Power floats and Powerful Friesians!

Today was my first day riding with one of the equine vets here at Badger. And it sure was a busy day! First stop was to check on two Saddlebred mares that their owner wants to breed. They were ultrasounded to see where in their cycle they are. Next we went to boarding facility where several horses needed a variety of things from spring vaccinations to Coggins to floats to a workup on an older horse (~25 yr old!) with a recent history of weight loss. After that, it was off to check on some other mares for reproduction work. In this case, they are hoping to collect embryos from one mare and transfer them into others. This requires a lot of careful planning since the mares need to be cycling at the same time. The rest of the afternoon was spent floating the teeth of about 20 (!) horses at another boarding and training facility. Definately a full day! And thank goodness for power floats! (this picture is from a different clinic, but you get the idea)

So, back to the Midwest Horse Fair...and the promised Friesian videos! Brace yourselves, because I took quite a few. And had I had more memory on my camera, I would have taken more!

This first video is a short one, just showing a Friesian cantering by.

The next one shows two Friesian Sport H0rses being ridden in tandem. The Friesian Sport Horse registry is for horses that are 25% Friesian or greater. They had a whole variety of these Friesian crosses there, and they come in all shapes, sizes and colors. (I will refrain from commenting further on this for the time being ;) )

This next video is of another registered Friesian Sport Horse (he was 100% Friesian, if I recall correctly) doing a nice dressage demonstration.

Here is a nice single-hitch Friesian and another being ridden dressage during the breed demo.

This is later in the breed demo. I was focusing on the Friesian being driven, but you can see all of the other beautiful horses as they move by. And doesn't it look like he is trotting to the beat of ZZ Top? :)

Last is a group of three Friesians, one of whom stops to wave before exiting the arena.