At the Trakehner show and grading this year we took three mares and their foals for showing, one mare for the performance test and one three year old colt for grading. The foals where all by our residential stallion Chabrol and is his first crop of foals, so we thought we would bring them along and show them to people, as we are so proud of them. We had to enter the boys in the part bred classes as they got white papers instead of pink papers due to their father not being able to pass his 70 day performance test due to injury.   

We brought Henny with her colt foal Singing Hector, Luana v. Steinberg with her colt foal Singing Lancelot and Umbria with her colt foal Singing Urban Rhyme. Singing Elischa was up for the performance test as she was awarded premium at her grading last year and needed to pass the mare performance test to be able to use her premium status. Elischa has been produced by Clair Powell with a lot of help from Peter, (Peter is from Hungary and has been helping with the horses since November 2006) and she looked really well and was going fantastic under saddle. The colt we brought up was Singing Herbstglanz by Arentino out of Herbstwolke and is out of Arentino’s second crop of foals. He has been produced by Peter, which is a fantastic horseman with a lot of knowledge on how to produce horses, and he really has done a fantastic job with Glanz, which just looks amazing. So a BIG thank you to Peter for all the hard work and his full commitment to Herbstglanz day and night.  

The foals where up on the Saturday and we where so pleased when Hector was placed 1^st, Lancelot 2^nd and Urban Rhyme 3^rd with Hector becoming Reserve Champion of all part breeds entered. Herbstglanz was shown on hard ground, which was a bit difficult as the pen was not big enough to show the horse in, but it was managed. In the afternoon Glanz and Elischa had to loose jump and Glanz was really flat and we where very disappointed with him. The night of arriving at the show we had to move him 3 times due to the stables allocated. He was so stressed out, as mares and foals where walking right by his nose all the time and within an hour was white with sweat. Peter was so worried as he told me Glanz would now loose a lot of energy and this could mess up our chance of grading him, which was quite depressing to think about as Peter has worked so hard for 5 month just for these two days and to think it was all wasted was not happy thoughts. Elischa jumped well but I did feel she went in to close to the fence before jumping them. In the evening Clair took Elicsha out to ride and Kim noticed that she was lame and fetch me to have a look. Yes she is lame I said and thought I would get Peter to have a look. (Quite amazing that you need three people to tell whatever a horse is lame or not) I went to find Peter, which again said yes she is lame…. BIG disappointment to everyone involved, as it now looked like she had to be retired and all the hard work wasted.

On the Sunday Herbstglanz was first up for his showing on the triangle and he looked FANTASTIC…. He just showed everyone, who wanted to look at him, how he can move. He has three amazing paces and just kept showing them off. I was so proud of him and to think as a foal he was so laid back and LAZY (he still is) that he was always last in showing classes. The time came when we where to find out whatever Herbstglanz had graded or not and what a relive it was to finally realizing he had graded (I could not hear the speakers and only realize he was graded when Victoria came in with her little basked with the sash and rosette) The judges was very pleased with him and he got very high marks for movement and one judge commented that it was very rare to find a horse with such good movement in all three gaits. We are the first in England within the Trakehner Society to grade two stallions right after each other and to have a graded stallion from Arentino’s first and second crops of foals is just amazing. We then pulled our self together and thoughts went to Elischa, so out she came and we lounged her to see if she may be sound. Sadly the answer was no, she was still lame and had to be retired from the mare performance test ….. Such is life with horses.

In the afternoon we showed the mares and Henny and Luana was first up and in the same class. Henny won the class and Luana was placed 3^rd. Umbria was in the next class and also won her class. Then the mare Championship was on and Henny was made Reserve Champion mare and she also ended up as the Overall Reserve Supreme Champion of the Trakehner show so we where flying on a high at the end of show.

A big thank you to Clair, Kim, Peter and to Bernadette for sending Tim in to help us with the loose jumping, Tim for helping Peter whip Herbstglanz over the fences, Paul and Laura for helping us with the mares and foals and to Jo for coming up to see us and helping us out with the mares and foals and then to help us muck out. My god it is the first time I have seen someone in good nice white clothe with small fine brown leather shoes mucking out……. Thanks again to you all and to Victoria and Caroline for a well run show.