Meet The Family: Corinne

I purchased Corry in 1998 sight unseen. I had been looking for a warmblood mare for some time and heard on the grapevine of one who, if she weren’t sold asap would go to the knackery. Needless to say, I didn’t need any further convincing. Coz arrived in the dark one cold winter night; she was soaked in sweat and had her tail dragging on the ground and a mane below her neck along with the name Spice Girl. I thought what have I got myself into?

The early days with Corry were difficult… she was great to ride (totally green to dressage), but so very difficult to handle on the ground, totally head shy and prone to jumping out of paddocks when it suited her. Thus I went down the path of learning actual horsemanship. We tried several different people before finding Steve Jefferies (prior to his fame opening the Olympics) and Kate Hickson. These two people were able to set me on the path to making Corry less dangerous.

In addition to groundwork and float training, we were introduced to Kinesiology, in an attempt to clear Coz of the negative emotions/energies she was holding due to abuse in her life prior to me finding her and her fear of floating and abandonment. We had great success with this and Coz was a movie star appearing on an episode of Animal Hospital.

Coz’s dressage training went very well and we had great fun, prior to my chronic fatigue, which slowed us down a bit. When she retired to the broodmare paddock she was training medium. Unfortunately, our competition results were not as good as they should be as Coz was always worried about warming up with other horses.  She really isn’t horse friendly and would only relax when we entered the arena; unfortunately, this was usually too late to do well.

The decision to put Coz in foal was difficult as it meant we couldn’t be a team, but my lifelong dream had always been to breed a foal. She was getting on in life and it virtually was a now or never time.

Coz was meant to be a mum and took the first time with chilled semen to APH Spiegel an Australian bred Trakhener to imported parents. She is by Copernicus (or Cocktail imp). Following a textbook pregnancy and a little extra cooking of approximately 5 weeks, she delivered a lovely little chestnut colt – Crispin.

The second time around was just as easy for Coz to fall pregnant. This time we were using AI again only this time the stallion was Korrit (imp dec) from Tally Ho Trakhener Stud.  Unfortunately, this was not meant to be and after another faultless pregnancy, and a truly horrendous delivery, baby no 2 (Chance) was only to take a few breaths before passing away. Coz is no longer able to breed and I have decided for the time being that I’ve done enough breeding for now.

Corry was at work when EI hit.  Unfortunately, she became very ill, 3 courses of antibiotics, a nose that can only be described as a flooded fast flowing river of snot for over 4 weeks, a cough that had her on her knees more often than not and a lot of tears, sleepless nights and stress for me. It was a terrible time and I hope never to go through it ever again.  It also aged her dramatically and she hasn’t been back in work since. I think she’s earnt her right to retirement, though I still look at her in the paddock watching her float around and miss our rides.

She was 21 in December 2008 and is still as opinionated as ever and currently has a passion for the Arab x standardbred colt next door. She stands in the corner of her paddock calling to him constantly. The neurotic woman has not diminished as she has aged. She isn’t letting me down, now in 2011 at the age of 24 she still surprises me and jumps fences into other paddocks when the mood takes her.