Profiling VALIANT

We really really wanted to save a purebred Friesian RAVEN son but also knew the dam must be Jenis! Well July 7th, 2009 Jenis finally delivered a colt by Raven. We were so thrilled and knew this was the one, this colt would and could be Raven's replacement. In August that year we took Jenis and her darling Raven son to the Northern IL Horse Fest where he was the star of the show. The person running that show asked if they could use him for a colt handling clinic and everyone was surprised how well behaved he was. Rhoda rode Jenis in the Friesian demo with Valiant by their side, only Valiant didn't stay by his mom, nope he was too excited to be free to run and buck all around the arena. Rachel was able to snap the picture below just as he lapped Jenis giving us at least one picture of him with his dam.

 

 He really was a star! Below he is showing off galloping around after the first snow fall. He is around 4 months old.

 

 As we knew we were keeping him and it is not good for a colt to grow up along we bought Evan to be his companion. They were the best of friends but were also typical boys, couldn't keep their mouths off each other. Below Valiant is pulling Evan's tail dragging him to the side. Evan gave as good as he took though, he spent the first few months pulling Valiant's mane out.

 

Their horse play was still all in fun even when we started using them as studs.We took both Evan and Valiant to the IL Horse fair when they were around 10 months old the first time, then took them the next 2 years

 In the next two pictures below they are still playing with each other

 

Steven would take the boys swimming to cool off after their sweaty play time galloping all over the field, rearing, and biting each other. They were STILL best of friends.  

 Steven taught Valiant to drive when he was a year and a half old.

After they both turned 2 years old Steven took both of them to a dressage clinic in Washington. When we walked in the barn with the 2 stallions the barn owner says, "your stallions are strangely well behaved." Below is Valiant and Steven at the clinic.

They were taken to the Fair together for the last time right before they turned 4 years old.

When we got back from the fair that year the boys changed in their behavior. Their play became WAY to rough and Valiant had the look in his eye that he wanted to kill Evan. We had to separate them at that point. Steven kept working with both boys training them to get up on a pedestal, bow, lay down and sit.

 

I was thrilled when both boys were under saddle. 

 

Steven got a job in St. Louis and Emily took over training the boys. Below is Emily riding Valiant right after a snow storm.

Emily started taking Valiant on trail rides off the property and meeting up with other riders.

 

Valiant was well behaved. She showed him in at the IL Horse Fair in stallion Row where he impressed about everyone. This big black stallion minding the small red headed rider. Although they shouldn't have been impressed, after all she IS a determined red head. No one messes with those, not even stallions.

 Emily took over handling the stallions for breeding mares too. It is impressive to watch Valiant wait until she gives him permission to mount. Valiant is our go to stallion. He is very fertile having both Raven and Jenis' genes and always ready to do his job. You laugh but Friesians were almost bred out of existence with only 3 stallions left in the world in the early 1900s. The numbers are now up but one of the problems with having such a small base is the inbreeding has caused a lot of infertile stallions. We at Horsemeister are extremely blessed to have 2 amazingly fertile ones.

 

Valiant not only loves the ladies, he is very kind and would never hurt a human on purpose. He has Raven's sweet loving disposition and best of all throws this in his foals.