All in the Family

Gdansk

I like pedigrees on horses.  I see a pretty performance horse and I immediately want to know the lineage, the breed, and just about everything else.

I know that many folks only care about the performance of the horse in front of them and that "you can't ride papers".  That is certainly true, however, a pedigree usually offers a certain insight.  There are family traits that run strong.  Athletic ability can certainly be passed along, just as easily as the "X Factor" explains Secretariat's 22 pound heart.

There are lots of horses in my mares' pedigrees that I know what they looked like and their general performance abilities.

I like to collect photos.  Forget having family photos on the wall: I have hundreds of historical photos on my hard drive. 

Gdaan

Zodiac Matador

One missing piece has been more information about Donni's sire. 

I did find that there was an ad in a magazine and a friend scanned the page for me.  This is the only photo I've ever seen of him.

"Dance"

Through my internet sleuthing skills, I knew the name of his former owner.  I set out trying to find a farm page with no luck.  I knew the name of the actual farm so I tried searching that.  I then tried matching the names up on Facebook and a name popped up that was in the correct vicinity. 

Now how does someone send an email cold calling about a stallion from the early 90s?

I wrote a message, hit send quickly, and then attempted to forget in case there was some poor confused non-horse person on the other end.

Well yesterday, I got a response.  My message had sat in the "other" folder for a long period of time until she actually saw it.  She was thrilled to read the message and happily told me about "Dance" and his loving personality.  He was a member of the family and lived at her farm until he died in his mid 20s.

Athletic, sweet, gentle.  She described him as a "tent" horse where he certainly would crawl into a tent to live with his person. 

So very reminiscence of the sweet personality his daughter has. 

Gdansk.  Dance's sire.

She asked for more information on Donni and her offspring.  Enthusiastic for photos, I can just imagine the person on the other line reliving the joy and happiness her grey Arabian stallion brought her.  "Dance" was family and in a way, it's all a great family reunion now seeing her stallion living on in his descendants. 

Sometimes it pays to be relentless in learning more about pedigrees.  It isn't always memorization of sires and dams, colors, or physical characteristics.  Sometimes it's about meeting others along the way and expanding the circle of equestrian family.