Baby's First....

Vet visit. 

What started as a brief report that Leche was being LOUD turned into the barn owner messaging me to say "her tummy hurts, the vet is already here, can he look at her?"

My immediate answer was yes. 

She had been rolling and scuffed her leg, thankfully it was superficial.

The wound got dusted and the vet treated her with buscopan, banamine, exceed and a tetanus shot. He advised that we start omeprazole. 

NARROW

K took the opportunity to stick Leche and she came in at 15hh almost exactly.

Sleepy baby got moved to a stall closer to the house for overnight monitoring and seems to be recovering well today. 

And through all of this I had constant communication and updates from K. Rough to be so far away, but I'm grateful for the experienced folks taking care of her. 
 

Family Holiday Photos

 As a general PSA. If you plan to do family photos with both children and animals, you are either going to have a good looking animal, or 'normal' looking kids. Not both.

That being said. I love all of these photos. Especially the professional ones. 

 A mini Gwyn!

I signed up for a photography mini session to support Cortney's drill team and took the whole family including Gwyn to be in the photos. I don't plan to send out holiday cards but I do love having the family photos.

I brought the reindeer antlers, did a cursory groom of Gwyn who tends to stay pretty clean on her own, mainly just picked the shavings out of her tail, and the location provided the backdrop and the wreath that Gwyn wore as well as a mini horse. 

Kaylee discovered the struggles of a selfie with a horse

On to the professional shots! I would hope it goes without saying, but these were all purchased!

I love how her head is cocked to the side.

Gwyn is usually so unflappable that the photographer, Cortney and the third assistant really had to work to get Gwyn to even look remotely curious. The trick was trotting the mini back and forth WHILE crinkling the candy cane bucket.

We brought the mini in for photos too and Gwyn was curious, but also very much "I AM IN CHARGE"

I'm laughing because in between shots Gwyn was trying to bite his face.

Then we did a few without Gwyn, who didn't care because I kept her happy by letting her eat a ton of hay.

It was a long day for a short photography session. We drove pretty far south to support them but I feel like it was worth it to both get the photos and support Cortney. 

The mountain gets bigger when you go south though. So gorgeous!

Dulcinea TH

Very honestly, I was hoping that I'd be able to get a good connection through a friend when I started horse shopping. Thanks to an old school horse blogging friend (heeeeey LiveJournal) I heard about a Hanoverian filly for sale in California. The pictures of her were awful, but in a way that were doing her a disservice and I think making her look worse than reality. They were blurry, dark, nothing to give you the best idea of conformation, just a baby trotting in a covered arena. 

Like... what

Said friend runs a breeding operation and breeds to the same sire as the filly in question, a Hanoverian stallion named Dubarry. More recent babies have been scoring exceedingly well in their inspections and older offspring are performing quite well in dressage, vaulting and eventing. Three of my friends now have "Dubabies" as they've dubbed them, and they're exceedingly amateur friendly.  All of that to say, I've been very jealous from afar, lol.

Until my friend, K, posted on facebook about an acquaintance who had a Dubarry filly for sale, was anyone interested? I've been biting on things like this because why the heck not, I'm searching and I know my budget. 

Lo and behold, she's in budget. I talked it over with Claire and sent the photos to my trainer, who is currently in Europe. The only struggle I have is I can't go see her, or if I get her, pick her up right away. My schedule through the end of December is basically blocked out. But I do trust K and together we devise a plan. If I buy her, K will keep her on in training board for a few months. Trainer sounded more enthusiastic about baby warmblood than OTTB for me.

And so that's what I've done.

Meet Dulcinea TH

5 days old, 2021

She's being boarded with K until I can go pick her up, which will hopefully be in February, returning FDA inspection dependent. She's going to be in Pre-K with the baby starter at K's barn and will get about 5 sessions a week and will learn general exposure and handling things.

She's got some cute ermine spots in those white socks.

She's got some floaty movement and I can't wait to meet her in person.

I've got some SmartPaks set up for her for supplements that are being auto shipped to the Cali barn and she has a nice new rope halter and lead headed that way as well. 

We're going to try Leche as a barn name and see how it fits. 

She's learning to chill while people do strange things near by, like work on tractors.

And also getting a little more comfortable, enough to start misbehaving. It seems like the breeder maybe let things slide that you shouldn't with babies, like having decent boundaries about personal space. But these things can be fixed when they're young.