The movers and shakers at Snelsmore

Stud update;

So much has been happening at the farm recently. As well as weaning our foals we have to say a sad good bye to a special mare, Benston Gloria, who will be making the long journey to Finland in December.

Since buying her as a foal from Lerwick sales on the Shetland Islands she has had numerous show successes and produced some lovely foals over the years. We are so pleased to retain this year’s filly foal Snelsmore Rag doll and look forward to watching her mature into a replacement for her great mum.

Unfortunately I couldn’t seem to rehome our two geldings, Snelsmore Nelson and Snelsmore Napoleon together. So Napoleon is off to a showing home and we look forward to seeing him out and about next year. Nelson coped on his own better than I thought, in fact he blossomed and soon took on the role of a friend to Snelsmore Paris who was being prepared for Reading sales. It seems he is earning his keep for a change.

This year’s Reading sales went well with both Paris and Cranford Cherry Blossom finding a good home together. Trade seems to be a lot better and we think Reading is still proving to be best sale to sell and buy ponies. We brought home two new ponies, a nicely marked skewbald colt foal called Mardlebrook Tinker, winner of the colt foal class, and a nice bay filly, Vallendale Patsie, who will be a very interesting mare for Kington Za Za Rac. He will be a busy boy next summer as we also bought an unusual grey dun four-year filly, Crealy Pandora, from the earlier Shetland sales at Bridgewater. We believe Za Za Rac carries a chocolate colour gene so the outcome with Pandora could be an interesting colour.

Having already split up Neslon and Napoleon, Mariana visited our stud looking for a pair of Shetlands. A little too late for our two geldings but all was not lost. Nelson was the obvious first choice, just when I was starting to think he was becoming useful. As for finding him a mate we decided to castrate Blackertor Solar King. Luckily they have become great friends and will have fantastic life together being spoilt rotten.

With the launch of our new web site and a new for sale page, it didn’t take long for Snelsmore Organza Ribbon to find a home. She is a really sweet pony with a good pedigree and almost certainly in foal to Kington Za Za Rac. We hope all goes well for her new owner Caroline and can’t wait to see pictures of the outcome next year.

Our yearling fillies have matured really well this summer and although Snelsmore Quokka didn’t make the show ring, she will be an interesting pony for us to show in 2015. This daughter of Snelsmore Mandrake was a favourite of mine but I always knew somebody would fall in love with her. Luckily it turned out good for both of us as she has a lovely new home with Julie and Kelly in Somerset and I still get to watch her in the show ring next year. Maybe I can steal the odd moment with her when nobody’s watching.

We’re not just selling ponies at the moment; we have added two new stallions to the stud, Halstock Strawberry Worzo and Longcot Blue Print. Worzo is a well-marked skewbald with Berry breeding and Blue Print is a strawberry roan, now known around the stables as Red. Both have great characters and we look forward to trying them out next year.

As well as new boys, we have some extra special new girls. It’s always nice to have two more homebred broodmares and we welcome back Snelsmore Harmony and Snelsmore Hermione. The two ten-year old daughters of Za Za Rac, who up until now have been much loved family pets, have had a big life change but hopefully will produce their own foals for us here at Snelsmore. The hardest decision now is choosing them the right husband. Well at least I have all winter to think about it, let’s do Christmas first.