Fun Facts about The Homestedt:

  1. 5,500 lbs of dry dogfood, 2,000 dogfood cans, 600 eggs for our 14 dogs (11 of them are rescues)

  2. 82,000 lbs of hay, 17,600 lbs of grain and 2600 lbs of beetpulb ( before it has been soaked), 3,000 lbs of black oil sunflower seeds and
    1040 bags of shavings at the farm and 320 bags at the shows over a one year period.

  3. 1999 Ford F-250 named Harvey with over 250.000 miles and Mobey Dick, our huge white 4 horse steel 1977 Gore trailer move our horses up and down the East Coast 6-8 times a year

  4. Oldest horse at our farm is Dobee A Valentine, my beloved 24 year old former  FEI Palomino QH whom I have owned since he was a 2 months old colt, the youngest one is The Guardyan, 2010 foal by Foxcry Nicodemus, out of my wonderful TB broodmare Miss Laffalot

  5. Tallest horse is Raison d’Etre at 17.2 ½, the smallest one is Miss Blondie at a mere 8 hands

  6. Smartest horse, by a landslide is Foxcry Nicodemus – as a human, he’d be an MIT graduate student with a full scholarship to Harvard

 

My Reason:

I roll out of bed each and every day ( mind you, I am NOT a morning person) to feed 14 dogs (yes, I do collect strays) and 15 horses -

Believe me, it does get old at times - but the reason I do it, day in and day out, has a name ...................Raison d'Etre.

A tall, lanky chestnut with enough self confidence to float the USS Enterprise and gaits to match - yep, he is my reason for getting up and believe me, if you'd ever have the chance ( and no, you will not get that chance, sorry !) to ride him, you'd understand what I am talking about.

I purchased Raison d'Etre from his breeders at Dreamtime Farm in Lexington, KY in September 2001, as a green three year old. Looking back, I really can not tell you what drew me to him, other then the fact, that I knew his dam, granddam, sire and grandsire and felt confident about his future as a show horse. 

From the start, Raison d'Etre (we call him Ralee) was a force to be reckoned with - smart, athletic and always thinking of a way to testing me, we made a point of introducing him to as many different areas of our sport as we could - from jumping, to galopping cross country, to having youngsters being ponyed off him - he knows how to do it.

The first under saddle shows were rather entertaining - between digging up his temporary stall ( ....thinking back about the chaos he created, words just fail me), having to mount him in mid rear ( oh, that was fun - NOT), behavior unbecoming a future showhorse in the various warm-up rings (my apologies to everyone who witness it or was an unintended target) but by living through it, we have formed a strong bond.

From Suitability to FEI 6 year old, from PSG to Grand Prix - Ralee just stepped up to the plate and one of a sudden we are here, at Grand Prix. I still remember picking up the canter for the first time and the fence posts looked like a picked fence, he was galopping so fast - now we get 8s and 9s for our one tempis - amazing !

Yes, he is a great reason to get up at oh-darkhundred every day - I still don't like doing it !

Ralee undersaddle  
   
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