Baron’s Trail Bay

MFTHBA # 86-29027
Zane’s Go Boy   X     Baron’s Black Lady C.

FOR SALE

About 6 months after we got our first foxtrotters from R.L. Webb, I got the wild idea to breed my mare Courtly.  But there were very few stallions standing at stud in Virginia at the time.  When I mentioned this to R.L. he told me about a stallion out in Missouri he had used many times and considered him to be one of the best around.  This stallion was never shown but must have been well liked because he has over 70 foals by him registered with the MFTHBA.

He was 20 years old at the time and had only been used to breed a handful of horses the last few years.  The man that owned him was in his 80’s and sufferring from severe Alztimers disease and was unable to care for Baron anymore.  He had raised Baron from a baby and owned him his whole life and was devastated at having to sell him.  After I purchased Baron, a neighbor of his and someone who had a couple of Baron’s babies, contacted me.  She could not say enough good about this horse.  I sent her some pictures of Baron in his new home which she took to the old owner.  She told me they really helped ease his mind about where Baron was now.

Baron also has some nice, well-known old bloodlines up close .  A few of them are Danny Joe W., Zane Grey, Golden Governor, Merry Wilson Allen, Dusty’s Red Wing and Dusty, Jr.  Another thing I really like about Baron is he looks black but is actually a bay with just a little brown on his nose.  You don’t see a lot of  Bay foxtrotters.

 

Baron has been DNA’d and is also registered with the Foundation Foxtrotter Heritage Association with a v-factor of  104.

Now, R.L.’s wife had been wanting to come to Virginia to visit relatives for a while.  So R.L. offerred to bring Baron to me.  This was all good and well except R.L. only had a 4 horse trailer.  And I only had one mare.  So the obvious solution was for me to buy 3 broodmares from R.L.  You’ll hear more about them on their own pages.

In June of 2006, R.L. arrived with Baron, Dixie, her daughter Lady and  Allie.  As you can imagine, one stud and three mares on a trailer together for almost 2 days, all the mares were in heat.  So I decided to try and breed them along with Courtly the next day.  This was the first time I had tried to breed horses and had a lot to learn.  Baron was a real gentleman and no problem at all to hand-breed the mares.  And eventhough 3 of them were maiden mares, they behaved very well.  I felt like we had gotten at least 2 good covers on each of them that week.  But then is when I messed up.  I only waited 14 days to re-test the mare’s for signs of heat instead of 21 days.  No one showed any signs so I moved them away from Baron and never tested them again.  But in my own defense, none of them showed any signs of heat for the next year either.

So 11 months later, I had barely finished our new barn but was all ready for some babies.  All the mares had put on a lot of weight (except Dixie, who stays huge) and I kept reading about how maiden mares can really fool you and might not even bag up until the last minute.  So eventhough they didn’t look all that pregnant, when their due dates rolled around, I was ready.   I parked my LQ trailer next to the barn and preceded to live in it for the next month!

In the meantime, I had bred a friend’s foxtrotter mare to Baron the week after breeding my mares and she dropped a pretty little stud colt she named Mercedes.

I was getting a little suspicious about Courtly and had a vet come out and check her.  Problem was, she couldn’t tell me for sure if she was pregnant or not.  Dixie and Allie both had milk but very little udder and even Lady had a little milk but no belly.  I now realize the milk was probably from the Domperidine I had given them in case they had eaten any fescue.   Allie and Dixie really had us all fooled.  There were many nights that they would lay down and stretch and moan like they were going into labour.  And I found out Dixie snores something awful!  My mother and her neighbor practically lived out in the barn with me wanting to see a foal born.  This went on for a whole month.  Finally at 12 months gestation, (I thought) I couldn’t stand it anymore and got another vet out.  She checked all 4 of the mares and said they were all open!  Boy, were we shocked.

So after this fiasco, I decided to not and try to rebreed Lady, Allie and Courtly until after I had finished their training.  Instead I bred Dixie, Spring and Magic.  And this time everything went as planned and I got 3 beautiful babies the summer of 2008.

Spring and Summer

Dixie and Shadow

Magic and Sundance