to Firefly Farm.  We breed sporthorses for all disciplines, but most often for dressage.  Our goal is not to breed just one breed, but to breed the horses that individuals will select to be his or her partner for their personal riding journey, be it professional or serious amateur, or even if it is to find a partner to work with them for a lifetime of riding in any discipline.  Over our twenty-five years, we have bred Trakehners, Hanoverians, Oldenburgs, and more.  Today we breed mostly Hanoverians.  This year we are breeding our first Andalusian. 

This is a picture of one of our newest additions who arrived Memorial Day, a beautiful filly sired by PRE Andalusian Stallion IA Palacio, a young Santiago son that we met when he was still a three year old at the Michigan Stallion Expo at MSU in 2010.  We bred Trakehner mare, Arctic Ice to him, and although she had to undergo a colic surgery in October, thanks to the skills of Dr. Gary Fedore at Bergman Veterinary Medical Center, "Pinky" remained in foal, and carried baby "Milagra" to term and an unevental birth.

This is the friendliest baby we have had in our many years of breeding, and was born with incredible grace and impulsion!  She was born uphill, moving from behind, and doing the advanced movements and airs above the ground when days old!!  She is airy, light, and has incredible movement.  When we first saw this filly move, and saw her wonderful coonformation, we said that this could change a lot of things!  She is magnificent in many ways.  Her temperament is delightful, her spirit is brilliant, she was a bit wild with the horseshoer, but will learn quickly as she is very smart.  She is a real peach.  Beauty, conformation, Milli has it all.  We do not know how tall she will be, but she is every bit as tall, or taller than her fellow foal, Norman, who is out of two much larger parents.  She will be larger than her mom, Pinky,(Arctic Ice) who is about 15.2, and Palacio is 16 hands or 16.1 hands.  We can guarantee she will be gray.  She was bay at birth, with a very curly coat, and while she still, at six weeks is bay-sh, has grey spots coming out more and more places.

Come and see Milagra for yourself- she is a show stealer.  This baby will be for sale, and this is a breeding that we will repeat!! 

Five days after Milli was born, Hera Olympia,(Mosey) our Trakehner mare by Mozart, who has not had a foal for about ten years had a foal by Liberty Gold, a Hanoverian stallion who is located in Virginia.  She is a lovely dressage horse herself, and Liberty Gold is a stallion who is bred largely for dressage and is also approved in the Oldenburg registry.    We bred this mare to Liberty Gold hoping to produce a dressage horse, and it appears that Norman is going to be that kind of a horse.  We chose to name the colt that she had Liberty Firestorm FF, but started calling him "Stormin' Norman" because he was so stallion-like in his behavior.  We shortened that to Norman, and eventually that was shortened to just Norman.  He is an interesting colt, and has very fluid, liquid movement.  He is big and bold, and just torments that mares that he is out with.  We will soon know better what he will be like as he gets bigger, and the mares put him in line.

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Congratulations to Dr. Margaret Plocek on her purchase of Rocketman FF, who will become a hunter/jumper, and a wonderful horse for her to ride and enjoy.  Margaret has an excellent young trainer, Meghan who is very good with handling young horses, and will work to develop Rocky's talents.  We are sure that she will get him going in the right direction and do a great job with him.  Rocketman is such a great guy, he will love what he is doing.

Dragon Fly is in foal to Liberty Gold for 2012!  We got this breeding through the AHS Stallion Service Auction! Dragon Fly has been in foal two other times.  Her first foal was a colt by Regazzoni, who as a three year old was a champion in his first show.  Her second foal was a filly by Liberty Gold who was the champion at her inspection, and also won her in-hand class as a yearling.  She is currently 16.2 as a two year old.

The lovely Hanoverian mare Windstorm had hoped to get back to breeding and concentrate less about this under saddle business, but her great hopes have been dashed when Darn Lucky, her ace in the hole, went ahead and got in foal on her own.  Lucky has spent two years of futile efforts, but, finally figured out that in foal means a lot less work, for a lot less hassles.  Under the assistance of trainers Marie Milliman and Karin Bielefeld, Deb Reda has decided that she will likely show her this year, as opposed to breeding her back.  Poor Windstorm, work, work, work.