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Archive News - January to June, 2006Note!New horses for sale April 6, 2006!! We now have News in German!!! Wir haben jetzt Nachrichten auf Deutsch!!! Please also see our new page on Registration! Old Updates
We would like to say hello to all our visitors from all over the world!! We are very excited that our webpage is a regular for many people from as far away as Australia, Russia, Japan, and of course all over Europe! We are very thankful for your visiting our website. We have fun with it! Updates from January to June!08.05.06: late night! A late night update, two updates on the same day! Karen has finished working up 97 pictures from the St. George's Day Ride! The pictures are broken up into sections so you can look at what you want. There are great shots of fancy coaches, fancy horses, and even St. George himself! Enjoy having a look at everything that went on by clicking on the link below! 08.05.06 Karen's hand is out of the cast, this means she can type again without problems so you will see a lot of updates now! Georgiritt: We had a really great time at the St. George's Day Ride. Horses of all kinds from all over the region gathered to make a parade to the Altmuenster Riding Club. Eva and Kerstin rode in the parade on Rescue Me and Lark. We also were a part of the Show Program where the history of the Curlies was presented. Kerstin took over the job of riding as an Indian and Eva as a cowboy. Then Nicole Sprickler rode Rescue Me for the finish English style, showing collected trot and gallop, and a wonderful extended trot. Rescue Me was a little nervous but did a great job. We want to thank the girls for putting on a great show. The Show, which was organized by Nicole, also included a demonstration of coach driving, ponies, a Halflinger Quadrill and Pipi-Cutting, a Western Cutting demonstration in which the children got to play the cows! We have some great pictures that Nicole gathered from various sources that we will put here online shortly. Glory sold! Sad for us, but happy for two very nice families. Families Loessl and Kramer were looking for a very calm riding mare. There are several allergy sufferers in the group, and when they contacted us we invited them to come and see our horses. Glory's very fine training was evident to all, and the family came out with a trailer in no short order to take her to her new home in the Munich area. They are very pleased with her quiet nature, and she is doing great with the kids (they called to say that the kids are running under her feet and she doesn't blink an eye). We want to congratulate the Loessl's and the Kramer's, new Curly owners! We will miss Glory very much, especially Karen who is now without a riding horse! We wish Glory all the best in her new home. Stallions under saddle! The stallions have started their saddle training. Walter, our trainer, came out last week to work with them and see how they were doing. He was impressed with how far along they already are, however we're happy to have professional backup with the stallions. He worked first with Clooney, and had Karen sitting on him at the end of the session, and then with Billy Jack who was very polite and friendly. Karen had the job to work the rest of the week with them and Walter will be back out this week to check on her progress. We're very excited to have them under training. Wels Horse Fair We're planning on attending the Wels Horse Fair from the 25-28 of May. You can see us in the program "Zauberpferd" (or Magic Horse). Please come and see us! Commanche Riding! Our long-distance friend and fellow Curly owner and supporter, Mitch Wilkinson, is coming to Austria to demonstrate Commanche style riding. This is a very unusual way to ride a horse. Mitch has hand-made Commanche saddles, and uses a belly-loop for the knees. Using this riding technique Mitch can shoot arrows with a bow from horse-back. He plans to be here from the 25-27 of August. We will be putting on a Commanche Riding Show for our fans. We will provide more details as the time gets closer. In the mean time keep your calenders open! 13.04.06 What a great day! The Family Puetz came to do a allergy test, and also surprise 11 year old Marcel with a birthday present. Mama Puetz, Gaby, is very allergic to horses although she rode alot as a young person (like Karen). And son, Marcel, is also slighty allergic. They came to see if the Curlies would make life easier for them, since Marcel has been Western riding for two years, but both mom and son have to deal with the allergies. First, we made the test, and this worked very well, since mom was not allergic to Glory! After the test, the surprise birthday present for Marcel was a full riding lesson on Walter Lukas', our trainer and Austrian Trail Champion's, tournament horse, Joe! Marcel can ride normal horses, but with some allergies. Marcel did a great job, and Walter was very surprised at Marcel's abilities at such a young age. They were doing spins, stops, spin and gallop, and really did the works. Eva and Kerstin also came and got to see what their goals are in the future riding Western. And, we all got to visit Frost! Mama and Papa Puetz were thrilled, and brother Pierre, seemed also very pleased. Karen was smilimg the whole time that everything went so well, and Marcel was beaming a smile afterwards, as Walter very honestly said, he rides very well. Another success for Curlies Austria. It doesn't get any better than this making dreams come true! 06.04.06 Well, Karen broke her ring finger on her right hand! Since the people at the hospital decided that hand needed a FULL cast (ARGH!!! What ever happened to those small metal finger-frames that let you still work????) you all have the advantage that Karen has worked on updating the website (painstakingly typing with this silly heavy cast!) Whatever, you can now enjoy a thoroughly updated SALES PAGE with new foals for this coming season listed. She also moved the 2005 foals to a new page, a page that lists our imports too, Happy Horses. If Karen has forgotten someone, please contact her!
These updates will also be coming shortly in German. 03.04.06 What a mess! Spring finally arrived, and with it the snow melt. We're swimming in water and muck! We had meters of snow this year (a meter is 3 feet) and we were just happy to be able to shovel paths through the snow out to feed and water the horses. Well, now the snow is gone and has exposed tons of manure under layers of ice. What fun! We spent all this last weekend shovelling the manure out of the stallion open stall and onto the fields. Because the fields are so wet with water we cannot use a tractor (because it would sink and ruin the fields), and rather had to do everything by hand. We guess it was about 200 wheelbarrows or more full. The stallion paddock looks a lot better, but boy now we have to start on the mare paddock. We also started to clean up the mess everywhere. The driveways were full of mud and branches that the snow broke off the trees this year. The fruit orchard looked a wreck, but now that looks a lot better. Slowly but surely, we're cleaning up. Things will look a lot better in a couple of weeks (and long hours of manual labor!) Thanks goes to Eva and Kerstin for spreading the manure once we wheeled it out! Please excuse the mess as we do our major Spring Cleaning! Karen would like to say a happy birthday to her dad! She knows he reads the website, and she's tried to call him several times but his answering machine always says, "End of tape." Well, that means it doesn't take a message. He's 75 this year! She's also tried to email him, but for some reason, AOL has decided to block our email address. There's always something. So, we thought we'd just put up a nice hello, and happy birthday here! HAPPY BIRTHDAY Dad. Please keep in mind that the week after Easter we will be putting on a short program at the Altmuenster Riding Club's St. George Ride! We will be presenting the history of the Curly Horse. We're trying to get the horses into shape, but boy it's not easy with the late Spring. Well, we will do our best, so come on down! We've had a lot of visitors the last couple of weeks too. We had Thomas Huber here. His son, Leon, is allergic to horses, and they wanted to do an allergy test. Well, we were happy to provide one, and Leon did great. He was not allergic to Rescue Me, Glory and Moon. Leon's Grandmother came the next week to see the horses too, and Leon plans to come again over Easter to visit the Curlies. Congrats Leon! We also had a visit from Suz. Suz is an American-Austrian, and she and Karen met a while back through Karen's acquaintance and student, Suzie. Well, Suz is a riot, and loves to speak English and tease Karen quite a bit. She and Suzie were in Florida not long ago and brought some bumperstickers for Karen's car. One is definitely going on the pickup. All you gals out there will appreciate it, as it says, "Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy!" HA! 09.03.06 Geenie and Joe.We would like to welcome Claudia Schrötter and Klaus Koch to the world of Curlies! Claudia and Klaus are the proud new owners of *ZZ Magic Jackson Joe and *ZZ I Dream of Geenie. Geenie and Joe made the trip to the Dortmund area on Tuesday with a professional horse transporter. While waiting for their arrival, Klaus was so excited he had butterflies in his tummy the whole time! The foals were picked up at about 11 am and arrived around 9 pm. They had a comfortable trip and were met with a wonderfully large stall and paddock for their first night. The next day they met their new playmate, an elderly gelding of Claudia's! Claudia also told Karen on the phone yesterday that Klaus' mother is highly allergic to horses (we didn't know) and that when Geenie arrived she cuddled Geenie and had no reactions! They were astonished, and we were very happy to hear the news! Congrats! We hope to be introducing Claudia and Klaus to the Curly community. Erwin did a great job getting the foals on their way, as Karen was away in Norway! Thanks also goes again to Thomas and Eva for helping out Erwin. Norway! Karen just got back from visiting Lene Jensen, a curly breeder, in Norway! Lene and Karen have been online friends for some time now, and Lene has been to Austria a couple of times. It was Karen's turn to go see Lene! While there, Lene took Karen on a wild ride all across Sweden to visit other Curly breeders (Sandra Bergman and Mats Gerhardsson) and also to a stallion performance inspection for special breeds. Mats Gerhardsson presented a stallion, Kansas Dream, that Lene had bred, and so did Marianne Bornemark, her stallion's name is Missouri Dream. This was very exciting to see, and both stallions did very well and passed their inspections. Congrats! Lene's 10 year old niece, Isalin, went with them. She was such a pleasant little girl and enjoyed going on the big Ferry from Norway to Sweden, and playing with the children at the different places they visited. She got to play with lots of Curlies too! First at Sandra's place, she has a mare related to our Jo Jo and Glory, and son from her that is from Spartacus! And, also Mats mares and yearlings. Life was very interesting in Norway, they had -22 degrees celcius and about 3 meters of snow everywhere! Alf, Lene's husband, kept pointing to mounds of snow saying, that's where the old tractor is, that is where the tractor shovel is, etc. The horse trailer was up to it's sides in snow, there's no way to get it out, and Lene and Alf have an inspection this coming weekend. Poor things, and we thought we had it bad in Austria. One fun thing was that Karen could get at licorice candy! She fell in love with this stuff on her trip to Finland, and she ate about 2 kilos of the candy while in Norway! Karen also got to go on a ride with Lene. Karen rode Lene's more western style horse, Hawk, while Lene rode her gaited mare, Sonata. That was funny to see! Both rode bareback, what great fun. Wels! It looks like we may be attending Wels Horse Fair in May and may be a part of the daytime show program. We'll keep you posted. Updates! Karen will be updating the sales page shortly. We will be adding a new mare that is for sale in Germany. Keep an eye out here for more details.
The Breeding Association was very helpful in supporting us in all aspects (especially when the horses got too hot in the heated hall and we had to find an outdoor box stall for them to stay in during the nights). There were also Criollos, Frisiens, Fell Ponies, and many other breeds represented on the stand. We had a meeting of Curly breeders, in attendence were: Lene (Norway), Gaby (Germany), Konstanze (Germany), Andrea (Germany) and Karen (Austria). The meeting was very productive. Here are pictures of our show program! 14.02.06 Happy Valentines Day! Well, here comes the news in bursts again! We are excited to announce the official sale of Geenie and Joe. They will be going to Snakey-Water Ranch in Germany. Claudia and Klaus have a lot of horse experience, and have wonderful stables and several horses. We are sure our foals will be well taken care of there and have friends to play with. Claudia is masseur and therapist for horses, the babies should do well there. And, we are very excited that Geenie and Joe will remain together. We think this couple (who have one of the lowest inbreeding coefficients in Curly history!) will produce very nice offspring. Wow are we pleased, all our foals are sold! It is a testament to the quality of our program. We were extremely happy with the 2005 foal crop, we cannot wait to see what this year brings! Other news, E.G. Frost, our customer Brigitta's gelding that has been staying with us, will be going to our trainer Walter at the 1st of March. We will miss Frost very much. He is such a happy horse, and a people lover. Out in the pasture he always comes to us and places his head near a shoulder and follows us around. He loves Moon and the two play together constantly. He also loves the babies, and does a great job babysitting Joe. We are looking forward to seeing how he will do under saddle, and seeing if that Foxtrot of his comes out more! Finally, we are organizing like mad for Friedrichshafen! Help! 13.02.06 As usual, we have so much to tell you! It was an exciting weekend! Gaby Kaercher, our Curly friend and professional photographer was here on the weekend to do a Photo Story! She works for different publications (such as "Wendy"). These magazines are for young girls in love with horses and they have photo stories in them, like a comic but using real-life pictures. We were so happy when she asked us if she could come and use the Curlies for a story. We cannot tell you the story just yet, but when it comes out (in several months time) we will be happy to write all about it! Lot's of friends helped us out to do this. First of all, we would like to thank Nici Sprickler! She got to play the main character on Glory, she did a great job. Her boyfriend, Marco Steinlechner, got to play the other main role, and Eva and Kerstin were Nici's friends on Rescue Me and Lark. Marco's friend, Mani, played another supporting role, along with another Kerstin and Daniela. They all did a great job and we all had a lot of fun. Marco and Mani's friend, Philip, filmed the entire first day's work with Gaby, and also helped Gaby with technical lighting. We would like to thank Philip for his support. Special thanks goes to Georg Zopf. Georg is Bettina's father-in-law (our readers will remember Bettina from her heavy involvement in 2003-2004 with training and getting us organized) and he played the main adult role. Georg stepped in at the last minute when our other actor, Thomas Schachinger (Schachi), unexpectedly had to bow out. Georg did a great job! We also want to thank Schachi for finding such a great replacement so fast! We appreciate it. We also want to thank Koidi for lending us a jogging suit for Erwin to wear for the final scene. Actually, Koidi was supposed to play the final scene, but he fell out due to Alex's baby party! (See below). Thanks goes to Hans Nussbaumer (the husband of Hilda who owns the farm we lease) for lending us a tractor! On Friday we got about 1 meter snow and the path going to where much of the story took place was snowed in, so the tractor was needed to dig a broad path for the horses to go by. Karl Schuler was emmensely helpful in driving the tractor and digging out the path for us. Very special thanks goes to Greti Muhr at Kieselleiden Riding Stables for the use of her stables as a backdrop. She was very kind, and in the cold weather brought out a heating cannon to keep us warm, hot tea, donuts and schapps! Additional thanks goes to Ernst and Agnus Stingl of the Hufeisen Inn. They kindly allowed us to use their bar as a backdrop. All our visitors will recognize this inn as we almost always go there with them after the visit is over! And, last but not least, we would like to thank Hilda Nussbaumer for allowing us to use the house at Webersdorf (the farm we lease) for the interior scenes and for providing such great accomodation for Gaby and her assistant, Melanie. Everyone had a great time, and talking to them afterwards, they all say they enjoyed the experience. We were all very exhausted afterwards, and collapsed. Also, right when all this was happening, Alex (Hilda and Hans' son) and his girlfriend Nici Gaigg had a baby! We would like to congratulate the Nussbaumer's and the Gaigg's on their new little addition to the family, Stefan! 26.01.06 Oh, yes, yes, we have been busy! We did it again! We are happy to announce the successful import of *C-C Skygrey Sparkling Lady for Sophie Allioux in France! Curlies Austria helped arrange the purchase, pickup, quarantine, flight and arrangements in Luxembourg airport for Sophie, who then picked up "Lady" herself. Sophie has other curlies also at home in France, and this new addition is very special. Lady is a Spartacus granddaughter and is out of the very nice stallion, *Skookum Buck, an award winning Curly stallion! Spartacus is a very important stallion in Curly breeding, he is a dressage stallion that has produced successful offspring in dressage competitions (see our page on Curly History). Lady was bred by Linda VavRosky of Creekside Curlies. We are very excited for Sophie and congratulate her on such a nice choice for Europe! We hope to have pictures later today of Lady in her new home. More news is that we have found buyers for our two foals, *ZZ I Dream of Geenie and (*?)ZZ Magic Jackson Joe! They are a very nice and experienced couple from Germany. We will be providing more details shortly. In the mean time, we are preparing for our presentation at the Friedrichshafen Fair in February (16-19). We will be bringing our riding curlies there, and will be doing a short program on the history of the Curly Horse daily. So, if you are in the area come on down and visit us, it is a great time to see the Curlies because they have their Curls! Almost forgot to mention, we have new videos of our foals. The weather is very very cold (well below freezing) so we cannot get very good lighting, but still, we thought you'd like to see our babies!
02.01.06 Happy New Year! Boy have we got some fun for you today. We had our annual St. Stephen's Day ride at Curlies Austria and we took lots of pictures for you! You can enjoy the commentary too! Over the holiday we also had a great visit with Sarah. She did allergy testing, with hair samples before visiting and found she had no reactions to Rescue Me, Rose, Lark and Geenie. She came to do a live test, and it all worked! She got to ride Rescue Me and was with her over an hour without any reactions. Congrats! We also had a really nice visit from the Pohlis! They are also Curly breeders from Germany, and they made a surprise visit while they were visiting Karin in Maria Alm to go skiing. It was great fun to talk about Curly Horses all day long with them. We would like to thank everyone for visiting! We are expecting more visitors shortly, the Wolfs (who we did the import for) and some others from even farther away! Check back for more news on this shortly! We also have an import in the works, we will be announcing more on this in the next couple weeks. So, now for the pictures! |
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