....or actually digging into it and really going crazy with researching pedigrees. Years ago someone told me, wow - you sure have had a lot of horses/ponies over the years. So I started writing them down. Through breeding and/or the fact that we bought lots of projects, trained them and sold them... yep - we have had a lot over the years. I HOPE that this list is accurate but I'm sure there is a pony/horse here or there that we have forgotten. The grand total.... before Cher's baby is born any day now....
100 horses/ponies since 2005. I didn't count anything BEFORE we were Easy Money Ranch in Harmony. I didn't want to go all the way back to my childhood. I picked a jumping off point and that seemed to be a logical spot. Then I started breaking down those numbers and really got sucked into a swirling vortex of data.
Out of those 100 horses and ponies:
2 Arabs
3 Appaloosas
4 Quarter horses
8 Paints
15 Misc ponies (Shetlands, minis and welsh type)
And.... 68 registered POA ponies. Sixty. Eight. When I say we have had a lot of POAs over the years and know a little bit about their dispositions and abilities, see - I'm not exaggerating.
Of course I didn't stop there. I noticed a few things as I was entering info so got my highlighter tool and went back and went crazy. First thing I noticed is that when we started in POA we kept going back to the same farm for some of the best minded ponies in our area: Westwind ponies raised by Irene Nelson in the Spring Valley area. We had 6 of those. Campbells Mr Rambo was her stallion who went back to Kid O Tough. Kid O Tough being the sire of our first ever POA, Shez No Kid.
We progressed from Westwind ponies and fell in love with Dutch ponies from Sweet Memories Stables in Decorah. We once joked that we could never visit without bringing something home. Over the years - continuing to current day with my Reba (Dutch Country) and Cher (Dutch Rock N Roll) - we had 13 Dutch ponies and that isn't counting the two broodmares we bought from them that didn't have "Dutch" in the name. MOST were by our favorite stallion, RY Major Equity. This led me to digging into our pony's pedigrees a little bit more. We had 8 RY Major Equity sons or daughters. But if you look a little deeper at pedigrees of our ponies, we have had 11 grand get so far and will continue to have more since we are breeding our Cher each year. It's a crying shame that Major was lost when he was so young. His legacy lives on through his daughters and the two stallions that I know of by him; RY Major Endeavor and Dutch Awestruck.
Then time passed, Anne slowed down breeding and we discovered RPRs Impulsive Superman. We have had 5 Manny babies and are expecting a sixth! We've also had two grand get (Sundae and Nani). We've only just begun with grand get since our stallion is an own son of Manny. Obviously we are in love with Manny and are excited to watch his babies and grandbabies continue to improve the breed. Whenever we see the list of champions at the biggest shows in the nation, you can bet there will be a "Super" pony on the list.
We love combining that Major breeding with one of our other more recent favorites, The Silver Kid. We were late to the Silver Kid bandwagon and unfortunately by the time we wanted to start collecting his sons and daughters, he was lost to old age. I would have a pasture full of Silver Kid babies and grandbabies if I could. So far we have had only 3 daughters, but are up to 6 grandbabies with one more on the way this month. This is thanks mostly to our precious Fi, literally Silvers Precious Lady, an own daughter of Silver. Even though I desperately try to keep our numbers manageable here - I find myself reaching for the checkbook every time I see a Silver Kid pony for sale (and that isn't very often).
Our dream cross is a pony that traces back to all 3 of those amazing stallions; RY Major Equity, The Silver Kid, and RPRs Impulsive Superman. We are blessed to have that coming next year in Pepper's baby.
Digging through the pedigrees of our ponies is always interesting and gets to be a bit of a time suck. I always put all of our ponies on allbreedpedigree.com so it is easy to view progeny lists and such. You can get lost in going, "oh my gosh, this pony was by so and so! I didn't know that!" You start to see the connections, the names further back that are unique and learn that you definitely have a type. It's been a blast and I can't wait to see what we add to the list in the years to come.
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