Snösvad

Ok, more or less settled in at the new place. Most of the stuff is here, horses, cats, dog kids too. Now all thats left is getting unpacked and organized! Ida has settled in at the new school the last couple of days. Me and Annelie´s been with her for a couple of classes each day to ease her in to things. Started Kick The Cat finally and she´s doing good. Was really quiet and calm the first time in the new roundpen/arena the other day. Took everything really well. Last night she was a bit anxious but held it together on our second ride. She feels pretty good and her leg seems to be holding up so far. Horses are getting aclimated pretty well I think.

Really love it here! Great people all around us and the little town of Malmköping is a real friendly and welcoming place!

Here are some pics for you all:

Barn and arena/roundpen

arena

"The Beef"

Kick The Cat

La Flor del Viento

Fiffilina

House





Brady & Avenir

Elton

Sunset

Tackroom

Stalls

Martin "Quickdraw" Langels

Line driving Kick The Cat

Second ride

Doing good!



Ida in the stands

Ida & Gizmo

Weekend

Spent the weekend working, packing and celebrating Ida´s birthday. Had the farrier over Friday night. Put shoes on Cat to help her out alittle. She doesn´t have the best feet in the world after all her leg problems. She´s compensated for the various ailments and not worn her hoofs even. The farrier did a great job on all our horses but the poor guy didn´t get home until way past midnight!

Saturday saw the harness race circuit come to town and I had to work. Great races though, and you can see summer´s coming by the quality of horses in the races.

Had friends and family over for Ida´s birthday party Sunday. Really nice day and Ida had a blast.

It´s time for semis in the open Super Stakes after 2 goarounds and 286 entries!

Really hard to pick a favorite as the scores been all over the place. Most consistant, futurity champ One Time Royalty with his 219-217.5 for a 436.5 composite. It took 229.5 to advance and 60+ties made it, with a total of 72 horses in the semifinals on Friday.

I´m not totally convinced One Time Royalty can go all the way this time though. Probably need atleast a 216-217 to advance to the finals but we´ll know more after the semis Friday. There are a couple of horses I really like and root alittle extra for: Shannon Hall & Smart Little Wood (Nitas Wood), Phil Rapp´s Smoothe Bye Design (Smooth As A Cat), Wes Galyean´s Some Like It Hot (Spots Hot), One Rowdy Kitty & Curtis Bass and Roger Wagners Stylish Martini (Docs Stylish Oak). Remember Roger Wagners outstanding mare Quintan Blue? She only made $600.000 in the showpen. Well, she´s got 3 offspring in the semis! The two High Brow Cats; Cat Man Blue & Cat Got The Blues along with the Tunica Champ. Blue One Time (One Time Pepto)!
Gonna be exciting!

Reminiscing...

Lots of cutting posts lately. It´s really tiring trying to follow all the action over the webcast too. Some serious red-eye here, I even have nightmares about them darn cuttinghorses!

So, as I stumbled upon a bunch of old pics I thought I´d post them instead, not a cutter in sight!
We were mostly fooling around with "Jiggy-Joggers" back then. Standardbred Trotters are, more or less, "the" Equine industry over here. That´s where all the money is and most races have a $12-15.000 purse or more. Most Aged Events have a $6-700.000 purse! Nedles to say, we wern´t even close to those races or checks, other than me taking pics of `em!

This is me breaking Dogie Jones, a 2yo trotter colt. Pics taken about 9-10 years ago.



Dogie as a 4yo



This would be me and our son, Ben. Me on trotter gelding Laritz Fighter and Ben on his pony Hilding.



He actually hang around the horses back then (10 years ago)

This is what he´s up to nowaday´s, and what he now rides most of the time!

Spring is in the air!

The sun was peekin out yesterday! First day on the new year where it actually was warm enough you started pealing off clothes! The ice & snow are gone from the arena wich enabled us to actually work the horses more seriously. Brady´s getting back somewhat in shape and is down 1 off the 2 holes in girth widht we are aiming for. He did good and I think he actually enjoyed himself as much as I did. Worked the fillies some too. Kick The Cat was saddled up again and fooled around with. Will straddle her in a day or two if there´s no setbacks. Had Polly up in the arena too. She pretty much acts like her sibblings have with a "been there, done that"attitude. Pretty cool little horse she is!

1st go in the 4yo Open Super Stakes yesterday saw a horde of interesting contestants. Mates Mister Sunette (Smart Mate) tops with a 220. In 4th is a really nice One Time Pepto filly named Oaks Rowdy Kitty scoring 218.5. She´s out of Oaks Rowdycat (High Brow Cat-Katie Be Acre Doc) who´s a sister to our Swedish friend Erik Anderssons great mare KT Pep. Oaks Rowdy Kitty, bred by Jeffrey Matthews, sold for $100.000 to Sandy Sabey as a 2 yearold! She did make the Futurity semi finals last year.

Super Stakes Classic finals

Reys Desire and Lee Francois won the Super Stake Classic finals with a 225. The duo won the first go around and remained one of the favorites for the $50.000 finals check. Reys Desire, Super Stakes 4-yo Champion last year, was first to go in the second set last night and was chasing Prime Time Cat & Clint Allen in the lead after set 1 with a strong 219.5. Reys Desire started really strong and finished her run the same way and eventually put up a grand 225. Reserv Champion was Matt Gaines aboard Special Nu Baby. The duo was right up there with Reys desire after two head and skimmed a third cow agressively to really go for the win. Unfortunately the last cow was pretty dull and didn´t really challenge Matts horse and the pair ended up second with a 222.5. The two CD Lights who made the finals, A Little Bossy & Willys The Boss, placed 3rd and 5th respectevily.


The classic is in the books and now the focus shifts to the 4yo open starting Wednesday.

We´re shutteling back and forth between the old place and the new with furniture, boxes, odds & ends. The barn is starting to take shape and is gonna be a dandy! Almost a shame to stall horses in there :)) The work on the new house is also progressing and it needs to be completed by easter, when we plan to move in.