Enjoy!

Up front looking for treats is Bluebaby’s Doll (Dolly) a 50 inch tall daughter of Toymakker; the tiny red filly is a daughter of Rough Diamond; then there is Desiderata (black pinto more blocky) yearling daughter of Lexington as well as more leggy piebald yearling, and the black yearling filly, three daughters of Lexington among the photos; oh, and the bay roan filly is yearling daughter of Lex as well, she should mature to about the same size as Dolly.

Some of the last photos show my favorite registered miniature horse mare, April who is the dam of Desiderata and this year’s silver dapple colt who is in a couple of the photos as well (he is a superior quality colt for sale).  April is red pinto with white mane and tail.  April is bred for 2012 to Mr. X (The Executive), as are all of our mature mares. 

BoHo’s Cold Fusion, AKA Lexington, our first little stallion, had an eventful fall season:

In October we took Lex to the gypsy horse show in Iowa, which was the championship show for the Gypsy Cob and Drum Horse Association.  Lex and his son did very well, earning some nice ribbons and accolades. 

Lex in training

http://youtu.be/qPGPKIvjp2g

The video above was taken by a new friend and we are very grateful to Linda for the clip of him in western walk/trot class.  Lex seemed to be a natural for it with a smooth western style jog.

Daughter has started ride training with our stallion, The Executive (“Mr. X”) and we caught them working when we were taking hay pictures that we already shared on our “Bellbottom Farm” blog.
We are very happy with Mr’s progress as this was only his third ride and he stayed calm and accepting of the big scarey tractor with it’s bale end going by him down the lane, and he proceeded on out to ride in the pasture. Short training sessions with lots of praise and food rewards go a long way!

Pictures were called for to try to share how amazing we think this little filly is going to be.  Her mom is an unremarkable grade pony mare about 40″ tall but we do not think this filly will be that tall when mature.  Her daddy is the “spotty” appaloosa pattern gypsy cob known as “Rough Diamond” owned by Susan Gallien in Minnesota. 

http://www.bluemoongypsies.com/roughdiamond.html

Rough Diamond was originally imported to Desert Jewel Gypsy Horses in Arizona:  http://www.djwwgypsyhorses.com/RoughDiamond.html

I hope you can see that she is showing feather coming in all around the hoof.  Of course this might be an illusion of sorts and we will prove to be fooled about this by the time she sheds out her baby woolies next spring.  But we think she will maintain quite a bit of hair around her hooves.  And she is nicely heavy boned.  We think she will mature into a very special gypsy pony.

She also seems to have the beard going on, as well as a double mane.  Overall, a pretty remarkable baby.

I wanted to talk a little bit about what I have already gotten excited about with gypsy pony crosses here on the farm.  I expect more than one filly I am raising to remain under 40″; and that was not considered that I would get that much of a decrease in size from the 13 hand gypsy cob sire when bred to pony mares of approximately 36″ tall. 

I had an idea that probably my stallion had heterozygous traits as far as pony vs. horse, because his mom is a 14 hand tall horse, I was told.  But he has definitely produced several babies that show pony traits vs horse traits.  And with one of my pony mares it has been more obvious, with this year’s colt being smaller and more “pony” looking vs. last year’s colt more lanky, taller and “horsey” looking. 

Our first 3/4 bred gypsy pony colt:

BoHo's Cool Professor ("Doc") is pictured here as a yearling, with daddy Lex in background

In March 2011 we had a stallion breed display at the Illinois Horse Fair, with our two mature stallions, as well as two sons of Lexington from 2010 who both actually expressed pony traits vs horse traits.  We are especially proud of how “Doc” is coming along and look forward to taking him back to this event next spring and letting the crowds see him as he matures.  We feel that by age five he will certainly prove to be a colt well worth keeping and contributing to the future of the miniature gypsy horse.

Desiderata

after being shorn of burrs!

2010 Lex gave us several really nice fillies as well, and Desi may prove to be the best; sometimes I look at her half sister and wonder who I will rate highest by the time they are mature, but Desi, although she is not as friendly and sweet as Ha”Penny, has the kind of heavy bone and general structure I think will cross well with our newer stallion, The Executive.  Although Desi’s feather is not as “drippy” from the backs of her legs as Ha’Penny, she has a good spread of hair all the way around her hoof, just hinting at what her genes will let come thru with another good dose of heavy feather.   This picture unfortunately was taken after I decided to just trim away the masses of burdock seed that was stuck all over her, but I hope that you can see her nice heavy bone quality for a yearling of about 37″ tall, and that she does have a heavy hair quality around her ankles.

Lastly, I guess I will share a picture of our two Toymakker daughters, Q.T. and Dolly, when they were yearlings and during a cleanup session with their purebred pasture mates, Bellbottom Truffles and Arctic Spring: 

Bluebaby's Doll, Bellbottom Truffles, Quite The Pony, Arctic Spring

Coates’ gypsy pony mare half Shetland

gypsy pony mare half Shetland

This cute grey pony mare is one of the first pictures of “littles” the gypsy folk in Britain shared with  me and the world via the internet about three years ago.  I remember Amy Coates sharing a set of pictures on the old Harlequin forum describing this nice mare as half Shetland, she did not mention what gypsy horse was the sire.   But on the present Coates family sales site there are a couple of smaller horses offered for sale…http://www.gypsyhorses.co.uk/

Now, this pony is an example of good feather quality coming thru on just the first cross (F1).  I believe that ponies of British Island foundations are more likely than others to let strong feather traits develop in the first cross to a gypsy horse.  You must understand that the gypsy horse itself is developed from a mixture of breeds, none of which usually carry on average as much feather as a “good” gypsy horse is expected to exhibit.  For example, the average Fell pony has feather, but certainly not to the extent that the most famous gypsy horses display.   Genetically, the feather factor is very complex and my understanding is that there is probably more than one gene driving the expression of the trait.  Plus, no doubt there are modifiers that come into play, and the modifiers on genes are less understood than the responsible genes that are not identified as of yet!  So, there is a variable way feather gene is expressed and cannot be totally predicted.  But like most any trait breeders choose to emphasize, if you keep choosing for that trait, you can bring it more into focus; i.e. breeding the heaviest feathered individuals together for several generations has created the very heavily feathered gypsy horse.

 3 year old Haflinger/Gypsy cross

3 year old Haflinger/Gypsy cross

For instance, this is Aladdin, a beautiful son of the gypsy stallion, Lively Leo, and out of a Haflinger mare.  Haflingers do not usually express much feather but there are some who have fairly heavy fetlock hair.  At any rate, Aladdin has a generous expression of feather for an F1 pony (He is for sale and is of a good riding size at 13.3).  Aladdin is owned by Jennifer Rose in California, and her website is http://www.jennerroseranch.webs.com.

I have seen pictures of a welsh cob/gypsy horse cross in Australia or New Zealand I believe, who also has at least as much feather as Aladdin has, possibly more.  He looks “pure” gypsy already and is just the F1 as far as breeding effort.  Many welsh cobs have quite a bit of feather, similar to Fell/Dales ponies. Shetlands, altho not having usually the “feather” or extended fetlock hair onto the backs of their legs, as expressed on many British ponies, certainly have a hair factor with the thickness or fuzziness established, and I believe this “fuzz” factor lets expression of the feather come thru more than you might expect it to.   I have seen pictures of a couple of tiny 27-28″ miniature horses lately that have a much more feather than average for their breed, and this is the kind of pony that can be expected to produce excellent results in the F1 generation.  Breeders should strive to make wise choices in breeding stock!  Find the traits you want to produce in the animals you start out with! 

Mustardseed Legionaires Destiny, 27 inch tall miniature horse stallion

Mustardseed Legionaires Destiny, 27" tall miniature horse stallion

This little cutie is shown at Azarial Miniatures at Meadowind Farm in Pennsylvania.  Now, this picture might be deceiving to some because he is being shown in winter time and his greyish color is from being body clipped; he is a black pinto.  And I am not trying to say he  has any “gypsy” blood at all, he is a registered miniature horse.   But they have left the winter heavy leg hair and WOW! does he look like a miniature gypsy horse or what!  Just 27 inches of eye appeal.  A short legged mini stallion becomes very baroque looking!

The fact is, many of the gypsy breeders in the UK have small stock and have been breeding a few generations with pony crosses already.  Fred Walker has a horse he calls Valintino who is around 12 hands tall, bred down from the famous Lion King (reported to be 15 hands tall) and I believe another smaller cob stallion called Hugo Boss (more like 13 hands tall).  He has a very nice herd of smaller stock that I understand has been developed using line breeding, which is a process many people strongly believe in to “fix” or make traits stronger.  But my point is, for this pony to be 12 hands already and I guess a Lion King grandson, there has to be some small pony genes in there somewhere.

Valintino:

http://youtu.be/F-m2ZENIitk

But more than the amazing little Valintino, who I mark down because of the extreme cob trait of the high rear and huge “apple butt” which I consider less physically sound than a more level topline, there is a neat little stallion called Blueboy who has a very nice topline and just exceptional, to me, combination of true draft horse traits in a 12 hand pony.   Marshall Janes is his owner, and is producing some really nice 12 hand ponies from his small herd.

This is what I call a Draft Pony!

Cold air in September makes me think of winter....

Well, today’s discussion has turned into rather a rant, inspired by outside discussion.  In presenting my plans and goals for creating the mini gypsy to others, I often encounter opposition to the idea, mostly by people whose opinion it is that I am trying to do some kind of harm to the current gypsy horse market or the breed as a whole; as well as thoughts that now is a hell of a time to be producing “extra” horses into the world when there are so many needing homes.  And I cannot deny that all of those things are worth discussing , yet I cannot give up my dreams because the politics of the world has changed so much in the last few years.  My prediction is that within a few years people will start to notice fewer and fewer ponies across the nation that are available, as so few people are continuing to raise ponies aside from miniature horses, at all.  Between the horse and general market crash in the recent past, and pony breeders simply getting old and closing business, and fewer and fewer people having barnyard areas, small lots and pastures to keep a few ponies; good old grade ponies like I grew up riding are going to be quite scarse in ten years.

Someone compared my efforts with the negative effects already present in the “genetic baseline” whatever that means, in the welsh…now if you had stated Shetland Ponies, I would have went, YEAH too weird how that happened through the years of the 20th century, they have basicly disappeared in the USA from what the native stock is. I don’t see that so much in the welsh, I think most welsh are fairly identifiable with their native counterparts. Now isn’t it better to go at it from the beginning, forming a breed from the breed traits (all kinds of horses have gone into making the gypsy horse, they are NOT a purebred by any means). I have only been making my effort for five years and I’m already using my 4th gypsy stallion from imported stock, or direct imports, always seeking to use what I believe I well understand are desired traits that create the look of a gypsy cob.  I just don’t get why people think my development of a separate facet of the “LOOK” will in any way affect the group of horses who are currently registered as “purebred” gypsy horses.  I have witnessed no inclination on the part of the present registries (four registries are already established to handle the squabbling among the people who have imported the gypsy horses to the US), and no doubt, people will import more littles at some point and apparently they will be eligible for inclusiion in the “purebred” registries because they come from gypsy breeders, not because they are in any way guaranteed to be a “PUREBRED”.   But those who are imported are likely the best TYPE phenotypically, they look like what people have come to believe a gypsy horse should look like.

You might consider that there are more than one “purebred” horse or pony studbook still with open sections to them for breeders who are seeking traits they want to add in, and that this was still common 50 years ago in practically all the registries. If you study genetics at all you find that it is beneficial to the cell to have MORE genetic diversity vs. less (this fact was started to be promoted among scientists about 20 years ago, after most of the registries “closed” to outside horses), but most people are sold on the value of the pure blood, not the best quality animal overall.  In my opinion, the individual should always be more important than the group, when choosing to improve traits. 

 As to registration of a mini gypsy from me, that is yet to develop as far as others joining in and creating an organization that will support such a thing. I am not worried about that at all; in the meantime, if people choose to they CAN use partbred registration in most of the current gypsy horse registries; furthermore, there are other choices as well according to how buyers ever go on to train and use their mini gypsy….it’s wide open opportunity from my view.

Beautiful colt born at Bellbottom Farm

Peaceful day 9-11-11