Monday, January 10, 2011

The Year of the Chestnut?

Gracie

Just a quick update on what's happening at the easel. It's strictly coincidence that the two paintings I've been focusing on these first days of 2011 feature chestnuts (and one dark bay!). One is fairly small, 8 x 16 oil on Raymar, and it features the boys from a couple of winters ago. The other is a bit larger, 18 x 24 oil on gallery wrap canvas, a warmblood mare and foal.

"Watch and Learn," work in progress

Out at the barn, I still have my token chestnut amid the bays and dark bays. Gracie is a three-year old now, and will probably go back into training in March. Maybe by then one of the mares will give us a chestnut to take the role in her absence? Hummer is in foal to Mutakddim, a chestnut...won't be long now!

Work in progress

2 comments:

Miccosukee said...

Linda,

Obviously you don't buy into the old adage about avoiding red mares? Unfortunately for me, my chestnut TB slipped both foals and then the stallion I had a breeding back to up and died.

Most of my other riding horses were either deep bay or grey geldings. The only ones I had a problem with were the chestnut mares.

Linda Shantz said...

Oh, we're quite familiar with that one around here! My friend that trains these horses once they go to the track has had her fair share of troubles with chestnut fillies, so when two years in a row I had to break the news of these bay mares in foal to bay stallions foaling chestnut fillies, I had to laugh!

To be fair my first horse was a chestnut mare, and the sweetest thing on the planet. I've actually had far more problems with bay mares, actually! Though that could be because I've just had far more bays around!