Cows and more auction

Gearing up to put Kick The Cat on a cow. She's had maybe 20 rides or so on her and it's about time to start tracking one. She's doing great by the way. Still taking things really slow and easy to let her mind keep up with the rest of her. Most of the challenge, besides keeping her sound, is to keep her calm and balanced. She's pretty hyper at times, so lots of slow work and plenty of breathers and just standing around is the ticket.
It feels like she's got all the ability in the world though and it will be exciting to see how she handles a critter. Hopefully we'll find the time this weekend, I've got races to cover both Saturday & Sunday, but I'll keep you posted.

The WR This Cats Smart colt in the previous post sold for $5.400 yesterday by the way! Wish I could've been there (but with somebody elses pocketbook!)

Today, in the select session, there's an abundance of interesting colts up in the ring.

73. Good Good Almighty mentioned yesterday might be a little pricey. I like to find the hidden gems in there, horses I could actually afford. I'm looking for a potential stud prospect this time so the ones mentioned are all colts.

Here's a couple:


62. Stylish Lena Rey, (Stylish Rey-Petite Olena) First horse up, usually gets a lower bid than normal. Interesting damside, Petite Olena won $33.000 and 2nd dam, Peppy Petite, $120.000 in the cutting pen. Stylish Rey's first major crop.


77. Time For The Diamond, (One Time Pepto-Diamonds With Style) Probably gonna be to pricey, but what the heck. Gardiner Ranch usually has a very high RNA and buy's back a couple every year. But OTP on a Playing Stylish daughter with a NRCHA record and more blacktype on the bottom sure has my attention. He's a looker too don't you think!


81. Cadilac Rey, (Dual Rey-Sumkinda Pinkcadilac) This one's borderline too but a friend bought his full brother 2 years ago for $10.000 and that's about my virtual limit so he's included. Dual Rey needs no introduction and the damside, it doesn´t get much better! Dam produced a NCHA Futurit Finalist and 2nd & 3rd dams are Somkinda Memories and Somekinda Playgirl!


86. Fletch The Cash, (Royal Fletch-Mo Flo) This one's interesting! The Royal Fletches usually doesn't bring much at the auctions but this guy's got some decent siblings. Mo Flo earned $130.000 herself as a cutter and has produced one of the colts Boyd Rice is competing on this weekend, Fletchmo, placed in the middle of the pack in the Futurity prelims after a not so stellar fencework.


132 Apolo Oak, (CD Olena-Shiners Little Oak) I love the CD Olenas and this one is half brother to last years Futurity champ Stylish Little Oak. Again, might be alittle over budget but lets pretend we can afford him! San Juan Ranch sells just about all of them so this one shouldn´t be to inflated.


94. Wheres My Spot, (Spots Hot-Wheres My Shine) Saved this one for last! This one could very well be lost among all the High Brow Cats, Dual Reys and One Time Peptos. I like the Spots Hot babies with Harley $160.000, Some Like It Hott $150.000 and Sticky Spot $70.000 in NCHA earnings, and this guy have a damside! Wheres My Shine was NRCHA Non Pro Futurity champ and earned $80.000, 2nd dam Boomerita also earned some NRCHA cash and has produced $215.000. 3rd dam produced NRHA derby champ and million dollar sire Conquistador Whiz. Since I lost out on Purdy Wrockin Cat yesterday This is my buy!

Auction time!

I love this time of year!
Auctions everywhere and plenty of horseflesh changing hands. Here in Sweden the biggest Standardbred yearling auction of the year takes place this Thursday and the following 3 day's. Some 466 yearlings up for grabs!

Even more interesting from my view is the NRCHA Snafflebit auction over the same dates as the one above. Plenty of well bred colts and some interesting broodmares, showhorses and last but not least 2yearolds. The select 2yo sale is really something, where the bidding takes place while the colts works a cow in the pen. Really cool. Some of these youngsters might get worked pretty hard no doubt and I usually like the yearling section better. Friday you can find a full brother to one of this years Futurity frontrunners, The One Time, 2nd place after the prelims.

Hip No. 73 - Good God Almighty (AQHA) 10 rd..rn.s. (One Time Pepto x Love Em N Lena/Smart Little Lena) Dam LTE $114,190; full sister to LENAS WRIGHT ON. 2nd dam has produced $262,000+. NRCHA Stakes, NRBC, NRHA.


One of my favorites is this guy in the classic sale:
Hip No. 9 - Purdy Wrockin Cat (AQHA) 10 gr.s. (Wr This Cats Smart x Purdy Weed/Tumbleweed Smith) 2nd dam LTE $62,948, produced $183,376. NRCHA Stakes.

He's got the whole Miss Silver Pistol package (Playgun, Smart Little Pistol, Purdy Pistol, Silver Pepto Pistol etc.) and one of the hotter High Brow Cats as a sire.

As for the Snaffle bit Futurity, Les is still hanging on, tied 3rd, and heading for the finals, way to go! The 6666 Ranch Waresthecat colt, Sixes First Cat ridden by Boyd Rice, knocked them dead in the cowwork yesterday and took the overall lead. Another 50 or so horses finish their cowwork today. Our friend Richard Caldwell showed his nice Dual Rey colt Sumkinda Rey in the Open. They didn´t fare so well unfortunately but it´s really good to see Richard well enough to show at all, still rooting for you Richard!

New Friends

Got my new friends out to play today! Three little yearling heiffers. Started out sorting through them alittle and herding a little bit before we seperated them and worked one at a time.









They were really nice cows with just enough bubble on them and a little run when you asked for it.


Started out nice and slow. Brady was a little rusty and had to be reminded of the correct way to stop and turn with them.


He picked it up though and we even got some fence work done.










Nice horse and a nice day.

Gizmo got to play with his buddy Buster too.


As did Ida who went for a drive with Fiffilina and a ride with the big girls on Elton.

Time to get busy!

Where to start! There's been alot going on lately. The Scandinavian Cutting Futurity last weekend took abunch of time and effort to pull off, but I think we managed to present a somewhat decent show. Kudos to the winners!

NCHA of Scandinavia Open Futurity Champion
Leos Little Chrom-Styrbjörn Persson

NCHA of Scandinavia Non-Pro Futurity Champion & NCHA of Scandinavia Non-Pro Champion
MLKittycat-Torbjörn Johansson

NCHA of Scandinavia Open Champion, Friday & Saturday Ltd Champion
A Smart Little Leo-Styrbjörn Persson

A great, big ol' thank you to everybody involved, riders, staff and spectators! A special thank's to NCHA director of Judges, Mr Russell McCord for jumping the pond and helping us judge the show and put on a judges clinic that was both well attended, successful and much appreciated by all!
Russell McCord, judges clinic

Got me some heiffers yesterday! Three scrawny looking yearling calves to play with. One is walking kinda funny so we'll have to check what's wrong with her before working her to much. We'll have `em out and about this weekend to look them over more closely. Will have another 15-20 head in a couple of weeks, but it's a start.

NRCHA Snafflebit Futurity under way in Reno. Herdwork prelims concluded last night.


Zane Davis tops with Chicarey, scoring 222, another Dual Rey! (remember Reymenator?) Zane's got 4 horses in the top 20! Boyd Rice have 3 in the top ten after the herdwork, so what else is new? The 4 Sixes stud, Waresthecat got his first offspring hitting the showpen this year in Sixes First Cat, sure looks promising. His first real crop are 2yo. Our good friend Les Vogt is 10th after the Herdwork on a Luke Jones owned horse with a 218!

The qualification heats for the Swedish Trotting Kriterium($200.000) for 3 yearolds were held last night. Finals next Sunday so theres plenty of work here at the office getting pics indexed and up on the web. Got 24 races to cover next weekend so there's definetely things to keep us busy.

Fara.....something?

Working with the little Arabian mare I still havn't learned the name of! She's a really fun little horse though and really sharp. She's one of those horses where you hardly ever have to repeat things once you've introduced them. This is how it goes on most occasions: You introduce something new, like the blanket. She squirms, bites, switch her tail and paws. You keep at it for a couple of minutes and she gives you one of those long, loud sighs, licks her lips and just stands, ears forward and all. Next session she's right where you left of.


Sackin out a little.

I like to have them as loose as possible, giving them the option of staying rather than forcing them. If she feels she has to leave, she sure can. This works well for me and most horses. This is the 5th session with this mare I think.


I also like to have them see what I'm about to do, check out the saddle, blanket or what have you. Even tease them alittle and move the saddle or blanket away a little and have their inborn quriosity take over.

Still keeping the leadrope loose and just draped over my arm. Moving slow but deliberate and giving her time to leave if she feels she has to.





I like to mess around with the stirrups. Pull and put preassure on them. Rattle, shake and bang them around abit.



Toss the rope over her back.

Making sure she gets alot of transissions, direction changes, stops and starts.



Moving hind & frontquarters



Rope over hocks, letting her find the way to slack.

Same deal, but rope behind cantle.



Making sure she is nice and relaxed before we call it a day.

Update

Things are moving along here though I havn't been logging many hours horseback recently. Only have Brady up and running now as I'm holding off Cat for another week or two. The clients horses are more or less done and sent on their way save for our friends little arabian mare. I can't recall her name, but she's a fun little thing to fool around with. She's very true in her response to everything new I'm putting her through. Horses like that are pretty easy to deal with I think as you more or less know what to expect when introducing something new. She protests a little or a lot depending on the situation, gets curious and then accepts. Pretty straight forward. Put the harness on her yesterday and I'm planning on line driving her shortly. She can still blow but you pretty much know when and why.

Diva still around recuperating from surgery to remove some bone fragments from her hock. She'll be picked up next week. We're looking to get some cows here too shortly. Looked at 6 yearling steers the other day and might go for them if we can't wrestle up something else. Pretty costly though but figure we'd get the money back when we ship `em next year.