Oh - - - My - - - Gosh!!!

My main riding horse is a paint mare named... OMG yes, I am not kidding: Paint Mare. Well, she has a registered name (Merit's Top Hand), but the guy who had her before me called her Paint Mare for 14 years and that's the name she knows and answers to. Names to me are really important so this drives me NUTS! So much so that Randy's first suggestion for a name for Hannah's pup was SPOT and oh yes, he did get quite a reaction...

Anyway Paint Mare went to the breeder last year and was there a LONG time. Turned out great though because she was lame all winter and when she came home after 3 months of "stall rest" at the breeder, NO MORE LIMP! She is now semi-retired as we are trying our best to keep whatever the problem was from coming back. I did take her to an equine leg specialist, the first test to the tune of several hundred dollars determined that it was her front knees... and it was NOT bony (i.e. arthritis or bone spurs). The next test, to check tendons and ligaments, would have been several more hundreds of dollars... and if that was not conclusive, the NEXT test, to check her spine, was well over a thousand dollars. Randy being the smart man that he is said to me, they are going to tell you not to ride her, so why don't you just NOT RIDE HER... and after losing Justice I wanted one more foal from her anyway so decided now was the time...

This is her first foal, my colt Justice, who got sick at 2 1/2 and long story short did not make it.

At Mormon Lake the summer after he turned 2.
Having had Paint Mare through her two pregnancies I was sure, from her behavior when she came home last May, that she was pregnant. I was so sure that I didn't even have her vet-checked. Then in October she started flirting with Thorn, Lindsey's gelding, and I was equally sure she had lost the foal - when she is in season, she is so OBVIOUSLY in season... I was bummed all winter thinking we had lost the baby.

Here is Paint Mare with her second foal, my filly Luna who turned 3 this month. Same stallion for a father as Justice had (Tru Vanity)... when she came out solid we looked back and realized that the dams of both TV, as he is called, and Paint Mare are solid. So Luna looks like Grandma I guess. No matter, it's what's inside her head that's most important, and she is exactly like her mother which is exactly what I was after...

However I do love paints so decided to use a different stallion this time, a black paint by the name of C Tiger Emphasis (barn name Cody). Cody is homozygous for paint although not for color, but we have seen a bunch of his foals and they are gorgeous. And I liked his personality. And as a plus, he lives just down the street so Paint Mare was close enough for me to visit often!

She has been back at the breeder for 3 weeks now and - get this - WILL NOT LET THE STALLION NEAR HER! The breeder prefers not to do anything intrusive at this point and I agree, but I did contact my friend Bonnie Fogg the animal communicator for a pregnancy check and all of a sudden I am on pins and needles. After all winter of thinking no foal, Paint Mare told Bonnie that YES she is pregnant! So, what all that flirting with Thorn was I have no clue, but Bonnie has an awesome record of being correct as to yes or no... and a pretty good record on predicting sex too, so I am hopeful this IS a filly! Last breeding was late May 2007 so within the next month or two we will have TWO MORE BABIES!

Yes TWO, because Skeye:

and Trooper:
yup, they were also fooling around last spring ;) (PS this one should be a girl too!)

Now all I need is to figure out how to sleep between now and when they get here... I'M SO EXCITED!!!!!