Well, this weekend we say "Goodbye" to Phoebe! Her new owners, Buddy Peg and hubby Rick, will be here this weekend and then Phoebe goes "home" on Sunday. We sure are gonna miss that little girl, but she will be in such awesome and loving hands. We couldn't have hand-picked a better family for her!

Some of you may know that we decided to breed Fanny and Spice this year. They are both of the right age, and have great bloodlines to pass on. After much consideration, we chose to breed Fanny to a great appaloosa stallion, Cool Hand Luke, owned by Frank Larabee. Fanny was ready last week, so we had the "essence" shipped here and the vet came out to breed her. Two days later, she was checked and the vet found that Fanny ovulated. However, she was checked today and we were disappointed to find out it did not take. We will probably try one more time.

Spice was ultrasounded last week in anticipation of a Thursday or Friday "ready" date.  Surprise surprise, she had progressed much more quickly than expected and had a 4mm follicle and needed to be bred that day!  The stallion owner could not get the selected western pleasure stallion collected in time to get a FedEx shipment out, but he had just collected Cool Hand Luke for another mare and could send us some of that "essence" - did we want that instead and breed Spice to the same stallion as Fanny?  Yep, Bill did, and so MAYBE Spice and Fanny will have half-siblings next year, hopefully.  They will be gorgeous.

Erika has been working with Matilda and finally got her under saddle. They had a really good first "ride".  Matilda was a bit concerned about all the new ideas, but she remained pretty relaxed and Erika worked with her to keep it light and positive.  Despite the fact that Matilda is not as laid back as most of Zippy's babies I think she's going to be a good learner.  She is eager to please, loves the attention and seems smart.  Plus, her feet like to MOVE so it is actually easy to make a correction or teach her a new thing - sometimes a very laid back horse takes longer to learn because they usually have to move to learn something and may "drift off" on you.  There was no temper or bad behavior or attitude, so I was proud of little Matilda.  They did really well together and we're looking forward to seeing her progress in the weeks ahead.  And she looked very cute under saddle - we're wishing she was an older two year old!

All three babies are getting bigger, but the older foals are really in a growth spurt. Chief has already outgrown his first baby halter! He is also a very "cheeky" (lol) guy in other ways, and is really curious about visitors. Chief loves attention and you can see his little brain trying to figure out what you are saying and doing. Sport is a touch less in-your-face but always very confident and calm, too.  Erika is making lots of noise on purpose when she leads them in and out daily so that they are calm when unexpected things pop up, but it will also really benefit Sport when he makes his debut at Midwest Horse Fair this weekend.  And Roxy's baby girl is just what you see - spunky, confident and oh-so-cute.  She will be the apple of her daddy's eye some day!