This message is from: Karen Keith [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Dear List:
I wanted to tell you about my April holiday in France. I've finally gotten
the photos up at Webshots.com, so I hope you enjoy my trip. Here's the link
to the album,
http://pets.webshots.com/album/559950949YJPqUH
As background for those who don't know me, I'm living in England, having
moved here from Colorado last summer. I sold my two Fjords before I left
the US. I have a Welsh cob mare I'm working with here two days a week to
keep myself sane, but am looking forward to moving back to the US this time
next year and filling a couple stalls with Fjords once again.
I went to France in April with my husband and son. My husband left the
planning up to me, so we ended up on a horse-themed holiday. We stayed at a
horse trekking place on the Bay of Somme. The horse trekking place
(Marcanterra Sea Ranch) has established a new breed of horse based on the
Norwegian Fjord and crossed with native horses (Selle Francais, French
trotter, even QH and Spanish horses, Andies and Lusitanos). The purpose is
to create a breed of horse good for living and working in their area -- pine
forested sand dunes, marsh grasses, hardy enough to live out year round,
good temperament for use in commercial trekking operation. They are called
Henson horses (I think Henson was the one who started the grand experiment),
and they've been breeding them for about 25 years. According to their breed
standard, they must carry no less than 25% and no more than 50% Fjord blood.
One of their goals is to have all duns, but they've not yet achieved that;
although, they did have probably 75 to 80% duns in the several hundred
horses I saw. Not sure if that's achieved through breeding or through
culling. I saw a handful of colts and stallions, and they were all duns
and heavily influenced by the Fjord in type. However, of the broodmares,
some were duns, some not. I assume if they're breeding a non-dun, it's
because she ticks a lot of the other desireable boxes for the breed
standard.
I had a grand old time. We stayed in bungalows on the ranch. There were
horse paddocks all around, so you just had to step out your door to see
horses through the pines. While Marshall and Cam went off on a bike ride, I
took the 3-hour experienced horse ride, which would take us out to the Bay
of Somme. I assumed this meant I'd get a horse that was a bit goey, not a
dead-head, but good for a gallop along the sands of the beach. What it
means in French-speak is we'll give you (the experienced rider) one of our
youngsters so you can give him a good ride. They put me on a 3-year-old!
Not my ideal for a gallop in the surf and sand. Heck, most 3-year-olds
don't know where their feet are, much less have good balance in less than
optimum footing. And how long could a 3yo have been broke to ride anyway?
But when in Rome, yada yada. We did head out on the trail, me with some
trepidation, reminding myself over and over that somewhere underneath me,
wrapped in long,skinny legs and an ordinary bay coat, circulated at least
(at most, I'd say) 25% of the blood of my beloved Fjord horse.
After 45 minutes or so of up and down over sandy pine trails I had sorted
out that my steed, Quingway (pronounced Kingway) was pretty amenable to my
leg and rein aids, and thankfully he was pretty good with his feet. When we
finally got to the bay the tide was out, so we still had a good half mile of
sand flats to go before we reached the water line. Apparently, the Bay of
Somme is quite shallow and tidal, so you could almost walk across it at low
tide (except for some natural channels).
At the water, the horses waded in a bit, then our group leader turned us
parallel to the water line and said something in French. By the way, did I
mention that I speak no French, and there were few in this area who spoke
English? But it turns out I understand more French than I thought, because
I did catch the word gallop in there. Sure enough, off we go in a couple
inches of water on firm sand, splashing and having a thrill. I still wasn't
sold on this horse's ability to balance. He chose his lead and was crooked
as a dog's hind leg, but I stayed up off his back and made sure I didn't do
any sudden weight shifts and it worked out fine, even when the ride leader's
horse, who we were behind, suddenly went skittering sideways for no apparent
reason and leaving me and Qingway in the lead.
By the way, you'll see from the photo that I was riding this horse (as are
all the horses in the string) in a rope type hackamore. These horses have
to be pretty easy-going to be ridden in hackamores by rank beginners on up.
That was my horse experience in France. It was very interesting to see
literally hundreds of Hensons in one place. I managed to learn that they no
longer use purebred Fjords in their breeding program, so I assume the
books are closed and
