Starting from number six there are five new photographs on the Photo Page.
Oystercatcher,Bantry Bay,Southern Ireland. Lindsay.
Little Egret,Bantry Bay in Southern Ireland. Lindsay.
Sea Pink everywhere in May on the Outer Hebrides. Lindsay.
The Torridon Mountains. North West Scotland. Lindsay.
Entrance to Loch Ness at Fort Augustus,the Highlands of Scotland. Lindsay.
There are five new photographs on the Photo page, starting from number eleven.
The Abbey Ruins. Rufford. Judy.
I forget the name of these but, my mum used to grown them in Ireland- Are they tree Lupins? Anjela.
Pigs sleeping in the sunshine. Liz.
HMS Warrior in Portsmouth part of the Historic Dockyard collection. CH.
Some of the tulips at the Tulipmania festival. Lindsay.
I have installed two cameras covering two Swallow nests today. I will put them on now and then through the nesting.
Lady’s Foal has been out into the corral sunning himself for a good part of the day. I am hoping to let him out with Lady into the Horse field tomorrow, as long as the weather stays fine.
Some how the Gosling are staying alive. I really don’t know how as the Goose is spending a good deal of the night on the banks of the Lake. This warm spell has started to cause a goods amount of blanket weed to start to form on the Lake. We put in barley straw in the Summer of last year The chemical in the straw normally stops it and will last for a couple of years. A few years back it got really bad and we spent a great amount of time scrapping it off of the top of the water. It looks as if we may be doing it this year.
Thank you Elsie and Vicky for the photographs that you emailed me. I will try to put them up tonight, but I should think that it will be tomorrow, as I have had an extremely busy day. Tonight’s Diary will explain.
We managed to buy three Horses today. I had been offered two on Friday, After checking their pedigrees I was not over impressed. It made me phone the person from Ireland that had bid on a few Horses at the Tattersall’s Sales in Newmarket last week. I am pleased that I didn’t buy any Horses last week as the three that I purchased today were a little over half the price that I was prepared to pay for one at the Auction.
The three Horses that I purchased are now all living in Ireland. Two will be coming to Denbury this Saturday or Sunday. The other one is being left in Ireland until she goes to the Stallion, very early in February.
We have purchased one Filly Foal by a French Sire called Hellissio. Hellissio is a multiple three and four year old Group winning Horse, including five Group 1. over ten to twelve furlongs. In 1996 it won the French Premier Flat Race, The Prix de l’Arc Triomphe. I haven’t seen the Filly. She was got to keep Willow company, but when we see her we will soon know if she is going to be alright to race. Nothing will be lost if she is not.
The next one that we have purchased, I know very little about, she will be here over the coming weekend. She is about eight years old. She has had three previous Foals, and is now carrying a Colt Foal by Trans Island, that is due in the middle of March. Trans Island was a multiple Group winning Horse over 6 to 8.1/2 furlongs as two, three, four and five year old. The Mare was purchased to keep Lady’s Foal, due in April company.
The third Horse is named Hearthstead Dancer a 2003 Filly by Royal Academy, another multiple Group winning Sire including two Group 1 at two and three, over six furlong to a mile. The Filly has won one race and two places as a two year old. She has also been placed over Hurdles. She is the type of Filly that I was looking to buy last week, but in Foal. She is the right age to be putting into Foal next year. The Filly will be kept in Ireland and will go to the Stallion very early in February. With a Mares gestation period of eleven months, we will be looking for a Foal to be born in January 2009. A soon as The Filly has been successfully mated she will be bring her back to the Farm, I should think late February. I will let you know more about the two that will arriving at Denbury at the weekend.
The possiable Badger cull issue is again in the news because of the findings of a savage cull in Ireland. The cull in Ireland has done nothing to reduce the amm
I decided that I would leave Lady, Woody and another two Broodmares in Ireland to have their foals. I wanted Lady to be mated with Desert Style again, who was at stud in Ireland. Because of the relationship with Captain Hurricane it was a financial decision. I would also find suitable Stallions for Woody and the other two mares. On the 1st of March Lady produced a Colt Foal. The Colt foal was what I wanted. A Colt Foal would be nearly double the value of a Filly Foal. On the 21st of March Woody also had a Colt Foal by Indian Lodge. Our Branston, who winds Lady up.
Lady was never my favorite Horse whilst she was at Denbury, before I owned her. She had the vice that you sometimes see, of Weaving, swaying her head from side to side. It is not a problem with Broodmares, but would have been if she did it when in training in her racing career, where she would have picked the vice up from. She would Crib Bite, which is another undesirable vice. When she had another Foal, I had to help the foal being born. She would not let it feed, to make sure that the foal got the colostrum I had to milk Lady and feed the foal from a bottle. The next day she was good with the foal, although later she would very often bite the foal when it tried to feed from her. She was also very spiteful and unfriendly with other Horses, violently kicking out on them for very little reason. So my experiences with Lady were not good.
Some weeks later I had a phone call from the person who was looking after my Horses in Ireland. Lady’s foal was missing. The gate to the field where they were kept had been found open, all the Horses had got out, when they were all found and caught, Lady’s foal was missing. The foal would be able to stay alive for a short while, but the weather was not good. For the time of year it was cold and wet. Foals should be stabled in that weather. Hypothermia in a foal of that age, is very possible.
The Foal could not be found. It was very unlikely that it had been stolen and after a week it was likely that it had died. I was given to believe that Lady had not been to upset at the loss, with what I had experienced with her, with the other foal I could quite believed it. Weeks later the remains of a foal was found in a wood, DNA tests showed it to be Lady’s missing foal.
After being mated Lady and Woody with Branston and another foal returned to the UK. The other two Broodmares I sold in Ireland. Straight away it was obvious there had been a change in Lady. She mixed in the fields with our riding horses, allowing Woody and Breeze to boss her. She still Weaved a little but no longer Cribbed. In fact she was a very nice friendly Horse. A real pleasure to have around.
Lady foaled last year, giving birth to Bliss a three quarter sister to the dead foal. Woody also had a Filly named Misty. Lady as you may have seen was a brilliant mother. I cant believe that she would not have pined for her lost Foal, for she never allowed Bliss out of her sight.
Bliss and Misty are now yearlings, both are very well bred, with excellent confirmation. I have soon to make up my mind if I am going to sell them. I purchased the Race Horses with the intention of starting an on line Horse Racing and Breeding Partnership. I was let down by a Horse Racing Television Channel to advertise my new venture. www.ownaleg.com. It is now a free advertising site. I am tempted to start it again with Bliss and Misty.
I first met Lady and Woody when they belonged to one of our tenants who occupied one of our cottages on the farm. When he came to live on the farm he introduced himself as a Bloodstock Agent. He was not, he had a much less savory occupation, the income from that occupation allowed him to purchase a number of Horses including Lady and Woody.
Buy luck, and I promise you not by judgement, he purchased Lady, who real name is Sprite and Woody(Woodland Garden) from Bloodstock Auctions. A previous owner of Lady (Sprite) was Lord Carnarvon the son of the Lord Carnarvon, who with Howard Carter discovered the Tomb of the Egyptian Pharaoh King Tutankhamun. She is a top quality mare. Woody is also a quality mare, one of her earlier foals sold for in access of