This passion

For the years we have participated and the times you come back for more, sometimes you can doubt what you believe to be right, you could listen to folk and turn yourself inside out, you can even be at the point of why bother and then faith restored you start to see what you have sown ....Mr Grump Bag see's me as a Bull Shitter, I don't bother to ask why any more as he hasn't a real reason he just likes to shoot off....
Other folk are doing what they believe to be right by this breed and some just have their own personal agenda of promoting their own importance, it takes all types
But for me this last couple of years has been the making of what we set out to do even though at the time we didn't anticipate all of what we have achieved, it was a hobby combined with love of animals that became a passion
Many years ago when I went into the ponies I had an acquaintance who had showed me the ropes so to speak and then she bought a young 6 month old colt and he was stunning and extremely striking but he had uneven white markings on his legs and the desire at that time was that white socks or stockings were flashy and they caught the judges eye so here was this beautiful foal with 3 perfect white stockings and one back leg had white just up to the pastern....Now me being a novice I would of been thrilled to buy such a lovely creature but not this person and she and a friend of hers did something that I have never forgotten and over a period of 10 weeks or more this little foal had his uneven leg blistered and wrapped each day till his fur dropped out just under his hock, blistered was an irritant that burnt the hair away and the surface of the skin and when this had been achieved the leg was left to heal and scarring on most animals with fur will bring back white hair so hey presto he had 4 perfect white stockings....And to these folk it was a normal act and not at all detrimental to the foal and needless to say the foal won more or less every time out.
I think that and along with buying a very sick foal and her 21 year old Mother gave me a very hard lesson in not trusting people...I managed to rear the foal and had her for 5 years but she never bred for me.. And her poor old Mum I couldn't save and she aborted the foal she was carrying and died and all in the name of showmanship
So a great deal of thought on health has been paramount and changing anything cosmetically never, never entered my head even back to Nettlestaff Mustang Sally and her stupid semi erect ears and all the years of maintaining this belief we now see what we have sown and for me its as near to perfect and with that I post one more of Nell's children just the way I see this boy


"BERTIE" ALPORT FIRE CHIEF