I posted this video because it is an excellent example of a young stallion’s free swinging walk. The video is mostly in slow motion so you can easily see the beautiful extension of the front legs, the hoof hitting the ground heel first to flat and the huge over track from behind. You don’t get a walk like that only through excellent conformation. You also have to have excellent hoof mechanics. Most horses I encounter, of every breed, walk toe first which indicates a desire to avoid contacting the back half of the hoof area due to discomfort/pain if the full weight is applied there first, as it should be. His owner says “He self trims in this country. It’s been a few months. We sanded out some rock chips but didn’t even trim him before nationals…” With time and an eye for detail you don’t need slow motion to detect a heel first/flat footed landing vs a toe first landing. It is amazing what getting the hoof mechanics correct can do to promote the individual horse’s natural stride. IMHO this stride has never been altered by poor farrier work and/or injury. Now to keep it this way throughout his…
Update: that Arabic font is not working. I am giving up. Please bear with me as I update the look and feel of this blog. It’s been twelve years since the last update. Blog design has changed a lot since then. I am also trying to enable Arabic language entries. Let me know what you think of the new design. أول سطر عربي في مدونة بنات الريح
In other happy news, Wadha was checked in foal to Monologue CF today. I had been trying to get this mare in foal for three years.
My beautiful Shadows left us today. What a sweet, gentle, soulful mare she was. Shadows was euthanized this morning, and her ovaries collected for shipping to the University of Pennsylvania veterinary center in New Bolton, PA. There, oocytes will recovered and sent to the Equine Medical Services clinic in Columbia, Missouri. This clinic is a world leader in equine reproduction. There, the oocytes will be placed in an incubator. Mature ones will then be injected with tiny doses of semen, a revolutionary micro-technology called intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI). Some of the embryos to be produced via ICSI will then be transferred into a recipient mare right away, and others will be frozen for transfer at a later date. Hopefully this will ensure several male and female offspring from this precious mare. I just wish this technology was both more affordable and more widely available ten years ago, when grand old mares like Javera Chelsea and Dakhala Sahra could have benefited from it. The semen is from Jenny Lees Bahraini stallion Shuwaiman Al Rais.
A large DNA study published in the Journal Nature (link to full study here) comes to confirm what we purist breeders have known for a long time: that so-called “Arabian” horses of flat racing lines have a significant blood of English Thoroughbred running in their veins. The author, Samantha Brooks, very elegantly suggests a different labeling of these “Arabian” lines. I still like “Pseudo-Arabians”, which I coined a decade ago.
This year the Al Khamsa Convention will be virtual (on Zoom), but the lineup of speakers is great as always. Make sure you register here. RJ Cadranell and I are also making a presentation on Saturday, on a surprise topic.