Amber's Mayday

We bought two more horses, which brings us to nine horses total. We are very close to a full house! Amber’s Mayday is a 10-year-old registered American Saddlebred mare. She stands about 16 hands tall (64 inches, 5 feet, 4 inches), is coal black with white socks on her back legs and a small star on her forehead. Mayday (born May 1, 1996) has a two-month-old colt at her side. At the moment, his coat is two tones of chocolate brown and he has four white socks and a star on his forehead. He does not have a name yet.

At the Iowa Gold Star Futurity there is an evening when stallion breedings are auctioned for the next season. We bought four breedings; three to purebred Arabian stallions and one to a purebred American Saddlebred that is a homozygous pinto, meaning all his foals with have pinto marking. Such a stallion sires our 3-month-old colt Kiss. The pairing of an Arabian and an American Saddlebred makes a new breed called National Show Horse, which is what Kiss is. In March or April of 2007 we plan to breed our Quarter horse Nutmeg, Thoroughbred Bentley and Mayday for foals in 2008 (horse gestation is 11 months and 10 days). Kiss’s mother Windy is already bred and will deliver in early May 2007. After Windy foals we plan to breed her again so we will expect four foals in Spring 2008.

In October, Kiss will be weaned and then go to live at Genesis Training Center to begin training with Tony Steiner. It’s possible that our other two-year-old gelding, Cairo, (the first horse we bought back in December 2005) may go there too. Cairo has spent quite a gangly spring and summer and is beginning to fill out and could well go back to the show ring as a halter horse. If he learns his lessons well, Kiss’s first show will be in Scottsdale, Arizona in February 2007. Tony is a superb trainer and all around excellent person. I am confident in his abilities to bring the best out in both horse and handler. We are so incredibly lucky to work with him and it all began with buying Cairo at the horse auction last December. Tony was the person who brought Cairo to auction for his former owner. I wrote Tony a letter to learn more about Cairo’s background and that’s how we met.

EIEIO