Been so busy again especially because last week I started working as equine teacher at the equine collage in Kaustinen where horse caretakers is educated specialized on trotting horses! It is a temporary post at least for August and will keep me busy prepareing my lectures.
But I thought to take a pause from that now and continue writing a few word of the next pony, our breeding stallion Verano Lee v.d. Zandkamp.
I bought him from Denmark in October 2010. We had been searching for a dun mare for a friend of mine and it resulted in me buying a chestnut dun stallion (?!). We had two mares at that time and here up north it is quite soon calculated that it is easier and cheaper, to buy a stallion of your own instead of driving two mares to southern Finland for covering for years to come. Verano had already been accepted for breeding in Sweden as three years old with Gold and 42 points and later in Denmark with 39 points (which definitely is not what he is worth...). So he had been licenced for life. I chose not to show him again in Finland, partly because he already has been shown in two countries and I thought that the results still showed his quality, the most important thing for a stallion - results of his offspring - will tell the rest. I have been showing him for fun at Breed Shows with Gold and Championships.
Spring 2011 I broke him to drive. We have also participated in long rein classes where he has placed second and has won three times, last time this summer.
He has now nearly 20 foals in Finland and based on the results of his offspring he already got the first letter that in Finland defines offspring results at official foal evaluations - B. If one more foal gets II price/silver at least, he will get AB this year, tumbs up! For A he then needs a lot more offspring as well as super results to sometime later get Elite :D Anyway, we have been very pleased with him and of course one have to mention that his son Aarupgaards Alano Lee was accepted for breeding in Sweden with 42 points and full 10 points of trot in autumn 2014. Our Thorin Ax was the best shown yearling and 2 year old Shetland stallion in Finland and several others has been classwinners and Champions, Thorin even Best In Show II at breed shows. Verano was the Shetland societys Stallion of the Year in 2013.
The life is ups and downs and with Verano we hit the bottom in spring 2014. We had had vacation in 1,5 weeks with a stand-in taking care of the horses. When we finally took over the care taking of our ponies again we found Verano limping, I was sure he had taken a bad step or something and so we took him to the veterinary clinic. The shock was total to hear he had laminitis. Verano has been on pasture all his life and had never ever been ill, summers or winters, suddenly in March when nothing, nothing had changed in his life or feeding or anything, he got ill, well nothing had changed but the feeder... We can never know what had happened, but the only solution seems to be that he and our other ponies had not been fed as instructed, anyone who owns Shetlands now it is a tricky business to not overfeed them. He was also in a bit too good shape at the time but still, it was a shock and I was devastated. We have had laminitis on Shetlands before and the one we had which seemed to be realted to her hormones, we had to let go. But everything was different with Verano, he responded immediately on medication and all the caretaking and I got my hope back in a few days, it is not the pony's fault if care taking is not done as it should and he gets ill. He recovered very well and was even on restructed pasture (as we always have for Shetlands as I'm so picky to do everything exactly as you should, not overfeeding the with too much goodies) the following summer as well as since and has not once shown signs of laminitis again (fingers crossed). The x-ray shots also showed he had recovered fully.
There is no other explanation that he had been overfed and given too much hay by the stand in during our vacation againts the instructions we had given... So you can recover from feeding based laminitis. There is always a lot of discussion and especially bad talk after a breeding stallion is ill. Should he or should he not be used in breeding again? I made my judgement based on everything I know of laminitis and the experiences I have of it from before, and I made the conclusion he can be used, had it been hormonal and related to metabolic disorder for example, no, but as he recovered immediately and has been normal ever since, yes - bad caretaking is not inheritable and all horses can get laminitis from too high levels of sugars in their feed. I got my lesson of once again, only rely the care taking of my ponies to someone who takes the instructions seriously and understands that Shetlands are not fed like hard workin sporthorses.
We hope to have many nice years with him and a few foals more as we really like their temper, they love being with people and have good working ethics - just like their dad - and a brilliant trot - just like their dad. Love this stallion to bits <3
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