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It is 2 years ago today since I got the devastating news that our beautiful 4 yr old imported stallion ‘Silver N Dun’ was found dead in the paddock at the trainers. He died from a burst blood vessel that can just simply pop. The ache of his loss still sits with me every day and grips my heart with a vengeance at times. Many times I have woken up thinking it was all just a nightmare however reality quickly sits in. In the shadow of his immense loss I had glimmers of hope through the 4 unborn foals he had due the following year. 3 of ours and 1 to an outside mare. I watched the mares carrying these precious foals tummies grow over the coming months. I stroked their bellies whilst whispering to the unborn foals how I longed to meet them. The next blow to my heartache was receiving the call that the lovely outside mare had aborted her little filly. In the spring I was blessed with 3 very dear little colts, a grulla colt (homozygous for dun), a brown colt and a stunning bay roan dun colt. Their arrival sure made my heart lift and the burden on his loss lighten. Sadly my losses weren’t finished yet with the unexpected death of the grulla colt at 3 weeks of age then the bay roan colt at 7 months. All of them were completely unrelated deaths and all which I was utterly powerless to prevent. The last 2 years have been a journey of such loss & sadness and I still struggle with the comprehension we lost not only him, but also 3 of his foals. In the early days after the loss of them there was lots of turmoil for me around thinking, 'do I give up or keep going?'. As the days went on it became clearer and clearer that a world without my beautiful horses was a world that would be far darker than the one I was in with my grief. My horses have always been bright lights in my life that have guided my through many dark times. What has also shone so brightly for me has been the wonderful support from those around me as well as the online community who have followed us through the highs and lows. All of your thoughts and care has also been so heart felt. I feel so blessed to have all of your energy around me. It also feels like this energy spills out into the hills and the hearts of my herd and for that I thank all of you. Our horses and my herd would not be where we are today without you 
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Well what a year our gorgeous imported silver blue roan stallion Silver Big Stretch has had. His first foal crop & we are just delighted with their type, temperament, confirmation & lastly colour & bling! He has added height & bone we were hoping for too. It's a huge risk to buy a young colt sight unseen from the other side of the world. The change from the first photo I saw of him to the magnificent stallion he is now is quite remarkable. So very very proud of my Zeus & CAN'T wait to see what foals he has this year with some very exciting mares bred to him. Some very exciting ones due too
Well its looking more and more like this boy is actually going to be a roan. His sire is Hollywood Groover (Smoky Grulla) & his dam is Ricinda Truly Devine (Classic Champagne Roan Dun) I am starting to see patches of white coming through. He has been colour tested as a classic champagne through a company we use in Australia. All our roan testing we get done in the US as its much more accurate. We only do that for possible homozygous roans and roan generally is pretty easy to see. It can be a bit trickier to see at birth on the lighter colours such as this boy however will reveal itself once they start shedding their foal coat.  After a great deal of consultation we have finally decided that 2023 will be a year of some big changes for us. With the loss of one of our imported stallions as well as the recent gelding of our other young stallion due to fertility issues our focus has had lots of re-calibrating. Also, seeing our other stallion Silver Big Stretch go so well under saddle has made our priority change. Our stud will be continuing however during the next 6-12 months we plan to sell our beautiful home & find a smaller horse property. This will mean we will sell half of our herd & only keep a handful of broodmares, our ridden horses & our special stallion Silver Big Stretch. We will be to still continue to breed 6 foals each year but will focus on showing our ridden horses. In the coming days I will work through the tough decision on which horses we will keep & which will be sold. We will be in no hurry to part with them until we find the right homes for them. There will be some blue roans, Silver's & most likely Hollywood Groover. These are top quality horses so they won't be cheap and all homes will need to be approved. Please contact us with your interest.  It has been quite a sad Christmas for us at Ricinda Ranch. We lost our very special Roxie in a paddock accident a few days ago. Our much loved sweetheart will be missed dearly by her horse family as well as her human family. We are all still so very shocked and cannot believe she is gone.  First day out in the big paddock with the herd for this young man. He was very curious and excited to finally have some friends. He sure is maturing into a stunning colt. Still need a paddock name for him so any suggestions let us know 
Now that's the news we love at Ricinda Ranch. 3 positive pregnancies today. Two Zeus bubs to gorgeous outside mares & one of our own Hollywood Groover bub. Has been such a great breeding season for us & our clients. Can't wait to see these bubs all arrive next year  Two of our stunning blue roan young mares Ricinda Truly Blutiful & Ricinda Smokin Hot. These 2 girls are by the gorgeous stallion BS Leo Smoking Hayes (IS) who is still in the states. The mare on the left is by our imported blue roan mare Coliban Tru Blu (IMP) and the mare on the right from our blue roan mare who is a daughter of Peptos Styish Oak (IMP). Colour genetic wise they are both homozygous for roan (100% roan producers) & Truly Blutiful in also homozygous black & Smokin Hot carries 1 red gene. A very important part of our breeding program over the last 10 years has been breeding to top outside stallions & retaining the best fillies. This strategy is now really starting to come to plan with these stunning mares like these girls. We have bred Smokin Hot to Hollywood Groover this year so fingers crossed on the safe arrival of another 2023 foal. It will certainly be one to watch out for and we will be taking EOIs   Lots of nerves & excitement to have Ricinda Valiantly blue at our first ranch versatility points day. All the best to everyone who attended. I'm so delighted with Phantoms first show & he was an angel. We had such a great day at the Ranch Versaillty points day at the Beaudesert cutting & Western performance club. A huge thanks to the organisers & judges. I'm pretty hooked now.
On the night of the blood moon we had a very special delivery It was one of those special mornings where I was completely in awe of the magic of life. I checked Devine at 3am & she was sleeping (obviously playing possum). Then at 4.30 I got a phone call from my partner who is away & he'd just checked the paddock camera remotely and called to say I'd better get out to the paddock. When I got out there, a stunning classic champagne dun colt was already doing laps. Wow he already had the moves at an hour old! We think Devine will have her work cut out with this boy. We are so delighted!
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