends. And it's VERY hard to offend me with obscenity or crude humor. With all that in mind, I find it hard to address the feelings I've been having lately. I don't want to call it hobby burnout, because I don't feel like I've done anything to feel overwhelmed. I don't live show. I hardly have many pedigrees to put out. I have a healthy enough financial situation that new models can keep coming in, and still do. But once they get here............eh. Nothing. I take their pics, maybe match them to an ID, and then they go on the shelf. No playtime, hardly any photo time, and no sense of enjoyment. (Beyond the initial thrill of spending money and having a brand new box in my hands). Am I a habitual hobbier? Do I do it by habit now? Ugh, to even think these thoughts!

I think, if I have to Freud myself, that some of it has to do with my upcoming birthday. I'll be turning 25. Quarter centennial. Now, most of the ladies in the hobby are older than that and will scoff and laugh, but for me looking ahead--a good third of my life is probably gone. I'm still not married. Still don't have kids. Haven't traveled to Europe. Or owned my own horse. Heck, haven't even really learned to ride, yet! I'm having a quarter-life crisis.

Weirdly, my free time has shifted from horses and video games to reading and flipping through cookbooks, daydreaming about babies and the moment I'd find out I'm pregnant, and thinking about making scrapbooks. Is that nesting? I don't know. Someone tell me, please! Haha.

Or. Or am I just bored and it's totally temporary and it'll pass soon enough? I sure hope so!!!

Stunner

Wow! I MUST get a black custom in this mold-

There is just so

much

action!

My dealer got in a new shipment, and I've been waiting since the Scottsdale Arabian Horse show to pick up one of these! Thankfully some arrived this time, and there were two when I stopped by.

Looks like I have another Gypsy Vanner stallion in my stable. As much as other Pedigree Assigners hate the lack of info and "true" breeding of Vanners, as well as the stigma that came with the whole copyright issue---do I own one of the larger herds of them?


Either way, love this mold!

Craftiness

I was bored enough yesterday I felt like trying to be crafty.

I've been working on this one for a day or two, and finally finished her late yesterday afternoon-

She's my first chestnut, and only my third or fourth attempt at pastels. I am extremely happy with the way her shading came out, as she's a relatively boring liver chestnut :P

She does have some rough spots, considering I'm a klutz and can't keep myself from knocking them over while they're drying. And even then, specks of dirt or other stuff magically appears on them even if I've been extra careful! Luckily, she shows in a photo well, even if she will never see the inside of a live show ring.

I did her 100% for myself anyway, to fill a BSO I knew would take awhile to fill by waiting for an appropriate Breyer body. And what better excuse for practicing pasteling? And I absolutely love this mold. There doesn't ever seem to be enough good mare molds, and when the one I like happens to be on a cheap SM body, I gotta take advantage of it!

A Pedigreeing Crime

It really is. Today, I finally got around to fully pedigreeing my oldest model horse. "Oldest" as in, the model horse that's been sitting on my shelf since the very beginning of my hobby, before it was even a hobby. It really is a crime that it took me this long to get her pedigreed.

I did have a good reason, honest. Grand Champions made bio cards with the model's name and a short story about them, as well as the name of their sire and dam. Inspired by another GC collector's PA process of finding bodies to match the BSO parent names on the cards, I set out to do the same. I prefer to pedigree models, not BSOs, so the GCs essentially waited in line while I found parent bodies, pedigreed them, and then finished the pedigree on the GCs.

Thoroughbreds are so numerous (as are Quarter Horses and Arabians!), that I procrastinated on doing them. Yet now that I've begun, pedigrees are falling into place very neatly. And, as I finished an older mare's pedigree, I realized her daughter was Grey Willow, my original. I got her back in 1996. Seventeen years is a long time to not know your heritage!

Apologies, Norman Cobs, and PAMs

First off, apologies to all my readers for my nearly two month absence! Where have the days gone? What happened, in reality, was a new job, and a new puppy. Both of these required all of my focus for the initial introduction, but now things have settled into a sort of rhythm.

Who could resist such a hopeful face?

The hours for my job vary tremendously. It all depends on how many cars are ready at the dealerships I go to, how fast I can do them, and whether or not I get stuck in traffic. I travel nearly 100 miles each day, visiting three (initially five, but Lexus went elsewhere) dealerships, and driving approximately 20 cars a day. Some days are more, some days are less. Rainy or 110 degree + days are my days off. Oh, and weekends, of course.

Yesterday, I got home early, and decided to spend my free time putting pedigrees in for Model Horse Fun Club's annual (spring?) pedigree. I can't remember if we do two a year now, or not. Well, going through my website, I saw my lonely Norman Cob mare and decided- she needs a mate.

SFC Belle Starr, bay Norman Cob mare

As suggested by the name, Norman Cobs are not from this side of the world, and therefore, most of my hunting took me into the depths of French websites. I brought my handy-dandy Google translator, and went to work.

What I found amazed me. There was a wealth of information, and not just for Norman Cobs, but Mulassier Poitevins, too!

I happily took what I found and pedigreed all five of my existing Mulassiers, and created not one, but two studs to accompany Belle Starr. I also added a sixth Mulassier stallion from a Breyer body that had troubled me from the start.

Grand Monsieur, bay roan Mulassier stallion

I didn't know what exactly his color was supposed to be, and I already had way too many Clydesdales, thanks to GC's Clyde mania. He fit in so well with all the drafts I saw, I knew he had to be one!

As for the PAM, well, there was a PAF with her as well. Two weeks ago, I saw them at a flea market in Mesa for $40 for the pair. I couldn't afford it then, and left them with a heavy heart. I went back this weekend, not really expecting them to be there, but other than having moved shelves, they were still waiting for me!

For those that don't know me, my boyfriend of 5 years, Shawn, is both handsome and supportive of my unusual hobby (how did I get so lucky?) When we went to get them, I looked at him and told him how much they were, and I wouldn't get them if he didn't think we could afford it. All he does? Holds out his hands so I can hand them to him and he can carry them up to the register.

One of my favorite pictures of us. We swapped sunglasses for the fun of it.

Pictures will hopefully be forthcoming of my new mare and foal!

Provided For

I received a call this evening as I was making dinner (that, in itself, is uncommon!). Since I bought the house, I've been bombarded with companies trying to market their products, so I've learned to let unknown numbers go to voicemail.

It was the man hiring the automotive photographer, and he wanted to offer me the job. I gladly accepted, of course!

What does that mean for my hobby? Everything good! It means that I will be treating myself to a new model out of the first paycheck, as a celebratory gift to myself. It means my precious ponies are safe from Evilbay and Facebook. And it means I maybe, just maybe, have a chance to get all the lovely models I want this year.

That means I can treat myself to daydreams of which model it's going to be. The custom model in the antique store clear across town (hour drive?). One of the Stone Morgans I desperately desire? The new Breyer Gypsy Vanner? The much delayed Totilas? Which one do you guys vote for?

Thanks to all who have been praying and thinking good thoughts for me! I thank the Lord for this opportunity, and for the income that comes with it.

2013 Scottsdale Arabian Horse Show

I got to go again this year, thanks to my awesome Grandma, who likes looking at the pretty grays.

I posted the whole reel on a photobucket album here

http://s179.beta.photobucket.com/user/fearthegold/library/2013%20Scottsdale%20Arabian%20Horse%20Show

For those who don't want to wade through all 359 photos, I'll do a highlight here!

I went Saturday the 23rd and Sunday the 24th to meet Sshameless and watch the Classic Championships. Those are always the highlights for me. I tried to catch a few of the other events, but the seats closest to the arenas are reserved and I only have a mid-range lens, so getting decent pictures is difficult. I'll leave awesome performance pictures and tack explanation posts to the Braymere blog ;)

Luckily, I was in the right place at the right time when Rick Love Stables was handing out fliers and inviting everyone to come for a meet n greet of their horses. I imagined they would allow us back into the stables to see the horses through the bars, but little did I know we would get a much closer display!

They brought out Ames Charisma, and it was my first time seeing a National Champion so close. The only celebrities I care about are the horse kind! Luckily for us, he was a bit of showoff.

I can't quite remember the names because I was too busy taking pictures, but the chestnut seemed a little intimidated at the nose-touching!

Later, I couldn't help getting a shot of this gorgeous black

Later that day (Saturday), I got to meet Sshameless. My grandma was again amazing and picked me up a signed copy of the Breyer model, who is just stunning in person, much like the real one!

I hate hate hate having my picture taken. I always look better in the mirror than in pictures! LOL. That is owner Lisa Shover, who I asked how Sshameless was named, and she had started explaining to me, as I remembered I should be looking at the camera for pictures.

Sunday morning, I wanted to watch the working cow competition before the Classics started at 10.

And then the Classics. I always take lots and lots of pictures (ergo why the album has 300+!)

They do geldings first, then fillies, colts, mares, stallions, and supreme champion. Both years I've gone, champion stallion took supreme champion. Seems reasonable, considering how flashy they are!

This was the second time he got the filly to do this, so I'm assuming it was a trick they were teaching her. Unfortunately, right after this picture, she got her leg tangled in the line and took off. They stopped her over near the gate, and she seemed unharmed. Last year they had a loose horse, as well, although the baby had gotten spunky and the amateur handler had let go of the leadline.

It's not always the babies who get skittish. This year, one of the stallions took a bit of a tumble. Sat down on his butt, really, but it is always nerve wracking because you don't want them to get hurt!

One of the stallions bolted as he came into the arena, and the handler was nearly dragged on his feet. Props to him, he was able to keep up with the stallion and get him under control, earning a large applause from the crowd. I don't get pictures of the actual incidents, because I don't want to create negative press for the horses/stables, and in case the horse/handler got hurt. I'm sure there are some floating around somewhere else, though, if you need to satisfy your curiousity!

And *Pogrom, winning the Stallion Classic Champion, as well as the Supreme Championship! He certainly is a gorgeous fellow!