Ax Driving Team

10/04/2015

One step closer...

We have been breaking our three year old boys to harness, they have been longreining now an then during the last year, mostly single but even pair with the calm teacher Ivanhoe. A few days ago I got the feeling that Thorin is ready for the first drive so we took him out for a short drive. And he took it of course very calmly. Love this our first homebread colt, he is such a keeper!

New browbands!

Anita makes these beautiful browbands in all possible colors with your horses or ponies names and we finally got ours! I wanted calm colors for combine driving events so black with brown letters for pair and diamond letters with Ax Driving Team was the texts and looks I chose.

It is very handy to have the name on the bridles when driving pair and you pick easily the right bridle for the right pony. So Paulette and Ivanhoe got their own browbands. They are also made a bit longer than the browband in Ideal harness bridles I bought earlier from Hessi-tarvike, because I think they where a bit too short and it would have been possible for the bridle to come forward over the ears. That is anyway a problem with Shetlands and their thick mane. For competitions I therefore also usually plait the forlock in bunch with the crownpiece. Safety first!

If you want to have a browband with your ponies name, contact Anita via her facebook group! She ships abroad, too!

23/03/2015

Sponsors, how great is that!

I have had the luck to get a few sponsors for our driving team this year and they are of course worth mentioning!

Mias Ridsport in Sweden is a company which makes custom made saddle pads etc. and we got a sponsorship from them in form of harness pads, will take photos and write of them later when I get them from Sweden! Have been using them already a few years and they are great, good quality and classy looking! Mias Ridsport harness pads can be ordered for example from www.selar.se!

It is also nice to know that Mias products are made of European milieu cerfied fabrics! The harness is Ideal pairs harness from Hessi-Tarvike

We will also get browbands from a friend of mine, Anita, who has made lots of browbands with the horses name on it both with bling bling letters as well as weaved. We have a few of them also and they look great! If you are in facebook you will find her page: Pannband med namn/Brownband with name.

Verano with his browband which I bought from Anita a few years ago :)

We also got some nice marketing stuff and a Shetland sized blanket from Kpedu Hevostalous, Equine Collage located in Kaustinen (Trotting horses) and Perho (Riding and breeding). I've been the unit manager at Kaustinen several years ago, many students graduated from Kaustinen has become the grooms of the best trotting horses in the world!

Thanks to all my sponsors and if you are interested in sponsoring us, feel free to contact me!

12/03/2015

Exciting summer!

There is still a few days time to enter your ponies to the International Shetland Pony Show in Finland 15-16. August 2015! I just registered five of our ponies to the Show classes and sit here now and wonder what I will do with the performance classes as it will be already a very busy day to show all the youngsters...

Internet page for the Show: http://intshetlandpony.net/index.html

04/03/2015

Many new things!

There have been so many new things going on that haven't have time to write. In January we took a short vacation and drove to Northern Sweden to pick up our new gig which a friendly Swedish lady had brought up to us from Southern Sweden. The gig looked perfect but was in fact very heavy. It is the same 016L model from Dominiak we have from before but with smaller tires and breaks. Home I noticed that the shaft ends where a bit different too and for fitting the carriages to our ponies it was better to change the new carriage's shafts to the old one and vice versa! Now they both fit better our ponies.

Haven't been able to take some proper photos of the new gig but here some, in the lower photo with Swinghill's Paulette

The point was to drive the 3 yr old colts with this for the first time but as these shafts go very low on our ponies it will be better to use the old gig. The only problem has been this terrible road conditions, with lots of snow on fields and clear ice on roads there has not been any chances to drive them safely as they don't have shoes and studs. To my big dissapointment as I really had looked forward to get them into driving as soon as I got the new gig :P Well you never have enought patiance so good patience training for me instead...

Besides the new gig I got yesterday my new harness for pair! I had sold my old Ideal leather harness to a friend earlier and intended to by a Zilco pairs harness. But in the last minute I change my mind... There is nothing wrong with the Zilco but as we compete in combine driving and breed show performance classes I still prefer old classy style with leather in dressage and cones, so I just bought a new Ideal leather harness set. What I have been up to instead now is to find out if it would be possible to combine Zilco emphaty breastplates with this harness to use that part on marathon, I'll let you know... The harness I bought from the Finnish Ideal Harness retailer Hessi-talli.

The new harness!

And as this would not be enough, we have also a new pony! A breeder from Southern Finland, Ani, changed ponies with us. She got our lovely yearling filly Elenya Ax and we got her 2 yr old colt Anyan Raphael who is definitely stallion potential in my eyes! Big, nice colt with good gaits and top pedigree. He was a very tuff one with the boys in herd for the first two days but now the situation has calmed down as he gave up and they are all friends, so he hangs out with Ivanhoe the Boss, my driving gelding and our two 3 yr old colts Thorin and Dunedain Ax.