The Countdown Begins

The countdown has officially begun. I finally figured out how to make a little countdown widget on the homescreen of my cell phone. 110 days until her "official" due date! Meaning her 320 day milestone is only 90 days away! I can't wait to meet my little gold nugget.

In other random news, there was a small chance Jetta's baby could have been palomino or smoky black. Neither colors that I was really excited about, although overall I'd just like a healthy baby. I don't know what Mirabeau's color genetics are, besides the obvious that he's homozygous for the cream gene (CrCr), but he could be homozygous dominant or recessive, or heterozygous (AA, aa, or Aa) for agouti. Supposedly Mirabeau doesn't throw smoky blacks, so that would indicate that he's AA. However, I didn't know Jetta's color genes, and since I'm obsessed with how color genes work I decided to find out!

I caved and bought Jetta a(nother) pretty new saddle pad

I submitted a hair sample to be tested for agouti and red factor. She came back homozygous dominant for both (so AA and EE). This means that she cannot throw any other color but bay unless it has another modifier (cream gene, dun, gray, etc.). So no chestnut or black babies ever.

In case you aren't obsessed as much as me with color genes... There are three main horse color bases - red (chestnut), bay, and black. Black and red are the red factor gene, and black is dominant to chestnut. So if they are Ee (one black gene and one red, but homozygous recessive agouti) they will be black but have the ability to have a chestnut foal. If they have two dominant EE genes, they are homozygous black and cannot throw a chestnut. Homozygous red is ee.

Bay is carried by the agouti gene, but they have to have at one black gene (Ee or EE) and then have at least one agouti gene (Aa or AA) to be bay.

It's just interesting in case I ever decide to breed Jetta again... and now I know for sure that my little nugget is buckskin! Baby nugget's color genes will be Ee/AA/nCr so 100% buckskin!

More fun with color crosses can be had here: http://www.animalgenetics.us/Equine/CCalculator1.asp

Got Jetta a new salt lick... she's obsessed:

And finally, I'm still trying to decide on names for baby nugget. Any thoughts or ideas? The registered name is already set in stone, but I'm still torn about other names. I really like Midas if it's a colt, but I have no clue for a filly.

Registered name: Merely Gold (by Mirabeau out of Gold Jet Away)

Boy names: Midas, Milo

Girl names: Marigold, Mirabelle, Melody, Marilyn, Maisie, Mira (pronounced meer-uh), Macy, Margarita
 - Don't like: Molly, Milly, Mia, Misty, Missy

Any name ideas?

Deflated & Sore

Despite the title, it's not all that awful.

I went to the barn yesterday and grabbed something out of the trailer. This sight greeted me:

Very, very flat

Oh joy. I have never changed a tire in my life. This will be interesting. I drove around to several places and finally found a trailer aid to use for changing it. I have a spare tire and a tire iron... Tomorrow will be all sorts of fun!

But luckily it's not like I was planning on going anywhere in the near future and if I do want to go somewhere Friday or this weekend, I should have enough time to change it beforehand. Fingers crossed.

The soreness is on Jetta. I gave her a good grooming yesterday and her back was ouchy. Bummer. It's on both sides of her back in the area that lies under the rear panels of my saddle. She's never been this sore before, I literally could just lightly press on her back and she'd drop. It was even hotter in those areas. I'm hoping it's just because she's out of shape and we did a longer ride and not that we're having saddle fit issues.

Today she was much better. I had to dig my thumb in to get a reaction. Still a little sore, but way better. I lunged her both today and yesterday and she looked great. No indication of soreness in how she moved so that was good.

After our lunge session yesterday Jetta got a bath. It was much needed. She was gross. I put Misty's Baker blanket on Jetta to keep her clean so I'd at least get to enjoy a clean pony for more than one day!

Shiny clean pony!

Have to say I like her in plaid. Maybe a Jetta-sized one is in our future?

Conformation

I found this great article on Equine Ink. I love learning about conformation, one of the reasons why I was on the 4-H Hippology Team last year (hippology: the study of horses). There were links to articles by Judy Wardrope which I think are fantastic. She doesn't just say "This is good and this is bad" but instead "This is good for this discipline because..." Love it. Here's all of her articles that I read:

http://jwequine.com/pdf/Conformation-Eventer.pdf

http://jwequine.com/pdf/hunter_or_jumper.pdf

http://jwequine.com/pdf/conformation101-jumper.pdf
http://jwequine.com/pdf/conformation101-dressage.pdf

So let's compare Jetta's conformation. This picture isn't the best because she's standing under herself in the back for some reason (that's not how she normally stands) but it's the best I have.



Based on Judy Wardrope's articles, I think Jetta looks as if her conformation is leaning more towards jumping than dressage, or maybe both for eventing? Her LS looks as if it's directly above the point of her hip (I think), her hind leg stands inside of an imaginary line dropped straight down from her point of buttock (a jumper trait). It seems like she has a pretty symmetrical (equilateral) triangle from point-of-hip to point-of-buttock to stifle, though I can't be sure if her femur is slightly longer than her ilium or not (a dressage trait). She has a pretty cat-like walk which makes me think that she does have a longer femur which means a longer stride, though she'll have more difficulty in the piaffe, passage and pirouette. Her stifle is nice and low. She has a pretty high point of shoulder with a long sloping shoulder and an upright humerus which is relatively long meaning she has a long stride. Her pillar of support comes out in front of her withers meaning she's not super heavy on the forehand. Her neck does look like it ties in a little lower than would be ideal, but she has a clean throatlatch and in this picture looks as if she has more muscle on the underside of her neck, so we're working on that right now. I just wish her head was a little smaller and daintier :)

Wait, I found another picture! This is Jetta when I first bought her.

So yeah, she does have slight sickle hocks, but overall I think she has pretty good conformation, not anywhere near perfect, but not too shabby.

Brindle

As you can probably tell, I am a fan of uniquely colored horses. One color that fascinates me is brindle. Based on what I've read, there doesn't seem to be an identifiable gene yet that is passed on from horse to horse that determines whether a horse is brindled or not. I found that can be exhibited in many different breeds, from Quarter Horses to Thoroughbreds to Warmbloods and can be a dark brindle or white brindle. Research suggests that it may be a random mutation (though one researcher noted that dark brindle seems to be associated with the gene for "sooty" coloring) and when a brindle stallion TB was bred, none of his foals were brindled, yet some of them were roan which is not a color found in TBs. Other times though, brindle can be passed on. In several places, it was noted that brindles can be a result of twin eggs who merged with eachother resulting in a horse with two seperate sets of DNA (Dunbars Gold is one such horse). Interesting. Here are a few pictures of some brindles. I think they're gorgeous!



Reckless Dan




Quarter Horse Stallion




Natal Clasi - WB Stallion




Remark - Related to Jetta!

 White Horse Productions
BrindleHorses.com
The Horse - Genetics
Behind the Bit - Brindles

Seeing Spots

Someday I would love to breed Jetta. I believe that she has pretty correct conformation with no serious faults and hopefully this summer I will take her to some sport horse breed shows to show in-hand and get some feedback on her conformation. If the feedback is good, I would love to get her approved in one or more warmblood registries as a broodmare.

So, naturally, I've been looking at stallions that I would like to breed Jetta to. This probably won't be soon and might never take place but I love to look and make lists of stallions that I like and balance well with Jetta. The reasons that I want to breed Jetta is that I would love the chance to raise a baby from birth to under saddle training as well as breeding a baby would be less expensive than buying a young prospect even with all of the vet fees and the stud fee taken into account.

Since I would be breeding my own baby I would want certain traits - one of them being color. I could care less if the foal is a filly or colt. Why not have a horse that not only has talent and conformation but color too? The color breeds that I love are Appaloosas and Knabstruppers.

Here is what I have learned about Appaloosa coloring so far. There are two genes that control markings: the Lp/lp gene and the PATN-1 and -2 gene. If a horse is LpLp then they are homozygous for passing on color markings to all of their offspring. This gene manifests itself in either a fewspot (also known as white born) pattern or a snowcap pattern. The PATN gene affects the distribution of spots, whether it's isolated to one area (like a blanket) or it's spread all over the body (like a leopard). This means that I need to find a fewspot or snowcap stallion with traits that I like.

A few of the traits I am looking for in a stallion that has good jumping and/or dressage abilities that has a strong back and loin, a large, balanced hip, good strong feet, small chiseled head, good performance record and, of course, color!

These are some of the stallions that I came up with and I liked the best:


Nobody's Harlequin



Hussar of Independence



Ravaldi



Butterwap Confetti

The first three stallions are Knabstruppers. I like Nobody's Harlequin because he looks as if he has fantastic bone and very correct conformation (though in this picture he appears back at the knee), but I would like a prettier, more refined head. Hussar I also love because he's got all of the conformation traits that I am looking for, but he is located in Germany, I think, so I'm not sure how the whole shipping semen deal would work out. Ravaldi is a little lacking in the conformation department for what I'm looking for, but man can he jump! I also like Butterwap Confetti who combines the two sporthorse Appaloosa lines of Wap Spotted and Choklate Confetti, but as of yet I have not heard of any competition records...

I also ran across Spotted Holsteiners. I am not really sure about how it works, but it seems to me that these stallions can pass on the color gene (to solid mares?) with only about 4% of Appaloosa blood. I would be interested to find out more about Spotted Holsteiners but so far my internet searches were inconclusive.

Just to show you what my dream foal would look like out of one of these stallions, here is Cita Norfolk by Ravaldi. She is just stunning! I love her color and her conformation and her movement. If I could afford her, I would buy her in a second! Presuming she was for sale of course.

Here are some links about coloring and the above horses:
Ravaldi and his offspring
Hussar of Independence
Nobody's Harlequin
Butterwap Confetti
Spotted Holsteiners
Equine Color Genetics
The Appaloosa Project