Breeding Sport Horses

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The foals of 2024

The fillies of 2024 have been weaned and are now under their new ownership. I am lucky that Unikha is staying with me for a bit to grow up here and Uphoria is up to great and fun things with her new owner and new friends. This was the year of the tall fillies. Surprisingly both fillies got tall really quick this year and I have to say it was not the only surprise ! Breeding keeps you both humble and amazed. The theme of the 2024 breeding season was sticking to the relatively well known. Zigami was bred for the second time to Dauphin and Kreation...

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A mystery illness

A quick spiral downward I thought she was dying. She was sweating profusely but her skin was cold to the touch. She was stumbling around, blind despite her wide-open eyes with the pupil dilated even in full sunlight. She leaned into the fence as if she wanted to push it down with her chest. She was so confused and afraid, blind and deaf but desperately trying to find solace and security. In my 30 some years with horses I had never seen this. It looked like the death throes of a horse about to die-or so I thought. I had never seen that either. The day before she...

Formosus Sporthorses News

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Upcoming 2024 Foals

Some predictability this year at the farm! Arriving in May and June are two crosses with somewhat known outcomes. One is a repeat breeding and the other is pairing a now very proven mare and stallions that share a lot of similarities. In both crosses, we have direct experience with the stallion’s offspring having had some born at the farm already. Parcival X Kreation (expected in June) The pairing of Parcival with Kreation is very much a breeding of like to like in many ways. They both offer excellent, smart, willing temperament paired with compact strong body types and elegant necks. Neither of them are the extra modern...

Formosus Sporthorses News

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The foals of 2023

This year’s crop: a colt and a filly; both dark with a very small star and that is pretty much where all comparisons end. Thorium (Finest/Wolkentanz II/Ferro) the colt was born first to the maiden mare Divine who despite a difficult birth (as in the colt was big and she was a maiden and she retained the placenta and needed some amount of intervention) revealed herself to be a terrific doting mother. From day one he looked like an Asian supermodel: Sexy as all hell, thin, bony and a bit androgynous at first :. We could tell right away that he was a tall, leggy, long-lined colt....

Breeding and Birthing

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When is my mare going to foal?

Foaling season every year makes us second guess our ability to predict foaling, experienced breeder or newbie is always a bit of a guessing game with mares as to when they will foal. But while I can’t give you a 100% guarantee of predicting exactly when your mare will foal I will share here some tested methods for narrowing your guesses. As usual: for those that want Cole’s note version of the longer article: Mares have no due date- The AVERAGE gestation duration is between 320-350 days with an absolute average between 340-345 days. There is no ONE clear signal that tells you that your mare is about...

Formosus Sporthorses News

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Expected 2023 foals

Expected 2023 foals Despite a hard summer we are looking forward to the 2023 foaling season with 2 special foals 2022- What a hard and sad summer… Never having had to deal with any horse in my care colicing before (well nothing serious- some gas colic that passed on their own) I had two surgical case of colic in the summer of 2022. Two cases that could only be resolved by surgery. We sadly lost Rascalina to what looked like a post foaling colic just 12 hours after the birth of her filly. She was never quite right after the birth and it just got worse with...

Formosus Sporthorses News

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The foals of 2022

3 beautiful foals this year. 3 lovely souls, cherished and expected and dearly loved right from the start. 4 good mares that took care of them the best they could and allowed them to be born safely and grow up well. I think they fit in well with my constant goals of : well bred, well handled and well raised. Superstition (Morricone/Kreation (Rubinero/Donnerhall): the black shinny pearl Like her brothers before her, she was born very a very sensitive but sensible soul. Thin skin, impressionable, not overly fond of humans and generally finding their touch a bit much at first. Less sensitive by far than Pavarotti (v....

Raising Foals

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When should I wean my foal?

Highlights: For those of you that dont have the time or the inclination to read the whole article here are the highlights: When ?-After 4 months old and once the foal has shown some consistent independence from his dam, the longer you wait the more the foal will be mentally equipped to cope with the separation. How ?: The best method will entirely depend on your set up, there is not one best method that fits all situation-sorry. For more information on my humble opinion on the plus and minus of each method the rest of the article. Key Points: Overall the focus should be on preventing injuries...

Formosus Sporthorses News

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Expected 2022 foals

The never-ending summer. On August 15th the breeding season came to an end at the farm. It had been 16 weeks of work to get there. 112 days of thinking about breeding, wondering and pondering, checking mares, ordering semen, and counting days. With two mares open (not pregnant): Zigami and Rascalina, the idea was to start early and to breed Kreation after she had foaled later in the season. Or so the plan was… We had two custom foals planned for clients for those two mares. The stallions were carefully selected, the contracts were signed and we were ready to go in mid-May when the mares started to...

Raising Foals

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Halter training for the new foal-Part1

How do I halter train the new foal? Foals start out well: feral. They are leggy bundles of instinct that know nothing of the cushy captivity they are born into. The instincts that have served them well for millions of years of evolution will be constantly clashing with the world they will live in and the demand that will be put on them for most of their lives. For that reason, it is important that we ease them into our world as sensibly and as compassionately as we can. Just like young children and dogs, the first period of their lives is the most formatives. Brain plasticity...