Cob Jockey

Blog hop time!  This was so much fun to write.  It's long, but mostly because of all the baby pony pictures and videos, which I know you will all enjoy!

Beka at The Owls Approve is celebrating Archie's impending 18th birthday with a blog hop! Her first topic? Before you met, where was your horse?  Who bred him/her?  What do you know about his sire and his dam?  What do you know where he came from?  Tell me about the time before he had a trainer.

I would love to!

Awwwwwwwwwww!

One of the most fun things about getting a horse from a breeder, and being friends with that breeder, is knowing what his early years were like.  And also, baby pictures, duh.

1-2ish year old Connor.  Dat attitude.

Connor was bred by Lisa of Castleberry Welsh Cobs and Sport Horses.  She is one of the coolest and most fun people I know, I mean, can't you just tell?

Connor's breeder riding a Welsh Sec C in the UK.  How much fun does this look like?

Her herd's foundation sire, *Tuscani Dundee, is Connor's sire.

Connor's sire, *Tuscani Dundee, and his breeder.

Dundee is the whole package: gorgeous conformation, beautiful head, great brain, and easy to handle, especially for a stallion.  He stamps his progeny with incredible feet and great minds.  He's also ridiculously photogenic:

Even at 22, still a really really ridiculously good looking guy.

And he's the only stallion I've ever ridden.  He and I showed all three days in the Parade of Stallions at the Hoosier Horse Fair a few years ago.


Connor's dam, *Bwlchllan Bessie, is who he most takes after:

Connor antagonizing his cheerful and patient momma in 2006.

He is like a carbon copy of her, especially in the head.  There are several full brothers and sisters of Connor's (which is a topic for another post), and some take after Bess strongly, and some, like Cadence, take after Dundee strongly.

Castleberry's Cadence - takes way more after their sire.

Baby Connor's most notable and amazing accomplishment was being named Reserve Supreme Champion (all ages/sections/sexes) at 2006 WPCSA Central National show when he was six months old!  I believe he beat out 80? other horses, including full grown ones, and under a really well respected Welsh judge.  I think the ribbon he won is almost longer than he is tall here, how cute is that?!  Here he is at that show:

All kinds of cute.

Here's a video of Connor as a yearling:


Two-ish year old Connor, still with that attitude:


When he was 4, he was taken to Pennsylvania by two extremely well-respected and accomplished driving trainers to see if he would work out for them.  They already owned another of Lisa's horses, who is doing CDE's with them to this day, Castleberry's Crackerjack.  Nicole of Equinpilot even took a couple photos of him in the PA barn when she dropped off one of Lisa's other horses there on a trip:

Photo by Nicole, around 2010

Photo by Nicole, around 2010

And here is a video of him both under saddle and being driven at the PA barn:


Luckily for both of us, he flunked out of the driving barn for being too sensitive to be "a lady's driving horse," and he came back to his breeder's, which is where I met him, showed him for his breeder in-hand:

August 2011

rode him after the show for the first time (our first ride was at the Hoosier Horse Park, how's that for trust?) fell in love with him, showed him for his breeder under saddle:

We've both changed a lot! September 2011

but still closed my brain and heart off to him, knowing I couldn't afford a horse yet.  But then his breeder made me an offer I couldn't refuse, and my trainer offered to let me do stalls, and that's how I became the luckiest girl on the planet.