This message is from: SUSAN L GIARGIARI <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Hello List!
I am a new subscriber and haven't introduced my husband and I yet. Dick and
I know quite a few of you here already!
Hello to you all! We started out with a weanling filly, bought at the age
of 1 week(at that age how can you resist!). By the time Sunday was 2 months
old we bought her Dam, Stella. So, as the saying goes, "Bet you can't just
buy one!", we now have 4 mares, a stallion and various different age
youngstock, at any given time. It's hard to believe where we are in only 8
years.
A lot of great stuff going on on this list. It's great to see the talk back
and forth and people realizing that everybody is different and we all don't
have the same ideas or see the same thing in the same way as everybody! How
boring life would be if it were not so!
Now, as the secretary of the NFHA, I want to let Dave and Pat know that they
will be expected at the 1999 Woodstock Show for the Draft & Log part of the
show. Dick and I have already agreed to be the Draft Managers and we do plan
to have the log pull thru the serpentine of cones! We think even Anthony (9
yr. old son) will be participating. He has been ground driving the team to
the logs in the woods or field for Dick to hitch up log and then Dick drives
loaded. We have a great new course planned that will be a surprise and
totally new to the show. The show committee doesn't know it yet but we are
going to push to have some of the draft on Saturday as well as Sunday, and
not always at the end when everyone is packing to go home. This years was
disappointing! But we will push on!
What a great idea, Julie to put the agenda on the list. Those of us who are
on can let fellow Fjord owners know what is going on. I know when I first
joined the NFHR I didn't read the minutes of the meetings and just read the
fun stuff in the show. Now as a responsible breeder, I do keep up with
whatever is being discussed and have been very interested in the NFHR coming
up with a Breed Standard.
I agree with Anton, that Evaluating the Stallions is very important. The
evals are not horse shows. They are to educate us about our horses and their
good qualities as well as not so good qualities. You participate knowing
that no horse is perfect. Sometimes it is hard to hear this but it is true.
Whenever someone inquires about Hilmar for breeding purposes, I include a
copy of his evaluation, along with a video. A responsible breeder will use
this in their decision making.
The Europeans have done evals for us for a long time. Before I even
considered breeding our mares we participated in a lot of evals. The NFHR
has now got the standard written and we were allowed input before it was
totally accepted. At the 1997 NFHR meeting in VT there was alot of
discussion from different members who breed and have a vested interest in
this and the board members realized that our input was very important, even
though they had worked on it for so many years. If we have to re-invent the
Fjord horse to fit into our idea of what it should be, then, it should not
be called the Norwegian Fjord Horse but the American Norwegian Fjord Horse.
Anton, the Dutch would come over here and Evaluate the Fjords using the
Dutch standards and Wayne participated in this for a long time, along with
others. I think the idea is to just be able to do it with American judges.
We were involved with the 1995 Eval and it was interesting after the
individual judging for the horses in each category to placed. For us, this
is a judge's personal preference as to type. Our mare Stella is the "Old
Norwegian Draft" style and her daughter Sunday is alittle more refined, not
a whole lot though. The mares were placed with the more sporty type first
and on down to the dividing "wall", and it was said how Sunday and Stella
are the place where it changes. But it doesn't mean changes to bad. Just to
a different type. At this time the more sporty Fjord is in big demand and
even the Norwegians are breeding towards this. The USA may eventually be
the only country dedicated to keeping all of these types going. I know our
farm will always have draft and on up. Our stallion, LLA Hilmar's Dam,
Dena, an Oswin daughter, had a filly our of Hostar this year who is a little
sweety and when she is compared to Stella/Hilmar and Sunday/Hilmar foals
there is a big difference in type, not to say either one is not ok. Hilmar's
sire is Toddy, who is very drafty! I would also like to see 3 judges
participate in the Evals. and then get feed back for all to hear. How else
are we going to learn. Quite a few years back at the Woodstock show we had
a Clinic before the show and Bob Von Bon went over horses and how to look at
conformation and to try and improve on what you have. I was more than happy
to have our mares be the "demo horses". It was like getting a free Eval !
What an appreciated learning experience!
Well, I'll stop rambling and attend to tying up the arrangements for Equine
Aff
