Marika

Marika was probably our biggest disappointment driving almost 700 miles to pick up this 16 hand Friesian mare in foal to a Friesian stallion not related to any of ours and when we arrive we find a 15.-15.1 hand mare.  She WAS in foal so we went ahead and purchased her loaded her up and drove home arriving way way after dark.  We were told she wasn't trained to ride but had people sit on her so of course Rhoda saddled her right up and jumped on.

We waited anxiously for her foal to come, hoping for a filly even though Marika was not a big beautiful 16 hands but when she did deliver the foal was deformed. I felt like buying her had been a total waste of Horsemeister's money. We sent her first to Rainbow Riders for a couple months as a therapy horse then bred her to Evan then just sent her to Middle Grove. and the next year she had a beautiful filly.

 Above she is just a couple weeks old and below she is 5 months old.

She had very nice movement and at that point we felt Marika had redeemed herself. We bred her to Valiant in 2014 and Marika produced a colt June 19th, 2015. Below is the video of her giving birth.


Marika is a good mom but we had not really put any time into training her. This fall when we were working with the new play we asked Amy Koch if she would like to put some time into Marika then ride her for the 2016 IL Horse Fair. Karin, Rhoda and Emily put a little time into round penning her.

 We were actually pleased to see her big movement.

Amy took Marika to Bridlewood for a month then was brought back here to start working with the herd. Marika is doing very well. Rhoda did some training right after she came home.

 When Rhoda finished I mentioned that we need to think about using her more after the fair. She has very nice movement and looks decent. Below is Amy Koch riding her during the practice.

We were very pleased with how she handled the charges, being in the arena with 9 other horses and still was willing to listen to her rider.

Marika was bred back to Valiant and is due July 7th. We expect this foal to finish around 16 hands, be very sweet and have decent movement.
We had a cold day with wind chills in the single digits. Karin was here training when I arrived home from Berean. If you would like to read about our morning there click HERE.
Karin had 8 mares in the arena and had ridden every one. By the time I arrived she was getting ready to put them away.

Jenis had just had a good roll and was sitting there waiting while Karin put lead ropes on the rest.