It is six weeks plus since my last blog and I want to start by paying tribute to my mother who died last week. Apart from the manner in which she conducted her death - in a brave, caring and dignified way, without her, Woodlander would not be today what it is. Her encouragement, sometime financial support and her very great pride in what has been achieved have added to what was already a very rewarding journey.
She helped me buy Savannah in 1998 and took great pleasure in watching that beautiful mare deliver one wonderful foal after another. Perhaps one of her greatest delights was watching Rockstar at Hartpury in 2010 and it was wonderful to see the stallion nuzzling her with his head in her lap as she sat in her wheelchair in the lorry park. She became quite dangerously opinionated about horses, riders and judges and was quite outspoken, but she loved to come to the stallion licensing and was always happy to share her view of which stallion should be champion. Hilarious!
So we face 2012 and a year that will undoubtedly be even more challenging and stressful now, but hopefully as satisfying as last year. We have new young horses to come out, new stallions, new foals, new German connections and who knows what else. We are very busy with buyers for horses. This is nice and unexpected. We take Woodlander connected horses from outside for selling and it is always interesting to see how they are now, whether we sold them as foals or whether they are the offspring of one of our mares or stallions. The genetics are always apparent. People are very clear these days about what they want and much more realistic. I used to get calls saying that the purchaser wanted a horse to go Grand Prix and they were riding Prelim, and that was unaffiliated! My husband was heard to remark that they might not live long enough! A little unkind but it was funny at the time.
Our new facility is going through all the teething pains that you might expect (and some you would never believe) and Dave and I are still perched in our stable conversion waiting for the go ahead to move into what will be our home for the next few years. The horses are all fine and snug and the mares are preening in their new stables. 14 more stables arrive in a few weeks and then we have to swap over the mares and stallions and carry on with our everyday work. We will not have time for a grand launch this year but we are really looking forward to the following year with some interesting international partnerships on stallions (wait and see) and more of our own. I am quite schizophrenic about all this "progress". I find doing what is right for the business the only way to go, but there is always that little tug towards the kitchen and the grandchildren! My new years revolution will be to make sure that we do both.
So, the stallions have all been good boys and the Hartpury British Stallion event was great. Sforzando shone, literally, as the opening dressage stallion for the evening, entering in pitch black and chased by spotlights and deafening disco music. What followed was a succession of well presented and ridden stallions and our boys made us very proud.
Supertramp was a star riding with tremendous cadence and uphill tendency in the arena at three years old and only ridden a few weeks (another Carsten special); Wenckstern was our Grand Seigneur taking a bow for all his accolades both as a Grand Prix horse in his own right and as a sire of GP and top auction horses. Rockstar was very impressive as he showed much more collection and his winter training really paid off (this is also apparent in the recent Horse Hero videos of him). It was clear to see how he had won the Int I at the Addington High Profile Show and had just been pipped into 2nd in the PSG by Torino.
It was also a big treat and an eye opener to see Michael Eilberg back in the saddle at the event. His warm up contribution was a very stylish presentation of the stallion Wesuvio owned by Alison Walton and Maria Delves, in the eventing section, no less. Michael directed this talented Woodlander bred stallion into a substantial line of fences and, to finish off, some cross country arrowheads. Michael truly enjoyed this and had only ridden the horse twice before. He also provided our Grand Finale with Monate who, although not a stallion, is the master of piaffe and passage and treated the audience his GP Kur and several rounds of Passage and Piaffe to a Gnarls Berkley remix of Crazy. No prompting required for a highly appreciative clapping and stomping end to a wonderful event.
Since the show, Wavavoom, who was also super nice to watch perform with such good paces and tremendous hind leg activity, travelled to Germany for a few months for his Bundeschampionat qualification (hopefully). We are delighted to announce that he will be staying at Hengstation Pape in Hemmoor and ridden by Susan Pape. We are trying to avoid the 70 day test as in Hannover the dressage horses STILL have to go cross country and in his case that would terrify me. Also the testing stations have some good riders but also some not so good riders and two months of bad riding is not good for any horse. This challenge has to be met by arranging our own serious UK performance test in the future. We are still working on it!
Like everyone, I have spent the last month or so fighting colds, sore throats, coughs and mystery aches and pains but I did limp out for one evening at Addington to watch the Grand Prix. What a strong class. Some years ago you would go and really only want to watch one or two of the entries as the others would be too painful. Not this time. All were great to watch. I loved Sarah Millis’s horse and was also really taken with Hannah Bigg’s test on Weltzin. We are now working with Hannah who has Buddy Holly for us and Daddy Cool and I really like her approach. Michael of course won the class with the spectacular Half Moon Delphi who belongs to our dear friends John and Julie Deverill. We are quite a posse these days and one very esteemed judge, rider and trainer asked, humorously, "What can we do to stop the Eilbergs?" Nothing, I hope.
In just three weeks we are off to our first CDI of the year in Vidauban. I am very happy that our competitions track a good eating guide and the sun! No booze to finish today as I am on to the day job. Next time, let’s talk about foals, mares and breeding. I saw lots of stallion in Germany but only a handful that you would want to use.
