Today was Stevie's second show, and I couldn't be happier with the results. He brought home two blue ribbons and a red. The red was his first class - Intro level B walk-trot. He scored a 69.5%, which was a GREAT score considering he only did his level A walk-trot a few weeks ago! The first blue was a spur-of-the-moment entry into the "Prix Caprilli" intro class—something that as far as I know he's had no training for, but he did great, although the judge said his jumps were "sloppy" (but when you consider that I was expecting him to either refuse them or spook at them, even a sloppy jump was pretty good!). The second blue was his training level canter class, his last class of the day. We were all VERY pleased with him!

I haven't had much positive to blog about these last couple of months, but now I want to catch up on the latest momentous doings. First, Bessie has been sold to Crescent Peirce of Randallane Morgans. I'm absolutely thrilled to have found a great home for her where she'll have the best care imaginable and will finally have those beautiful gaits tried out under saddle (and maybe peel off some of the baby fat she's been unable to lose here, because let's face it, the girl needs to drop more than a few pounds!). Pete is, alas, distraught, calling for her nonstop, but that is the way of it. He's five months old and more than ready to be weaned, and he'll be moved into Cameo's paddock starting tomorrow.

Another departure, less to my liking, was Phoenix, who after developing an unfortunate tendency to bully the other dogs finally needed to find a new home through the Animal Refuge League. We tried for six months to make it work, but it went from bad (a dog fight that led to Jo Jo's untimely death in June) to worse (another dog fight that left Bantry bloodied and badly shaken in September). Posting her on CraigsList netted me a inbox full of spam and emails from people who were clearly not what they pretended to be (at least one "teen girl" was trolling for a dogfighter--I'd rather put the dog down than see that happen to her!). I was heartsick but there was no other way--if Mark hadn't been there to pull her off Bantry, she could have done great damage, and it was clear that living with other dogs was stressful to her (not to mention to them). The boys are already clearly more relaxed without her, and I hope that when she finds her new home, if she hasn't already, then she too will be more comfortable. I specified that she needed to be an only dog and was good with small children, so something tells me she's probably already there. 

But the "milestone" I mentioned is Stevie's first test--he performed his first walk-trot test on Sunday morning, and he did SPECTACULARLY well. Scored a 67% in his second ride, and would have gone higher but for an unfortunate pit stop at the end--surely not his fault, poor baby! His trainer was very pleased, especially given that a baby like him was to be commended just for staying in the ring, never mind performing at that level. He'll be shown again in two weeks, this time at a canter.

We definitely need to find a regular rider for him. Robyn is happy to show him off right now but the day will come when she isn't able to ride him at all the shows we'd like him to attend, so if we can't find a buyer... and his price just went up!... we need someone who will either ride him on request or lease him for showing. I sure wouldn't be sorry to keep him so I could see how he develops--this result was by far better than any of us expected. 

We've come to a turning point in our life as a Lippitt breeding farm. For a number of months now, we've juggled poor health, bad weather, and a plummeting economy, and we realized recently that we're just not well established enough to survive this unfortunate collision of misfortunes. Caring for Eric and fighting the rising tide of the financial meltdown have taken just about everything we've got in terms of time and energy, and our horses are the losers--it's only a matter of time before they become "decorative" horses unused to human company. Since this is counter to our own standards, we've come to the conclusion that it's time to scuttle the breeding program (fortunately, we did not have a chance to get a mare in foal this year so that's one less worry) and find new homes for the broodmares so they can get on with life, while we turn our focus to training our young males. One or both of our colts will clearly have to be gelded--it made no sense to have 2 juvenile stallions before!--but we're going to keep the boys and sell the girls.

I haven't had time to update the sales page, but here's the summary. We'll give preference to Lippitt breeders for Mist, since she has the best bloodlines of the group and is young enough to have a number of good foals. A breeder who is willing to take Maggie with Mist will get even more preference--the two are very close and I don't want to break them up, and even though Maggie is too old to produce more foals, she lactates at the drop of a hat and could be valuable as a wet nurse. Bessie is still young enough to produce more foals too, but I'd almost rather see her go to someone who wants to use her for riding more than breeding--she's presented the world with 3 fine colts, one of whom has continued her lineage with a number of Morgan and Lippitt offspring, so I'm not worried about her representation in the gene pool. Cameo can only go to an experienced rider who has the time and desire to work with her daily - she's come a long way since her arrival on this farm, but she still needs a great deal of training to reach her full potential. She's breathtakingly beautiful and elegant, and with the right rider she'll go places.

We'll likely geld Ray, or Pete, or both this winter. It just about kills me to consider gelding Pete because a) he's one of a kind and b) he'll probably grow up to be just as handsome as his big brother. But attitudinally, I think Ray is going to be the easier of the two to keep intact. So we're going to watch and wait and see how he grows.

That's it for now. More updates soon. 

Everyone on the farm seems to be in education mode. Stevie is doing extremely well at his lessons, and today we're taking him to a show in Hollis to get him more accustomed to the show environs he will start performing in come fall. Pete is learning to enjoy scratches and to not be afraid of weird stuff—Mark added a couple of large rubber tubes to the round pen and mounted a shade umbrella on one of the pen's uprights for his educational benefit. Mist and Maggie are learning a new routine—they are now spending their days in our neighbor's grassy back paddock, partly so their paddock can dry out, partly to shake up a monotonous daily grind that seemed boring to them (they love it!). And Nate has had his very first riding lesson at Photo Finish Farm!

One thing about Mist—when we took her to Karen's paddock for the first time yesterday, she was a little wired and spooky—new stuff does that to her—but when she was released into the grassy expanse, so much bigger than her paddock on our farm, she kicked up her heels and stretched out running, and MAN was she beautiful. Head and tail high, beautiful full strides, it was breathtaking.

Holy Moly Farm welcomed Holy Moly Poseidon (Bayside Rainman x SSM Bessie Nekomia) at 1 am or thereabouts on May 19th. "Pete" is a big bay colt with a tiny white sock on the left hind foot. He's doing great and Mama is too. More pictures are posted on our geldings/colts page.