Spirit of Adventure
An article by Heather Brown, published in the Summer 2000 Arab Horse Society News
Work hard and go for your dreams
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It was these two mottos that my mother taught me early on in my life. The first motto led me on a path (though rocky) through school, university and my eventual career in the city as a derivatives trader and I don't know if I could have achieved as much (or put up with city traders as long) if I had not had some pretty big dreams. However, I think it was mainly the second motto which resulted in breeding PSYCHE'S SPIRIT. Though I have had arabs for 19yrs (this was mostly for hunting, pony club and racing) it wasn't until 1994 that I acquired my first arabian show mare and this is when my dreams of breeding a champion started to grow. I first came across Padron's Psyche in 1996. I was truly enamoured and desperately wanted to breed to him. After a lot of enquiries into the use of his frozen semen, which resulted in a big negative, I gave up on this dream. This was much to my annoyance because the more I saw and heard of him and his produce, the more I was convinced of his place as a superior and prepotent sire.
In 1997 my partner, Richard, had a secondment to New York. This enabled me to spend quite a bit of time in the US during which time I persuaded him what a lovely idea it would be to have a weekend break in California. Unfortunately for him, it did not turn out to be a relaxing break but a mammoth expedition! By the time we were boarding the plane I had arranged for us to travel 1500 miles and visit 4 studs in 60 hours. Never one to half do things, I suggested we also do some sight seeing. We splashed out on a convertible and started out on an adventure. The trip started and took us to see our first horse, a Dreamazon daughter, in palm springs and then on to our first night stopover in Las Vegas where we arrived at 1 AM shattered but determined to see the sights. After 4 hours sleep we got up and started the next leg of our journey, DEATH VALLEY, we felt like it! This took us to the foot of the Sierra Nevada mountains - stunning - and then on to Lake Tahoe where we saw Bey Shah and Huckleberry Bey daughters. Onward march, our next destination was Reno where we saw Muscat and Nariadni daughters. I must say all the people were delightful and so friendly. They were dying to show all their photos and share their special moments with us. However up until this point the horses were either way out my price range or quite faulty. Next stop - San Diego - we had arranged to see an El Shaklan daughter here, but after a 6 hour journey to get there and at 10pm the night before the visit, this fell through. |
Desperate not to waste a minute, I scanned 'Arabian Horse World' for adverts with the same telephone code. I found one and it just said "Pure Polish mare xxxxx dollars " so we decided we might as well have a look and arranged for us to see her at 8 AM. I had found my partner for Padron's Psyche! We fell in love with her instantly and it's a good job since our flight was leaving Los Angeles in four and a half hours there was not much time to deliberate. We just made our flight-though not much thanks to me after I disappeared to the phone to do a deal. Wow! What a whirlwind trip, the scenery had been out of this world, the people charming, the horses interesting and full of Sweet Emotion (sorry that's a pun on her name). We had returned with two speeding fines and a mare extra! I had also made a new friend, Phyllis, the lovely yet totally off the wall lady that I bought Sweet Emotion from. Miss Em's as she is affectionately known was bred to Padron's Psyche using chilled semen and she got in foal on the first try. I decided to leave her there until after she foaled so that I could breed her back again and then bring her home in foal and with foal at foot. June the next year after the vet had indicated that she was shaping up pretty well, I arranged to stay for a week so that I could help Phyllis with the sitting up and hopefully see my foal born. I'm afraid Em's had different ideas and at the end of the week I had to go home disappointed and foaless. She eventually, foaled at twelve months! Every one said that I must be hoping for a filly yet that most definitely was not the case My wish came true, on the day before Independence Day she gave birth to a beautiful and cheeky colt - PSYCHE'S SPIRIT.! I had quite a long wait to see him but I knew he would be wonderful and worth it. After a short spell with Meralyn Drain, Spirit went to live with the Maxwell family. Here he keeps them entertained with all kinds of tricks- jumping onto round bales and giving Emma a heart attack faking suicide, proving that he doesn't need to have gates opened for him as he can go through them! We unfortunately lost Em's second foal, Spirit's full brother, shortly after he was born a month early. Being a very late foal Spirit's first show was Malvern where he won his class. His second show was Towerlands and though he was looking a little more grown up than at Malvern, it seemed a tall order for a little boy to do well in such a huge class with plenty of quality colts. After his individual show he showed his nonchalance to the proceedings by chewing the towerland flags, after all he is a very well travelled young man. He won with a 3.2 point lead, won the only gold medal in the class and had the highest points in every category. Well, I couldn't believe it. I got well and truly sloshed and why not! The day couldn't get any better, WRONG!! He went on to be Reserve Junior Male Champion behind the successful Sandhiran. Since he had not been the slightly bit phased by Towerlands we decided to take him to Paris. He was the youngest in the class (in the whole of the Arabian Championships for that matter) and had to run in first- to the music of Rocky which seemed quite apt. The judging and placings were quite variable and he ended up 8th tied for points with BNC R Magic. I must say the last few years have been quite an adventure and though it has not been without its tragedies and I am sure there will be more, I am looking forward to the rest of my journey. Many people have pointed out to me that it could have turned out less favourably but hey, you don't get anywhere by taking no risks or waiting for someone to put it in your lap. So my motto is if you believe in something or more importantly in yourself:
GO FOR IT and GET A SPIRIT OF ADVENTURE!! |
