What a beautiful day! Here's a picture of me and my wonderful project "Ike", enjoying the autumn colours after a training session.



Thanks Tik for the pictures!

I just got back from the Trakehner Stallion Licencing/Auction/Gala evening in Nuemunster. It was a great weekend with lots of beautiful horses, some great riding displays, super entertainment and of course great company.  The lard-on-bread-as-a-snack still confuses me, and it seems there actually is a food product out there that I don't like. Who knew? But even lard on bread can be washed down with a tasty German beer.

Last week I also enjoyed spending some days at the Westfalen Stallion Licensing Selection. It was very interesting and I saw some unfamiliar bloodlines that interested me for the future.

So, after my two week "holiday" I'm ready to be back to work, full speed. Well, at least until my holiday in November...

Cheers,
Eiren

Normally if I were going to try to market a horse I would do more than blog it. But we have this delightful mare, Santana, here at Ingrid's stable. Her owners want her gone quickly and are ready to take offers from their original price of 30,000 euro. I really love this mare and think she has huge potential. You can contact me for more details.

Last Sunday, October 5th, I spent the afternoon at the Munster Elite Auction. Just 10 minutes from the stable I drove over and started my afternoon off with a bang. Quite literally. When I opened the car door the fierce autumn wind blew it open fast and hard, into the car next to me. After a brief conversation (in German!) and exchanging of numbers I sulked into the "Pferdezentrum", wondering how much it costs to have a car door painted in Germany.

I soon forgot my woes once the auction got started. Somewhere around 80 horses went through the sale and while there were one or two that I simply thought, 'yuk', most of the horses were between quite nice to exceptional. Of course the top seller, Schickeria, was absolutely breathtaking. I did not see her walk, but her trot & canter were faultless. Her character seemed equally impressive given her behaviour in such an atmosphere. While I agree she was the top horse of the auction, I simply can't think it's normal to pay 355,000.00 Euro for a 3 year old!

The second highest seller, Real Love, went for 250,000.00 Euro and I didn't see anything about her canter that I liked. Her trot was hypnotizing, but her canter, what little they showed, was very normal. Of course, no walk was shown. To me this was just a very expensive trot.

The Damon Hill mare, D'amour was a steal at 42,000 Euro. I liked her better than Real Love, but perhaps I'm prejudiced to Dami's offspring. Again no walk was shown but her trot & canter were really lovely and totally adjustable. Super hind legs and she didn't bat an eye at the auction atmosphere.

Towards the end of the auction there were some nice horses that went for next to nothing. Because I wasn't looking at the horses the day before, maybe there was something about these horses that I didn't see. One sold for 10,000 Euro and another didn't even get a bid at 5,000 Euro. This was not a horrible horse, just a little ordinary perhaps. But I didn't say 'yuk' about it.

I have to add here that I saw some really, really bad riding at the auction. There was one rider who I just couldn't stand to see on the horses, and I was so disappointed with this. There was one girl who stood out to me though because you could see she truly had the horse's best interest at heart and tried to sooth them when they were nervous and smiled when they relaxed, and let them look a little more like 3 and 4 year olds instead of St. George horses.

Overall  it was a really fun and educational experience to go to my first auction.  I'm hoping to go to more just to see what is out there, what people are buying, and what they're paying.

... and good news! The man with the scratched car called Monday and said I didn't have to pay for anything because it was the wind that threw the door open, not me being stupid (not his exact words). So hoorah! Lesson learned though.

Eiren

Well, not sure what to say here. Writer's cramp? Stage fright?

How about I start with my clinic schedule in November.

10-11 (Monday-Tuesday) - afternoon/evening lessons in Port Deposit, MD. Contact me or dlearnalchon at christianacare dot org  (replace the "at" with "@" and "dot" with "." and no spaces) for more info.

15-16 (Saturday Sunday) - clinic at Carolina Equestrian Center, Rhode Island. Contact at www.carolinaequestrianri.com

19-23  (Wednesday-Sunday) - clinic in British Columbia. Full. Contact me for auditing or wait list information.