Viscacha and Malambo - 15 months old.

The two yearlings by Arrayan Numa are now out with the main herd, happy as larry with more grass than they know what to do with and plenty of old boys to look after them. We are great believers that youngsters need to learn to be horses before they come in and learn to do a job.

Oh and haven't they turned out beautiful colours?!

Chamfron Cactus Jack at two weeks old.

Cactus is thriving, very difficult to get exciting snaps of him as he sleeps and he drinks and doesn't do a lot of bouncing in between. He is a very nice foal with a backside on him like a beef bull!

Caramia at three weeks old.

A very beautiful filly with a gorgeous head and neck and doesn't she know she's special! Typical of Ruby's foals she loves people and wants to be fussed. Another absolutely belting foal from the Shesa Perfect Zippo x Exbury Ghost cross.

"After" Noon the chook and other ramblings!

We had a good day at the Highland Show on Thursday, only one traumatic moment when the fake tan woman asked me if I wanted a demo "err no thanks" I said and put my head down and tried to shuffle past. Then she said "You could do with it love" so I speeded up and THEN she said "trust me you really need some glamour"!! To cheer me up Mark had to do his alpha male bit and master the coconut shy and win me a large fluffy cockerel!

Today "After" Noon (yip, the brown chook who decided to become head in charge of chicken in the house after the demise of Noon) met the new cockerel...

"There is another chicken in the house, thats not on, best go and have words with the whippets about that, slack lazy little sods!"

"Right, nice day, think I best head back out for an alfresco lunch, they are always impressed with my vertical take-off!"

Blooming chooks are taking over this farm!!!

Wearview Gypsy

Our latest visiting mare arrives with a super foal at foot and settles in with no trouble at all.

She is a solid black appaloosa and here to visit Arrayan Numa.

St Helen's Regency Bubbles

Joanne kindly sent me some photos of Bubbles in her driving days, she is pictured either with a Rally Car for Country turnout or a Liverpool Gig.

She has also featured as part of "Blue Chips" advertising campaign and her sister occasionally makes an appearance too!

Coloured gelding for sale.

We went out to Newton Stewart today to photograph this nice gelding for sale, he is a 15.3hh, 9yo, who hacks out alone and in company and is a safe responsive ride.

He has done Riding Club camp and has cross country schooled, he is only for sale due to his owner having a young baby.

He is on the market at £4500, if you are interested please leave your contact details in the comments section and I'll pass them on to his owner. (I'll then delete your contact details so you are not spammed by every "pharmaceutical" company on the net!)

I am happy to photograph horses for sale at reasonable rates, can also provide a jockey if necessary!

Homozygous Roan....

I have mentioned on the blog in the past that I just had a suspicion that Arrayan was homozygous roan, he comes from a stud that breeds specifically for Roan and although we only had five foals none of them disproved my theory. That said, homozygous roans are as rare as hens teeth, in fact it used to be thought they simply didn't exist, that they were not viable pregnancies.

A while back I saw a post on a Dales pony forum (yes, I spend too much time on the net!) about some roan ponies in France being tested, they proved to be heterozygous but their owner kindly passed on the details of the research being done at the University of California. I emailed them and asked if they would consider testing Arrayan...

We sent off hair samples from Arrayan and also from his two yearlings, Viscacha and Malambo and the results came back today...

I email regarding the roan testing of ARRAYAN NUMA and his offspring.

Based on our markers associated with roan, ARRAYAN NUMA appears to be homozygous for roan. We did have one marker with a result that was not typical for roan, however for the 2 roan offspring submitted Malambo inherited the standard roan marker and Vizcacha the atypical marker, lending support to the conclusion that the sire is homozygous for roan.

This is obviously very very exciting for us as it means no matter what mare Arrayan is bred to all his foals will be roan. He will not breed a solid foal.

It also leads to more questions, is he the first tested homozygous roan in the UK? Is he the only homozygous roan UK stallion? Need to do more research!

Chamfron Cactus Jack

24 hours old!

Chamfron Soutra Brae.

Su is now a year old.

Living it up with Claire's other spotties in Perthshire.

Last foal for 2010.

Another day time foaling as Carter Bar (Mable) produces a chunky chestnut blanket colt at 10am in the sunshine.

Some photos of the visiting boys!

First up is Bob's teeny weeny hunter "Barney" who must be cracking on a genuine 18hh with the width to match. He's here for Mark to have a sit on him before the Border Union show in July where he will be doing the Working Hunter. He has the legs of a horse who has done his seasons so there is no great optimism he will be in the rosettes but he should jump round.

I'm 5ft 2 for comparison...

Then there is Toad who is just here for a week or two, the Australian noseband wasn't relevant it was the first snaffle bridle that was in the tack room, but I think he thought he looked rather dapper in it!

The fluffy feet!

Three of the broodmares, the palomino is the Welsh D Driving mare St Helen's Regency Bubbles who is scanned in foal to Exbury Ghost, the palomino blanket spot is visiting mare Poppy also scanned in foal to Nico and the grey is a Highland pony Monreith Fruiche who is visiting Arrayan Numa.

Chamfron Wakizashi (Wanda)

Now twelve days old.