Our Friesian Stallion RAVEN

Feb 15th, 2009: This is my first attempt at blogging.
Today in church my nephew whose blog address I've posted on my horsemeister website told me that I needed to start a blog.
so..... This is for Nathan Herman!
Nate, I've learned about fishing from you, would you like to learn about horses from me. Not just any horses, how about Friesian horses?

We stand our Friesian stallion RAVEN at our Hanna City, Illinois farm.

The story of how we acquired Raven is a miracle to me and now it looks like I'll be writing it for anyone that is interested.
When my daughter, Rhoda was 9 years old we went down the the IL Horse Fair in Springfield, IL for her vaulting team. Our vaulting horse was an older quarter horse named Moose owned by Charlene. He was stalled right next to this beautiful Friesian gelding that was hanging out of his stall just asking for people to pet him. Right then and there I knew I wanted one of those horses! I had never seen such a beautiful animal that absolutely craved attention from people.
It took 3 years of saving, asking my dad for a loan and borrowing from the bank (the 2 year plan) to buy my first Friesian mare named Duurke. She was a star mare and had been imported from the Netherlands. We were so thrilled with her disposition and introduced her to our vaulting team. Duurke was so willing and loved the kids and put up with them crawling all over her, she made a great vaulting horse. I decided that if we were ever going to need to replace her, I'd better breed her as I didn't feel I would ever be able to afford to buy another one. I found a purebred Friesian stallion in Iowa and had Duurke taken there to be bred. I got the phone call from the stallion's owner that Duurke was colicking and what did I want done. I asked her to take Duurke to the Ames Iowa University for colic surgery. Unfortunately Duurke did not survive, she was too far gone by the time she arrived. I was pretty devastated as I had not yet finished paying for the loans I had taken out to buy her. She was not insured and I had tremendous vet bills on top of losing her.
I made up my mind at that point that NEVER again would I send away one of my mares to be bred. After paying off my loans I let a couple of years go by but I just couldn't give up my dream. I started praying about buying a Friesian stallion and started surfing the web. When I saw RAVEN for sale, I could feel God saying "There is your stallion." I turned to my husband and told him this was the horse I would like to buy. Mark, my loving and very patient husband said very emphatically NO!!! I did not expect this as I had always worked for what ever I bought and didn't think he should have the right to say no but I was a good wife and didn't whine or anything. (boy was it hard to keep my mouth shut) I just prayed and told God that if this was really my horse then He would need to change Mark's mind. After 20 minutes Mark said that if my sister Diane would agree to go in on RAVEN and be my partner I could buy RAVEN. I couldn't wait to call Diane and she said YES! footnote: Mark said Diane has never disappointed him more.
It was actually far far better to have a partner then trying to run this business myself. Diane's husband, Mike is an attorney but really is a want to be cowboy and loves horses. Diane is the financial brains and I get to do what I love best, educating people on the wonderful Friesian and showing off all of our Friesian stallion RAVEN'S offspring. Our Friesian stallion Raven is absolutely fantastic. Not all Friesian stallions are very fertile but RAVEN is EXTREMELY fertile. When our vet came out the first time to collect him he couldn't believe the quantity, quality and mobility of his sperm. Raven can inseminate over 30 mares per collection. Not all Friesian stallions stamp their beauty, conformation, and sweet loving Friesian disposition on their foals but RAVEN does. The other quality Raven throws is his FANTASTIC movement. Raven babies are now old enough to compete and are WINNING in dressage. A Raven son took GRAND CHAMPION over crossbred Friesians AND purebred Friesians at the FSHR inspections. Take a look at our photo gallery on our website of Raven's offspring on www.horsemeister.com. Raven has OVER 100 foals on the ground and almost all of them take after RAVEN much more than the foal's dam.
We know our Friesian stallion RAVEN is truly our gift from GOD!
FOOTNOTE: Raven passed away Sept 23rd, 2012 leaving more than 300 foals on the ground. Thankfully we kept Valiant, Raven's first purebred Friesian son. Valiant needed to step into his father's boots and we feel did this. His foals are as sweet and kind as Raven's foals and just as beautiful.