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All about horses in northern B.C. Issue # 105: December 11, 2001 Published each Tuesday by Kristi McCrindle, editor, Grassy Plains, BC 2nd Anniversary - Congratulations to Kristi - Kristi has now completed two years as editor of Northern BC Horse. Her love of horses shows in every column. Keep going Kristi - we have a lot more to learn from you - Jim (editor, hiway16.com) Hmmmm, if that decision two weeks ago wasn't enough to weigh on me, last week I sold a different horse. I have owned Riser since conception - I used to own his dam, Electra, and most of you already know his sire, Raime. I was 17 years old when I got Electra in a trade deal, and put her in with my cremello stud colt, hoping for a palomino filly the following year. Of course, Electra wasn't so keen on the clumsy advances of a two year old colt, and so she seriously wounded him, leading me to believe that she hadn't been bred. That summer she and I won the Junior A High Point Gymkhana award for the North Vancouver Island Horse Association - my last year as a junior rider, so I was pretty excited! The following March we headed out to the first event of the season, a games clinic followed by a gymkhana. How everyone teased me, they were so sure my mare was pregnant, and I was so adamant that she couldn't be - boy was I surprised when she bagged up a mere two weeks later! Thirteen days after that, eleven days short of a full year from the date Electra had kicked Raime so offensively, Riser was born. My first baby!!! I could go on for days telling you about this wonder in my life - the traumatic halter breaking, weaning him with his dad for company, then his first winter coat shedding and coming in a golden dapple palomino, watching him grow, starting him under saddle, showing him successfully (he has won tons of awards!) - I've owned this horse since April 21, 1989 and for years he was my main horse, so you can just imagine the good times we have spent together! So it was increasingly bittersweet to think about selling him - but once again I turned to my goals. I want to rein, and as much try as Riser has always shown, he has no talent for reining at the levels at which I want to compete. In 1997, I started reining on Raime and was astonished at how much easier everything was for him than for Riser, who is built more like a pleasure horse. For a while in 1998 and 1999 I leased him out, letting people learn from him instead of having him sitting in the field. He was not for sale at any price then! However, while he was gone, I came to realize that I could live without him - and more importantly, he needed to go to a home where his training would be utilized. For the past two years we've had lots of enquiries about Riser, and always something has fallen through (usually distance, as most enquiries were from the States). And so he has stayed here. Sometimes I found time to ride him (we even showed him successfully in reining and dressage last year!), sometimes he sat in the field and did nothing. For a while this summer he even went into professional training to broaden his skills. photo courtesy Chris Hassell And then along came someone who wanted him for her teen-aged daughter, and she is so excited about this purchase! Kim has been telling me of the new blanket she has ordered, and the lovely little place where he will be boarded just down the road, with a barn and his own turnout pen, and how he'll be groomed every day until his hair will be so polished he'll be like a mirror, and how he'll be spoiled rotten (though she promises to discipline if necessary!). The more I listen to Kim, the more she tells me, the happier I am. Riser is a pretty special horse to me, and he deserves to be someone's special horse again. He deserves to be the number one horse in someone's life. He will be that cherished horse both for Kim and for her 14 year old daughter - their first horse! And so it is with a happy heart that I watched him step into that trailer last Friday. He is on his way to be hidden for two weeks until he becomes a surprise Christmas gift, to make the day (maybe even the whole year!) for a 14 year old horse crazy girl. What better place for him to go? Fare well, good friend, you deserve this chance in your life. ~ Kristi :) To see a few pictures of Kristi's Riser, click here email to editor: kristi@hiway16.com Photo Show for horse photos Horse articles (word search: horse) Check our Horse Trailer Sharing Page or... add your listing if you wish to share your horse trailer ride Join us for a discussion about everything to do with horses on Horse Talk Your opportunity to meet horse enthusiasts across northern B.C

	Past articles are all available in the
End of the Line - Part 2		Colour Genetics 101 - Part 2
I am slowly learning that as in any situation, the best offence is a good defence. You can defend yourself from the surprise of dealing with a bad situation by being prepared well in advance. For the past six weeks, we've talked about being prepared for an emergency - now we're going to discuss being prepared for what happens if the emergency is too much to deal with. There are many reasons in a horse's lifetime why you may have to consider having him put down. Mainly though, they can be lumped into two categories - serious injury or illness and chronic degeneration. Serious injuries can be one of the hardest to deal with because so much is thrown at us when we are emotionally stressed. To have a good "offence", plan your strategies out in advance. Know where your closest veterinary clinic is in terms of both miles and minutes. Talk to the vets that practice there and find out what types of equine surgical emergencies they are prepared to deal with. Some clinic are not equipped to deal with a colic, or a Caesarean section on a foaling mare, or broken limbs. Some are partially equipped, and so can stabilize your horse for a trip to the nearest clinic that is able to help your horse. Prince George for instance has an equine vet clinic but not having used them I am unsure what services they offer. I know there is a very good clinic between Red Deer and Innisfail on Highway 2 in Alberta, and there may be others in the Lower Mainland. To get to either of those, we are looking at a minimum of 13 hours driving time before reaching our destination - the bottom line here is whether or not your horse will make it. You have several issues to look about that topic in itself. Will your horse survive the trip? Will he be in pain too immeasurable to put him through? Is he at considerable risk to do more damage to himself? All of those must factor in to the decision to haul or to stay home. More next week.	Northern B.C. Horse is brought to you courtesy of our advertisers including: Burns Lake Building Supplies Griffin Enterprises Hoskins Ford Northern Horse Supply Ridennoure Paint Horses The Tack Store Thanks to our advertisers for making this all possible... ...for information about advertising, email jim@hiway16.com Western, English, Penning or Trail riding, all equine sports have a voice on Northern B.C. Horse If you are new to Northern B.C. Horse, check out all the previous issues on the Archive page. Kristi is building a great knowledge base about horses, with the emphasis on our area of the world.	Some genes are dominant, meaning that even with only one copy of the gene present, their colour will come through. The tobiano pinto gene is one such gene - hence the desire for breeding pintos with homozygous tobiano genes. A homozygous tobiano will always throw a tobiano gene, and therefore 100% of their offspring will be pintos. The red gene is not dominant as it can be hidden under black - the black gene is dominant over the red gene. The grey gene is dominant, as are dun and roan. The cream dilute gene is considered an intermediare gene - it is partially dominant (dilutes the base colour in its heterozygous form, but not to complete white unless in homozygous form) except when crossed on a black gene, when it can be hidden altogether. A dominant gene simply means that even with only one copy of the gene, it will be expressed. There are some hard and fast rules in colour genetics, though not many. Take for instance, your standard sorrel or chestnut. These horses have two copies of the red gene - they do not carry black genes, dilute genes, or grey genes, just red. No matter what colour horse you breed them to, they will always pass on a red gene - and that means that when crossing sorrel to sorrel, you can ONLY get sorrel. There is no way two sorrels can produce anything else. When dealing with the black and red genes, if there is another gene called agouti present, then the black is restricted to the points (mane, tail, legs). A red horse can carry agouti and not have it expressed - they have no black gene to restrict - but they can then pass the agouti gene to a foal if the other parent throws a black gene. This is why when people advertise that their stallion is homozygous for the black gene, they can't make the claim that he will throw only black foals - some of them will be bays, etc - but they can claim that he will NOT throw sorrel or chestnut as his black gene will mask the red gene to some extent. Next week, onto my favourite colour gene - the cream dilutes!
	If you have tips or questions you'd like to share with other local equestrians, please mail them to kristi@hiway16.com

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