So another weekend has passed and this weather has been super strange, cold and wintertemps so all horses have been tucked in their fluffy beds with closed windows. But this weekend I could finally leave the mares and Tico outside over the night comfortably. Boys are now taking turns in the big pasture, they loooove it! Hagge has lost a shoe but Donoso doesn't get a scratch. Start is the perfect live-lawnmower and doesn't move faster than a snail.
Finca is  s l o w l y  coming together, last week; The plummers. It was interesting to enter stables and see NO tubes,  anywhere,.. I finally found them,.. along the floor.. Either it is some hightech super great invention or it is totally hmm incompetent,.. but hey I am not a plummer so what do I know, at least it looks nice, so I decided will just leave it to the spaniards to work it out.. I have started to ride the boys again but my wrist is painful so I have to take a little more care and give it more support. So tomorrow to the doctor, how boring :(

I've made the following write up as a complement to the blogpost on colour breeding and registration I wrote last year; http://vikingapre.bloggplatsen.se/2012/10/02/8747349-diluted-color-genes-registration-in-pre-studbook/

From scientific knowledge we can learn how different genes work on a basic level. However we can only learn so much from reading and calculating science and I have come to the understanding that in the end it is nature that has to teach us. If genetics were an exact science and nature did not take unexplicable leaps we would certainly not have this colour spectrum in the PRE race. And we would have many grey PRE horses, so thanks to nature we have the wonder of many beautiful colours to enjoy! Below more examples of PREs with rare colours and examples of colours with genes that does not manifest clearly in the coat of the horse. Please feel free to give me any thoughts or questions, enjoy!

Black PRE stallion Smoky blacks can be difficult to distinguish from a regular black. Below is a regular black PRE even though coat is darker bay or chocolate and he also has the lighter hairs in the ears which are traits of a smoky black. 

Smoky black PRE stallion with one dilution gene (Cr)
     

Jet black PRE stud - Delegado Mac, out of both grey parents (Sire to Halagador)  

Grey PRE mare; Genetyped grey EEAACrCrGg, however she has the coat of a perlino (blue eyes), she is also a double dilute. This is Laia, an example of the hidden grey gene and of course impossible to know her genecode by looking at her coat.
  

Here a genetyped black PRE foal with blue eyes, adding to the challenge and wonder of colour breeding! Further geneinvestigation will be made of this special foal in USA. 

Isabelo PRE stud stallion (double pearl, PrlPrl), Sol PM II, a descendant of registered grey and bay parents, each parent has a single prl, this is a recessive gene and a single copy of this gene does not manifest clearly in the coat (hidden gene) (Sire to Ártico VIK)

Bay PRE mare with hidden pearl (single prl)   

Smoky cream PRE filly (Black CrCr) 

Pseudo perlino/isabelo PRE colt (Cr/Prl) 

 

Bay PRE filly with hidden pearl (single prl)

Cremella (CrCr)

I am at the finca from afternoon til evening everyday and I do combined office/housework in the morning whilst Alex is with the horses until lunch. All horses are outside daily and Start, Donoso and Halagador are also working out in the roundpen. I am making them jump over natural cavalletti and my plan is to get them from paddocks out in pastures without too much drama. With Tico there are now 7 horses. One is missing. This one is missing since January, it's a stallion I had bought but there are issues with the documents of the horse and I am not taking him on until all is cleared. As I trust everything happens for a good reason so no worries, que será será. Here he is.

Noble

As Donoso was doing cuarantene at the breeding station for collection of semen for USA/Australia at the time for Nova's insemination, I had to rethink. And I am very excited to announce that this brother to Picara will be the dad to Nova's first foal! 

DIVO PM - a unique protagonist PRE of supreme class 
  

Nova yesterday, confirmed in foal to Divo

I finish off with a clip of my huligan dog Viggo playing up Nova yesterday, have a great weekend everyone!
 

Plaster is off and I realized I have converted to lefthandedness, I can actually use whatever hand. Another example of out of bad something good always develops, but it's great to have two hands available again.
I gave Tiki-Tiki a haircut that he absolutely h a t e d, horses are so sensitive it is unreal how he can feel the sissors on the tips of THIS fluffy mane..

 
BUT he CAN, so I had to be a good pedagogue and let him have his time to get used to me doing what I want. In the end he let me put my hand on his forehead, between and on ears even though he was very clear with that he does not like it. So we had an agreement, if he was good and let me cut some hairs without running away he got a good scratch and I did not hold him in his halter. The result was not as perfect but it shouldn't be when you teach class 1 in PRE school   

Today with new grown-up PRE-hairstyle, Tico does not leave nanny-Nova's side and only sees mummy when he's thristy.

Still chilly in Madrid, still one-handed but by now I have got the leftie going, Donoso even got a work-out yesterday and I can manage most things. D also got a new booking yesterday, first one from Portugal! And he has 3 Australian PRE girlfriends now, super exciting! Breedingseason does not start until September there so we have to wait abit longer for these wonder-babies, but it'll be well worth the wait!

Here the diva living the good life enjoying his after-work

Picking out THE SPOT..

Found quite a few actually here's one..

Ok now let´s rock it for a while

Enjoying the views quietly

 
In love with my girls!

After a wonderful afternoon of riding Donoso and enjoying a relaxed afternoon Start didn't agree with me trimming his ears and threw me straight onto the new and very hard floor in a blink. I landed on my right female side - head - shoulder - wrist - hip. Got up and noticed REAL pain, noticed I had given away all my Arnica but took the horses' Arnica liniment, wrapped wrist and got on with finishing up. After some excruciating pains which made me faint I gave in and went hospital, Javier drove me which was nice. Nothing broken but got a plaster that was a relief as every little movement was painful.

So I got the challenge ge to see what I can do with one left hand and found it is actually alot, hang laundry, put in eyelenses, type this blog etc so I tried stables aswell. The biggest challenge was to give Pica her hormone treatment orally with one hand but even that went well! I am giving her progrestrone as her hormone levels might be low as she reabsorbed first pregnancy, now she is confirmed in foal with Donoso again and I hope she will keep it this time. We have icy weather here in Madrid, 6 degrees so all horses stayed in, except Donoso that I took for a walk. I am teaching him how to be outside without getting to high in energy and just relax, he always skips alittle but I told him today NO skipping was allowed and he was actually so quiet I could let him loose grazing. Not sure who enjoyed that moment most, probably me, D has never been unhappy inside his stall. And then the happy news that there will be a new Donoso PRE offspring born in Denmark next year!

The King of the finca 

Took Donoso for a ride and he was swingy, I can notice he has changed after we have moved, he is much more alive and very happy. And of course always a gentleman, Mr Perfect. We went for a walk outside the girls fields and heard Tico answering when I called his name for first time, super cute, he has really gone straight into my heart that little one! Then we had to cut the branches over roundpen to be able to ride properly and we finished with a walk on the upper field, Donoso enjoyed the long grass and strolling under the trees and so did I.

Here pics of my affectionate animals, Nova has changed alot since she got pregnant and she just wants to cuddle always, even with Viggo that gave her this goodnight kiss in the ear :) 
 
   

Donoso after work today, always talking softly (except when I arrive and he greets me loud) telling me what he wants, or that he is in love, or that he's cold, or thristy, or wants to go back to his stall, or just wants my attention,.. It is a constant 'conversation' and I can tell them all to wait or not to fiddle with stuff, scratch manes etc and they knows perfectly who I am talking to even though I am in the other end of stables. And they say animals don't talk, well mine never shuts up!
 

After a extremely stressed return and almost missing my flight I am now back and charged with new swedish energy. I am spoiled to come home to a fixed up garden thanks to dad and friend, here's something growing from my palmtree and not sure what it is, anyone knows? Looks like a flower or is this the beginning of coconuts perhaps? 
 

Super happy to see my beauties enjoying their lush green park   I just got them in before the thunderstorm today, they are all well in shape and thriving in their new home!

  
My smallest tresure! Tico is now 2 months old :)
   
Time for a haircut?
     
Some filling out with sand and painting has been done, nice!
 
Our only gym at the moment  
 

And here's a greeting from England and 'Mr Spaniard', now called Res and Natalie winning the Parade Class at Royal Windsor, congratulations, you look great!
 

This made me laugh yesterday
 
Here's Albert's and Dominiques beauty arrived safely to new home in France! Looking great Albert, you will end up a true horseman after all!
 

Just after christmas Tina Marhofer from Germany came with her daughter to view two horses. After email correspondance several she decided she was interested in Halagador and FEI PRE stallion Nr 389, Marismeño XXX. As I was going to be in Sweden over christmas we had sent Halagador to a friend of Javier's so that he could keep him fit whilst I was away. I had arrived the day before to be able to attend Tina. She tried him and liked him alot, thought he looked bigger than what she had imagined. We had a long drive in front of us to next horse and we had a nice chat about being a woman in horsebusiness etc. Tina has a absolutely beautiful farm called Hufhotel which I congratulated her on having had achieved. After a couple of hours we arrived to the second horse, this one horse was being shown by the owner and trainer was also present. This time it really clicked between her and the horse, it was just the kind of horse that she was looking for. I left Tina and her daughter at airport, she did not offer to pay me the daily fee but I did not charge her either as she was seriously interested in buying the second horse from us. Normally clients pay a daily fee of 100Eur/ day to cover expenses but if the client buys a horse from us we return this fee. So after having agreed on the price of the horse we arranged for the vetting by a german vet as this made communication easy for Tina. The horse passed the vetting and we started to arrange the paperwork, sent invoice, salescontract etc. The horse did not have the ownership card (CT) up to date, as is many times the case, the CT is a subsidory document. So we initiated the procedure for this card, discussed with owner etc. Tina told us she wanted CT cleared before she sent the funds, fair enough and not a problem at all.

Meanhwhile the owner told me Tina had contacted him directly over the phone and email via her translator Petra, it seemed she made an attempt to buy the horse from him directly. It was the german veterinarian that had facilited the contact to the owner. Obviously Tina had conciously contracted us and our services but now it seemed she did not know how to respect this. I started to recieve emails in a conflictive tone, Tina told me she could not buy the horse from us as it was not ours. Obviously none of the horses selected us are our property, this is nothing new when you are buying from brokers. So I politely explained the proceedings and that we always and without no exception sell the horses formally to our clients to guarantee the sale is correctly made and they don't have to worry about owners, documentation of the horse or anything else. There is a clause in contract that states we have the right to sell the horse and we declare all sales. Everyone that has bought a horse from us knows it is pretty straightforward and easy process and that they can rely on us and our services. We use the same contract draft for olympic clients as for pleasure riders, it is easy to understand, correct and for everyones equal advantage.
To let Tina know and clear any possible doubts she may have, the owner also sent a letter of recommendation for our services confirming we are transparent in our work and with a respected reputation as professionals in Spain;

'Dando continuidad a la conversación mantenida esta mañana vía fono, debéis estar tranquilas con el gran trabajo que hacen los Señores de la empresa Horsespre. No sólo en la gestión, que es incomparable, sino en la ejecución. Eso debe ser vuestra garantía, Horsespre y su equipo humano goza de una gran reputación en España por un valor muy importante “La transparencia”

(client + broker + owner = 100% warranty)'

Now Tina stopped answering my emails but I held her informed about the proceedings of the ownership card. We spoke with ANCCE regards the CT and informed the owner. The card was arriving a week later and Tina had not responded any of my emails. The owner wrote a message saying that he had travelled to Miami, that he would not be coming back until in 2 weeks and that he had not heard anything from Tina either.. It seemed a little strange as he had been eager to sell his horse and had been communicating with us on a daily basis. So we waited for his return and meanwhile we went to see another horse in Marismeños stables and realized he was no longer there. So I sent another email to Tina, asked for status of Marismeño and included the invoice for the 10% commission fee. No reply. When we later met up with owner we confirmed that Tina and owner had made an agreement to avoid paying us our commission. So again I sent another polite email giving Tina the oportunity to make right. But no answer. So after several emails we informed Tina that if the agreed comissionfee was not paid for by next week we would be taking action and make public her attempt to fraud. I am happy to say that this is the first client in 8 years that has acted in this incorrect way. 

Now I got an answer from Tina saying she did not understand me. We had been communicating over emails since november and we had could communicated perfectly during her visit. She told me her translator would contact me a week later. I answered she would have to find a way to communicate herself as I was not going to wait any longer and that my emails were very clear and not difficult to understand at all. I then get a reply with an offer (?) of a much lower amount than the agreed 10% comission fee. Which we certainly will not accept.

Here below Nr 389 http://www.horsespre.com/product/product.asp?id=1188&fn=true&scid=2&cid=0 and a link to the blogpost I made after her visit; http://vikingapre.bloggplatsen.se/2013/01/15/9317430-tinas-pre/