Wow, what a weekend and wonderful end to the showing year of 2006. We took 2 mares and their foals, 1 filly for grading and our first colt ever up for grading to the TBF show this weekend of the 24th and 25th.The Saturday was the grading and our filly out of St.Pr.u.Pr.St Elistra by E.H Mackensen graded with a Premium and will now have to go back next year to do the mare performance test to be able to use her new title. Our colt Singing Horatio, out of Arentino's first English crop of foals did a excellent performance on the hard ground in the morning and jumped for fun in the afternoon, where he also showed how powerful he is in movement, with wonderful high knee and hock action and very loose floating movements like a well oiled Meccano set.  

On the Sunday morning it was time for Horatio to go loose and although tired, he continued to show himself off and graded that morning. We are absolutely delighted because it is the first ever colt by Arentino to come up for grading and Horatio is from Arentino's first English crop of foals. It really is just amazing and so wonderful that he is now a fully graded Trakehner stallion. Only 4-7% of Trakehner colts grade every year world wide, so it is just so wonderful to be part of those 4-7% and now Arentino's wonderful and very valuable bloodlines will go on in his beautiful son Horatio. A BIG thank you to Tim and Bernadette for having Horatio since May and presenting him for his grading, this would NEVER have happened without their help and they really have done a super job of him and we are so grateful to them for having prepared him so beautifully.  

We were going to bring Hallesen up to do the mare performance test, as she graded with a premium last year, but we sold her this year and she will be coming up to do her performance test next year under her new rider and owner Laura Busby, who brought up their mares, H.G Irroy and Sintesi with foals at foot by Arentino. H.G Irroy graded and her foal showed expressive loose big movement and will make a fantastic sports horse. Sintesi graded with an amazing 52 points and beat our mare Henny in the mare class, so well done to the Busby family, I didn’t see her foal Sintino so can't make a comment on him... sorry Julie, but he is a very stunning chap to look at and I am sure he has big powerful movements with his wonderful pedigree and hey, we only have to look at his mum and dad to know he is a very special fellow.

Henny came 6th in her mare class and so did Singing Elischa, which was just sooooooooo tired after the grading the day before, but Aida, which was in Elischa's class won their mare class. She then became Champion mare and was the overall Reserve Supreme Champion of the TBF show. Henny's filly owned by Chloe Class came 3rd in her filly class and Singing Alondo was 2nd in his colt class and we had many people admiring him and telling us he is a wonderful stallion prospect so there is another colt for Tim and Bernadette in 3 years time to take on. 

Chloe was also at the show with her gelding Singing Heaster by Solero out of Henny. It was their first outing and has never been to a breed show before. They came 1st in the potential competition horse in-hand class and 2nd in the ridden class so a BIG congratulation to them both. What a shame, that Chloe didn’t know she was supposed to be in the Championship as she was 1st and 2nd and so she missed out on being Reserve Champion. Never mind and as the judge told me "That is a serious dressage prospect for the future" but we didn’t need him to tell us that, as we already know this and now wish Chloe and Heaster all the best out in the dressage world next year.

July

This year we again attended our favourite show the British Dressage Young Rider and Breeders Championship with our wonderful mares Pr.St Aida and Henny together with their foals Alondo and Hermione. Babies did really well coming 2nd and 4th with mum's coming 2nd and 1st. Henny also became Reserve Champion of the mares and we are absolutely delighted with the outcome of the weekend. Tim from Woodcroft stud came along with Bernadette and run our mares up for us, but we saw that poor Tim had big problems in keeping up with Aida, my god she is a BIG mare with a massive stride and to get her to engage you really have to run... Sadly we have only seen her really show her trot at the auction in Germany (poor runner perhaps he was practising for the Olympic) and then in the field. She is just such a lovely  lovely mare with fantastic powerful movements. However we say a BIG THANK YOU to Tim for running our mares up for us, I could not have done it myself and wouldn't try as I have to jog keeping up with her walk. Kim and I have been talking about that maybe we should now say goodbye to the mare and foal classes and start to enter the young stock classes, as Arentino's children really should go out and be shown, so look out for next year we might just start to invade the shows with Tino babies.