Kentucky 2007: The Hunter Pony Sale at KHP!

Here are photos from the American Hunter Pony Classic Sale on August 15th at the Kentucky Horse Park. This sale was held in conjunction with the 2007 USEF Pony Finals! In the bottom photo, you see a pony who is related to the stud that is the sire of Hailee's foal. We watched the sale of a few ponies by Blue Who (Hailee's foal's sire) and Blue Rain, the sire of Blue Who. The ponies were selling in the $5,700 to $17,000 range with the lower priced one being a very young 2 year-old who is already 14.1 hands -- people were worried about that pony growing taller than the pony height of 14.2 hands. The higher priced ponies were those which were perfectly 3 to 7 years of age and comfortably below 14.2. We bred Hailee who is 14.2 and a 3/4s inch to a 11 hand pony, so we hope to get an athletic, powerful, graceful, agile medium pony with the best of the Welsh and the sweet coolness of Hailee!

Hailee is in Foal!!

Barbie called me this evening and had the most wonderful news! Hailee is in foal! Dr. Burns gave her a check-up today and reported that he is confident that she's expecting. The foal is the right size given the number of days gestation. Hailee seems unremarkably routine! So, she will be checked again in a few weeks just to make sure she hasn't reabsorbed the egg, but things just look terrific. Thank you, Barbie and Tom, for your expertise and care with Hailee and to Dr. Burns for his unique talent at tracking and monitoring fast-cycling, small-follicled mares! I am so delighted to say that Hailee is going to become the dam of an American Sports Pony!!! That foal will be lucky to have a Welsh pony sire and a registered stock Paint horse dam with the blood of Easy Jet in her pedigree!! Cheers and Namaste to you all!!

Breaking News! Hailee is inseminated for first time!

Yesterday, on Good Friday, Hailee was inseminated for the first time with a donation from Blue Who. On Thursday, Blue Who's owner worked to prepare the donation to be special fed-exed to Kentucky from Florida and it arrived Friday morning. Hailee was inseminated and released from her holding area back into her larger herd. I bet she was thrilled. Now, we'll hope for the best and wait two weeks before giving her an ultrasound. I hope she becomes pregnant. We'll see. In other news, Violet seems to be going bald and losing hair in her tail! I'm told that this is pretty normal for a thoroughbred after winter, but it's upsetting to me to see her tail lose it's burgunday hairs and for her legs to be losing hair. I have an appointment with her vet for this Wednesday and Barbie is bringing some special skin medication up from Kentucky.

Hailee in her home in Paris, Kentucky

In May, 2006, my beautiful Hailee moved to Paris, Kentucky to live at Valentine Hall Farm, 70 acres of paradise. She lives in the same town where Secretariat lived at Claibourne Farms. She's going to be bred this spring to a Welsh cross pony, Blue Who. I hope she becomes pregnant! You can take a peek at her "intended" on my friendly links at Sugarbrook Farm. He's handsome. His mom used to be the Kennedy children's show pony!

Come visit soon to see posts about her amazing heritage as an American Foundation Horse!!