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!