Royal Three Counties Show: A bouncing foal, runaway chicks and a double clear

Unfortunately we missed the South of England show waiting for Snelsmore Illianna to foal. Typically she hung on to the early hours of this morning to give birth to a little filly. Never mind it all went well and we definitely made the right decision in staying at home. Fours hours later, with her foal happily drinking although she still seemed a little uncomfortable. I wasn’t sure she had passed all her meconium, so for peace of mind, we gave her an enema and left for the Royal Three Counties show with fingers crossed.

We arrived at the show to find the little wren who had made her nest under our lorry last year had returned, and amazingly her new born chicks had survived the journey to the show underneath our lorry all tucked up in thier nest. You could imagine my suprised, hearing some chicks cheeping from under our lorry; no pressure, we just had to get them home safely to their probably confused mum.

We had a good day at the show. Our judge was Mrs Gibb from Aberdeen and she placed Snelsmore Nevada fourth in a strong stallion class. Things got better, and we were so trilled that she chose our still immature 2yr old filly Snelsmore Querl, to win a huge two & three year old colt & filly class. After a quick look around the show and a cup of tea, we journeyed home in some horrible weather. I was delighted to get home and find our new foal bouncing about her stable with a very dirty bottom. The little mother wren was waiting to feed her well-travelled hungry chicks and the sun shinning. Meanwhile our horse, Catch the Beever, had been completing with Laura Mantel at a six-day show at Bicton Arena; we had news that he’d jumped a good double clear in a strong Newcomers class coming 4th out of 90. Big thanks to Laura and Daniel for taking such great care of our horse.

What a day full of lovely surprises!