Fillies

Premiere for the flag wednesday for Annelies birthday!

Welcome to Snösvad!

Ida & Elton

Let the fillies out to graze the other day. It's Ritzy's Dream, Annelies new 3yo trotter, Diva, a clients 2yo warmblood, Kick the Cat, my 2yo quarter & La Flor del Viento "Polly" my yearling quarter. The ladies got along well and after a few laps around the pasture they settled down and you could hardly get them to lift their snouts from the smorgasbord and look into the camera!
Got some work to do girls!









Ritzy's Dream

Ritzy showin who's boss

Polly & Diva getting aquainted
Cat leading the way

Cat & Polly

Happy Birthday Annelie!

Well she made it! All the way to fort......sorry, 28!
Happy Birthday my love and have a wonderful day.
Annelie & Nickan

Ida and I served her breakfast in bed this morning, though Annelie and I had been up allready to feed an let the horses out. Annelie climbed back in bed before I woke Ida and we tip-toed down to the kitchen, made breakfast and "surprised" Annelie.

Annelie on Speedy
Her family's driving down Friday, better get the house ready. Need to get us mounted today too and take a family ride.

Diva
Got a new horse the other day. It's Diva, who was born at our old place and coming back as a 2yo for handling and breaking. She'll be pastured with our fillies and worked and I´ll hopefully get 30 or so rides on her before she heads back home. I´ll also be working a 4yo gelding who needs breaking, so things are picking up on that front. Still have Cat to work and Brady to whip in shape so my dance card is pretty full here over the summer.

A couple of words on the FEI World Reining Finals

The FEI World Reining finals held here in Sweden last weekend has created quite a stir! A Dansish animal rights group, Epona, filmed the warmups and posted the videos on the web. Several of the participants are shown jerking, spurring and using pretty harsh methods getting their mounts ready. One of the less flattering videos are of Craig Schmersal, $2.000.000 rider and one of the worlds leading reiners, warming up Miss Lil Attitude, who won the CR4 and placed 2nd in the world finals. The rough hands & constant jerking in the bridle has more people than me pretty upset.

The thing is, if this is how it's done in full view of spectators, judges, event veterinerian, and show officials it must be the accepted approach in the reining world wich indeed would be sad. What goes on at home, when nobody's lookin?

In my oppinion the mouth is an inviolable part of the horse and must be treated accordingly. The lowsniffing headset is another aspect I, for the life of me, can not understand. For a horse to perform at his best, a rise in the chest and neck is needed and this "Daxhound on a deertrail" look will never do anything but create soreness and problems down the road.

Riders of Schmersals caliber are also looked up to by hordes of younger riders and if this is how "the champ" does it they're likely to follow.

Judge for your selves, here's the video:

Almost done with Adelsö

Gearing up for the biggest race event of the year, The Elitlopp. Races held Wednesday, Friday, Sat & Sunday. 46 races or something in all with millions in purses. About a million dollars in purses in the main event alone! Some of the worlds greatest trotters, flewn in from around the world will fight it out over the weekend, meaning I´ll be busy, busy taking pics.

Cleaned out the old barn over the last couple of day's, can't believe how much crap you collect if you have enough space! Annelie hosed down the stalls and all with a highpreassure washer while I concentrated on emptying the hay loft. Hopefully we're done at the old place now and can focus on all the projects that need our attention at Snösvad. More fences need to come up, arena panels put up and the general chaos sorted out. Somewhere in there I hope to find some time to ride the horses too! Cat needs a couple of more miles on her before summergrazing and Brady needs his work too.

I'm also involved in the efforts to get a Scandinavian Cutting Futurity in place this fall. A couple of us in the association are hard at work trying to get all the pieces in place. Ungreateful business I know, but gotta get done if we're to take cutting to the next level here in Sweden.

Monday

Lots of fenceposts to pull at the old ranch, just to pound em back in the ground at the new place! We´ve had great help from my dad who single handed has tore down pasture fence covering 30 acres or so. Ben helped me getting them in the ground at Snösvad this weekend too, thank's guy's!

I switched bosal on Cat to the soft one I made awhile back, for her 6-7th ride. She was more at ease with the softer, reata cored one and is starting to give to it better and feeling alot softer.

The new horse, Ritzy is starting to look better and shedding her wintercoat and looking happier.

The first NCHA of Scandinavia show of the year was concluded Saturday at Axevalla. I was supposed to go but had to go back to Adelsö unfortunately. Seems it was a pretty even but low scoring affair. A bunch of misses still, working out of possition and such and scores need to come up some. But over all I think it was a good first.


The Breeders Invitational in Tulsa, Oklahoma, was cancelled Saturday due to an outbreak of Equine Herpesvirus (EHV). Refunds and/or reschedule is currently discussed. It started with two affected horses at the Western Nationals in Utah last week. One had to be put down and the other is still being monitored. Some horses affected in Ca aswell. Many shows postponed and people are being asked to monitor their horses for signs of the infection.

Ritzy's Dream

After proudly culling our horse herd somewhat due to the move and all, I stumbled on to this sweet filly. Annelie´s been wanting a trotter to train for sometime and since her birthday is coming up I thought, what the heck, and made a deal with a trainer friend. Result being we´ve (Annelie actually) got a new horse in the barn!








Ritzy´s abit thin and needs some time to find herself. She doesn´t seem to enjoy life right now, but we´ll change that hopefully. She´s got a great pedigree (Dream Vacation-Ritzy Hornline, both great racers in their day) but papers don´t win any races though so Annelie and her groom Ida has some work to do!
Ritzy fit right in with the other girls, Polly and Cat




Peppy, or Pepsi as she´s called now is in foal at the new owners. She´s expecting with their reining stud Ruff Lil Banjo. She´ll give them as good a foal as she has for us I´m sure! Congratulations! She´s looking really good too!

Online again!

We finally got the phoneline sorted out this morning! Got a working phone AND the internet modem up and running! Been without land-line since we moved here and thus no internet. Not much new to report. Draggin my behind, trying to put off heading outside to knock down poles for all the new pasture fences that needs to come up. Got an acheing elbow and messed up shoulder to justify staying on the couch drinking coffe. Worked Brady yesterday and he´s really solid. Gets a little impatient when you don´t work him more regularly, but nothing major. He really wants me to get the panels up though so we can go cow-playing for real! Will also get Norsten the cutting maschine mounted today if there´s time.

Have to spend the weekend at the old place, emptying out the barn. Lots of junk still there and I believe there´ll be a few trips to the dump.

Kick The Cat

Kick The Cats 3rd and 4th ride in the books and she´s about as expected. Not the most patient individual ever saddled. She´s full of life and have a hard time relaxing. She´s also pretty herdbound and wants to have full view of her mates. Spending alot of time just getting her to simmer down and relax. Once I get her attention and get her busy she´s pretty good. She also have a ton of athletisism and is very explosive. When we get all the pieces together she´ll be a great horse I think. I´m starting her in a 3/4 latigo bosal with a rawhide nose. She´s still figuring things out but she´s really light and responsive, here´s hoping I can keep her that way!

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.