Dagat-Geli

I thought that readers might like to see some more pictures of gorgeous Akhal Tekes, so here goes... 

The gleaming buckskin stallion Dagat-Geli is a horse that is quite a sight to behold.  He generally makes most peoples jaws drop just a little bit.  His beauty is truly amazing.  When I first seen photos of Dagat I thought to myself, "there's the next Kambar for our generation!"  Like Tokhtamysh, Dagat is another outstanding Elite graded stallion from the Geli Studfarm in Russia. 


Kambar was the golden poster horse for a lot of the breed books over the years. I still have an old "horses of the world" book with his beautiful photo that I daydreamed over when I was a kid. 

Geli Studfarm has an impressive lineup of quality stallions.  In fact, it's difficult to find anything amidst their herd that isn't drop dead gorgeous!  Dagat has recieved a lot of photo ops due to his stunning golden glowing metallic coat and 2010 world champion status.
 

My favorite photo of Dagat.  Courtesy of Artur Baboev.



Outstanding conformation for the breed.  Photo courtesy of Artur Baboev.



Photo courtesy of Artur Baboev.

 

If I was stranded in the middle of the desert, I'd want a horse like that coming to rescue me!  Dagat looks like a shimmering oasis - or a mirage.  Photo courtesy of Artur Baboev.

Photo courtesy of Artur Baboev.



At the world championship show.  He has some height...

After winning the world championship.

The 2012 filly Danaya, by Dagat.

The 2012 colt Ulysses, by Dagat.  Photo courtesy of Artur Baboev.




A recently completed mini "Maverick" resin.  Roughly 3" inches tall with some sculptural customizing work, and then painted as a bay based sooty dun.  Owned by Holly Hron.

 

Opening Up a Can of Weirdness

Everybody needs a little bit of "weird" once in awhile.  It's good to throw some into the mix to keep us on the edge.  In the words of my literary hero Hunter S. Thompson - "When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro". 

I've recently joined an online fantasy equine club.  It's a small group of model horse people who love to create and collect weirdness.  I need this group.  After doing what seems like a billion real horse colors and meticulously concentrating solely on realism.... it was getting too easy to slip into a non-imaginitive slump.  Realistic colors were starting to get too boring and blend into one big clumpy blob.  A change was needed.

In between doing realistic paintjobs on models, I've started slipping a fantasy model into the mix here and there.  It keeps the creative juices flowing and is perfect for letting the imagination run hog wild.
 

This is "Bip", the first fantasy model that I've done since joining the club.  Bip is a Zorseicorn - (Zebra/Horse/Unicorn hybrid).  Made from the Breyer Maureen Love classic mustang foal.  Bip will go to his first online show this month.  Although I'm not too big into setting up scenes and photo environment backdrops for models... (I've tried it in the past and discovered that I royally suck at it)  it's still fun to take regular studio shots of weird fantasy models. 

There will be more future weirdness on the horizon.

Presidents Day

On Monday I went out to my parents and practiced cutting our sheep.  Yes, that's right - our sheep!  The little flock of Soays that we have are proving to be very useful as cutting critters.  They're lightning fast and very long lasting little buggars.  They definitely give a horse a good workout. 

Craig and I hauled a load of yearling ewes and rams out to my parents place over the weekend, and on Presidents day myself, my mother, and some friends put them to good use in the arena.   



A photo that my dad took of Nettie and I cutting a little blonde ram. (It's rather humorous to strategically color-coordinate the sheep with your horse... but it wasn't planned that way - just kind-of happened.)

This was a good break for Nettie to do something else.  We've been doing monotonous drill work on slow circles to get better at our western pleasure riding, so this was like a nice mini-vacation to pep things back up again. 

Tokhtamysh

One of the most highly photographed exotic Akhal Teke stallions in the world, Tokhtamysh.  He's been wildly popular with photographers due to his chiseled head and hooded blue eyes.  He's an Elite graded stallion, standing at Geli Studfarm in Russia.


Photo courtesy of Artur Baboev

 


Photo courtesy of Artur Baboev

   

There are a lot of pictures of Tokhtamysh scattered throughout the web.  One of the Russian sales pages has his photo at the top header on the sires page:  http://www.akhal-teke.pro/sires/   And Artur Baboev's own webpage has a fabulous opening shot of him:  http://www.fotart.ru/



Tokhtamysh also passes his good looks onto his offspring as well.  This is Patma, a mare sired by Tokhtamysh.  She has inherited the hooded eyes and chiseled features of her sire.

The 2012 colt Timudjin, sired by Tokhtamysh.

Show Weekend

We went to some schooling shows over the weekend, which was both fun and educational.  After the winter break, both of my horses need a major tune-up!

On Saturday Craig and I drove over to the first "Earn Your Spurs" schooling show in Kennewick, WA.  It was held at the Eastside Equestrian Center, which is a nice place.   They have a covered indoor show arena with a nice large outdoor warmup arena in back, and also a small outdoor dressage arena as well.  I love warmup arenas - and I've come to the realization that they are quite an invaluable tool to have available.  


Our judge for the first Earn Your Spurs show was Tony Jackson.  He's a really great judge, very helpful!  Tommy and I had met him at the Sage Riders show last summer, and he spends a little extra time giving us "mini equitation" lessons at the shows.  He said that we've improved since last year, and that made me happy - but there are still many things that we need to work further on.

 

The indoor arena at the Eastside Equestrian Center is nice and big!  Craig snapped all of these photos from his phone.  I brought the camera, but he didn't get along with it too well....

 

It's still a little bit cold in February, so I was wearing 4 layers of clothing that day.  It makes it hard to move when you feel like a marshmellow!  We've also purchased a new english saddle, which has made all the difference in the world.  I hate to ride english - but it is a necessity in order to improve.  The new saddle is much better than the old one that we used to have, so Tommy and I are both a little bit happier to practice it now.



There was a very cute little girl at the show with her Bashkir Curly horse.  What a sweet old horse he was!  So gentle and kind.  She had a very fashionable saddle pad and black ribbon in his tail.  =:)

On Sunday we went to the "Battle In the Saddle" schooling show in Pendleton.  Since Tommy was tired from going on Saturday, I decided to take Nettie.  I really wished that there would've been a warmup arena at the Pendleton show - because Nettie was a total farthead.  She's usually fairly laid back and doesn't want to go very fast at all, but having a long winter off has turned her into a little space rocket.  We're just beginning to ride once again and get conditioned back into shape for endurance, so her jets were on full blast at the show!  (In hindsight, I should've ridden her a whole lot more prior to subjecting her to the show world again.  I just assumed that she would remember to go slow, but I should've known better...)



Our english classes were far less than wonderful.  She wanted to go too fast and root into the bit.  The more that I attempted to collect her, the more that she fought against it - so I finally decided not to push the issue any further.  We'll have plenty of time to work on this naughty little issue later on at home.



The western was a little bit better, and her jog was slower - but the lope was still way too fast.  We are going to spend some time in the next few months and work on things quite a bit.  I hadn't realized that the last show that I had taken her to was over 3 years ago, and she's incredibly rusty.   Add a winter off to that equasion and it's the perfect recipe for becoming: a little yellow turdhead.

 

But this was a lot of fun!  I had never tried a "pairs" class before, and it was really interesting.  There happened to be another lady there who was on a young palomino horse, so we decided to give it a go.  The hardest part was trying to maneuver around other pairs and passing them.  I had never experienced anything like this before, and it was really fascinating!  You have to communicate and think together as a team.  Really fun stuff!   


We're planning on going to many more schooling shows over the next few months.  We definitely need some more practice...

New Year, New Resolution

I've made a "corporate decision" to nix donating stuff.  For the past couple of years I've been overly generous in donating items to various organizations and clubs.  The unfortunate side-effect of spending time donating things - is that it takes away from the "paying" projects that take care of household bills.   Hence, a new years resolution....