21 equines flew out this week!

Wow! What a busy week we've had! We were delighted to have the opportunity to send 21 equines to various destinations in the world this week. On Thursday night Henry and Terry flew with 6 Arabian horses, 1 quarter horse and 4 miniature donkeys to Luxembourg. Everyone traveled well and they are all doing fine.

Thank you Davy and Frank of Belgium for sharing your animals with us.

Terry will leave Luxembourg for Dammam with 3 horses on Sunday. Abdullah, Terry is looking forward to seeing you early Monday morning. Thank you for sharing your horses with us.

Henry will also leave Luxembourg on Sunday. He is taking 3 horses to Kuwait. Thank you, Ayman and Sulaiman, for sharing your horses with us. Henry looks forward to seeing you both at the airport.

Yesterday we loaded 1 Quarter Horse, 1 Arabian Horse, 1 miniature donkey and 8 miniature horses for their flight to Amsterdam. Our grooms were Ed Gosen and Suzanne Harland. Thank you, Ed and Suzanne, for taking such good care of the animals on the flight. I've been told that everyone flew well and all arrived safely in Amsterdam this morning.

Many thanks to Petra Toelle of Germany, John and Janet Lee of the UK, Eva Rubins of Sweden and Celia Limon of France for sharing your animals with us. It was a pleasure working with each of you and we look forward to helping you with future shipments.

We also started a new quarantine group for the EU and and one for South Africa this week. We will be starting new groups for the EU and Saudi Arabia next week.

Surfer's First Baby!

We are very pleased to announce the birth of Surfer's first offspring, a beautiful little palomino filly, as yet unnamed. Her dam is Lucky Four Gold Surprise and her sire of course is our little champion stallion, Conders Breaking The Waves. She was born on May 5th. Mother and baby are doing fine.

We welcome all suggestions for a good name for the baby. Megan has been calling her "Surfette" because her daddy's barn is "Surfer". I

have been calling her "Misty" because she is very light in color, like a misty dawn would be. I'm thinking "Misty Break of Golden Dawn" or "Misty Golden Dawn is Breaking" or ???? I want to get the sire's name in there somewhere. And this is just the first of the foal crop. We'll be in need of lots of names before foaling season is over. Let us know your thoughts!

Holiday in Poland

What a wonderful time we had in Warsaw last week, visiting with the Mroz family. We met them four years ago when the youngest Mroz, Janina, was an exchange student in the USA. She spent a few weeks with us at the ranch during the summer following her high school graduation.

Well, Nina is all grown up now and is a third year veterinary student at the university in Warsaw. She will be returning to the USA this summer to continue her studies by way of externships. She will spend some time here at the ranch, assisting Megan with health, grooming and training responsibilities and learning about the equine export business. She will spend some time with our veterinarian, Dr. John Clader at his clinic, Chapparal Veterinary Center and she will travel to California for a two-week stint at Pacific Crest Equine Clinic. In the meantime, we will make sure she gets a refresher course on Texas culture. We are very excited about having her visit with us again.

Nina's parents, Jagoda and Marcin and their dear friend, Maria, were the most wonderful hosts during our visit to Warsaw. Jagoda treated us to fabulous homemade Polish food - pierogies and saurkraut, Russian salad, wild mushrooms and special regional soups (borscht and zurek, to be specific) that were fantastic. We went to museums, toured a salt mine outside of Krakow and learned a lot about Polish culture and history.

On our last day in Poland, we were invited to the Mroz's country home. What a treasure that is! We made memories that will last for the rest of our lives - and established friendships that have no borders! Thank you, Jagoda, Marcin, Janina and Maria for an extraordinary experience!