Well of course she does and before her mother!

So once you have your first foal then, what do you you do with it?   Take it to the BEF Futurity grading of course to see if people “who know what they are looking at” like it too!

So that’s what we did.   How nice it was to bring Destiny in from the field with little Bardi – shampoo and set them both ready for a big adventure in Solihull

Great Day and Great Result: Higher First Premium Foal grading!

Meet BARDI REJOYCE  – Bardi for short.

Click here for video of Bardi the Bold

She is so friendly, being my first foal I have no experience whatsoever of how they are when they are thig young, but everyone is telling me how advanced she is and bold!   Mmmm – is this a good thing I wonder?   She is so friendly that you can touch her all over, play with her ears and run your hands up and down her little stick legs.     Everyday she goes out in the paddock with Destiny and wanders around the field with her mother trailing after her.

At two weeks old, she seems very happy with life and her surroundings and Ben is doing a great job caring for them both.    We are now looking forward to the arrival of Sassy’s foal in the next few weeks, so Bardi will have a little playmate.

And she took us all by complete surprise!   Destiny delivered a beautiful filly foal in the field all by herself in just 10 minutes, then stood up and started eating!

We knew that she was near to her delivery date and were bringin her in every evening and monitoring her carefully.

However she obviously had other ideas as was quite happy to do her own thing.     Ben, who does a great job looking after her, carried the foal in from the field and we put them into a stable.  The foal is very strong stood up straight away, and now doesn’t seem very keen to lay down again!

The lovely Destiny is taking everything in her stride in her usual calm way and seems to have lots of milk, so we are all extremely happy and relieved.

Destiny has spent the late winter enjoying the pastures of her new home in Banbury.   The good news is that she was joined by another Mare in Foal, Sassy – who is due about a month after her.

They seem to be getting on really well together, both are independent mares and are respectful of each others space.   The other good thing is that Sassy is owned by a good friend of mine so we are looking forward to forthcoming foal adoration trips.

Destiny is pictured on the left and you can see that she is a little futher along than Sassy and we are expecting foalie around the 23rd May – so exciting.

Christmas has been and gone and the snow has almost all mealted away.

Destiny is blooming – hopefully not too much so that she becomes fat, but she does seem to be doing really well out 24/7.

With extra hay rations and  thick rug  she is very happy – and would rather be in than out.

Plans are in hand to move her up to Banbury at the end of January, lots of land, other mares there and they can all have foals at foot together.

A little video from an evening with the Funnell’s, which was great fun!

Click on the links below to see Billy Congo in action.

A little bit of dressage

and a little bit of jumping

As always William and Pippa delivered an entertaining evening with a selection of their horses.   Earlier in the week they had battled through the elements from one venue to the next and the final stop was Merrist Wood.   It was great to see Billy Congo in another role as Pippa ran through a dressage test with him and then finished off with some jumping – what a great horse he is

I’ve just picked up the latest issue of Local Rider for Surrey there is a big article on The Billy Stud – An Equestrian legacy in the making.

Every second photo in the magazine shows a Billy Congo foal (well almost).

They all look very similar in colouring to their mothers and not one black with a white stripe there at all. Mmm….does this mean another mini Destiny in bay?

What hits me the most though, is they all look really happy in a herd, all foals together with their mums, growing up in a more natural environment.

At the moment Destiny will be the only mare and foal next year where she is, so am thinking that it would be the right thing to move her to somewhere will lots of land, other pregnant mares and good care.     And I’ve found just the place……check back later for updates.

Around 340 days then, give or take a day – so that takes us to around the end of May 2011.

Destiny enjoying life, relaxed in the field and hopefully everything is developing the way it should.    A visit from  the vet to check her out confirms that she is still in foal and everything is looking good.

Unfortunately where she is now, there are going to be no other mares giving birth next year, so may have to think about moving her so that the foal is a more natural environment and growing up with other foals.

Destiny scans in foal and Billy Congo enjoys fantastic success at Hickstead with William Funnell.

On Thursday, Billy Congo and William Funnell win The Bunn Leisure Hickstead Tankard and then round off a great show with 2nd place in the Derby Trial.

Gripped to the edge of our seats we watch him jumping the Derby – he looks fantastic and of course we now feel that we are related!

A close friend of mine happens to be outside of the main arena when they come out – William all smiles.    He jumps off and Billy Congo just stands there calmly taking all the attention in his stride.  What a fab temperament that horse has, and with Destiny’s calm attitude to life – we are probably going to have a right terror foal!!!