Ballarat Rural Lifestyle Expo

We had glorious weather for the whole day at the Expo in early April, and it was a pleasure to be there. The day was well organised by the Ballarat Agricultural Show staff and we had a good spot. The Expo has a FaceBook page, with a photo of us.

We took Flamenca (MGR La Tigre (Imp.US), Peruvian Paso mare and Carlotta NS, Paso Creole mare). It was the first time out for Carlotta, but soon she was all cool about it, like the much more experienced Flamenca.

We did brief ridden displays throughout the day, which invariably made people stop and look. This gave us the opportunity to show and explain Gaited Horses to a lot of people.

Ballarat Rural Livestyle Expo

We will be there!

End of summer report

Summer has been a busy time.

We have three mares confirmed in foal to Reverende de United (Imp.USA):
AuSome Esperanza
AuSome Zarzulea
AuSome Guardaraya

Graciela NS is growing up nicely and we are very happy with her.

We have been starting and working Bailador NS, AuSome Alegria and AuSome Castellano. In addition, we've been starting and training some outside horses, including the Icelandic horses Nattfari fra Vindholar (Imp.NZ), Lukka from Haldane Stud and Brana.

As the days are getting shorter, the horses' coats are growing again. After a long and hot summer, some rain is welcome and it will be nice to see the paddocks return to green. Bushfires have been active in our vicinity, but thankfully not too close by.

season's greetings

Wishing you a great Christmas, a prosperous new year, and a fantastic holiday season!

a welcome arrival

Gitana surprised us with an early filly today. She did a magnificent job as a maiden mare. The other mares stayed away, with one on "aunty duties", keeping the more curious ones away.

The filly is a good size and looks like she may be a dark buckskin. But she may also be brown. A bit hard to tell on the first day, and time will tell. But dad (Chango) is buckskin, so the yellow nose and slightly yellow cannons might indicate that she is heterozygous for the cream dilution.

Not that we care, what matters is that she is healthy, active and apparently well gaited. I think we'll call her Graciela.

new website is live!

The new Narrawin Stud Website is up and running. There are still a few areas that are incomplete, but the remainder will be added shortly.

For now, there is a link to the old site as well, which will stay until the new site is completeley finished.

The site content has been updated, and the layout and feel has been updated to an elegant and modern design. As a bonus, the new site is mobile and tablet friendly. It will automatically resize to accomodate any screen size, thanks to Bootstrap and HTML5.

Feedback is welcome :-)

Enjoy!

spring update

Spring has been a little slow in arriving, but we are finally enjoying an abundance of grass and warmer weather.

With only one mare due to foal, all eyes are on Gitana's big belly. We have started breeding mares as well. Rev (Reverende de United, Paso Fino) has had plenty of time to settle in since he arrived from NZ in May, and he is ready to rock and roll. Two mares bred, another three to go.

We have several Icelandic horses in for training, including my very favourite Nattfari.

Last weekend, we enjoyed a mini clinic and some private sessions with Trisha Wren from NZ. We built on to the concepts she introduced at the clinic at Narrawin Stud in May. Although not very familiar with gaited horses, she is very open-minded. So we could discuss concepts and applications which will help me with educating and training gaited horses.

Trisha is a fantastic teacher and a great ambassador for Connected Riding, and I can't recommend her highly enough.