Tag Archives: Sweet Hija

April 13, 2011 · 1:35 pm

Canada! Watch out for Lonespurs Shining Badger!

 

Lonespurs Shining Badger born April 11, 2011, Calgary, Alberta.

Sweet Hija foaled a colt, Lonespurs Shining Badger, on April 11, 2011.  Kim Elliott, the owner of Sweet Hija, has selected the paper name for the colt:  Lonespurs, the name of their ranch near Calgary where Legends of the Fall and Open Range were filmed; Shining, after the sire Shiners Lena Doc; and Badger, after the King Ranch bloodline of Sweet Hija.

Kim said that Sweet Hija was as big as Mac Truck before she foaled and that she had the foal all by herself, no problem.  That’s one of the reasons we bought Sweet Hija in 2003.  She was strong and bred for ranch work and could take care of things quickly.

I thought that all my tears had been shed about Sweet Hija, but Brenda and I gave a few more tears to the good earth when we learned of Hija and Highway 101, the barn name for the little colt named, Lonespurs Shining Badger.

Kim Elliott and her family — I talked to them on the phone — are so very proud of Hija and Highway 101 that I think (don’t know for sure) they will keep Highway 101 intact and have him sire a whole new bloodline in Canada.  We’ll see if my hunch is correct.

In any case, watch out, Canada, for this little man!

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Notes:

Kim Elliott and her family operate and own Elliott Equine Transport, the premier horse transport for North America.  Highway 101, Kim told me, is the coastal highway they travel between Canada and Mexico and the place in between and a fitting name for the little colt.

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March 27, 2010 · 8:14 am

Fanny Returns

Shiners Fannin Peppy and Jack Matthews, GCH Land & Cattle Co., March 2010 (click to enlarge)

Shiners Fannin Peppy, “Fanny,” came back to Flying Hat yesterday.  At the hands of Duncan Steele-Park, her teacher, she has had three months of the best training I could afford.  Fanny will be a excellent pleasure horse, a fair cutter and all-around riding horse.  Duncan assessed Fanny:  She’s a good horse, but in this high-dollar business of cutting horses, she could not compete at the super-athlete level that is required to succeed.  I’m not a swimmer, either, he said, and I and you, Jack, have to play to her talents, to her disposition and behavior.  It’s unfair to force her into being the athlete she is not.

I could not have asked for a better teacher for my horse.  Let her be herself, play to her strengths.  Fanny came back home and was welcomed by the remuda: they kicked and ran and whinnied, communicating excitement.  I’ll have more photographs about Fanny, but for now, you’ll have to settle for the photograph above: myself, my companion.

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