taking care of Misty
Corey eating a Christmas Treat
Patrick preparing another feast...
HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL!
Hi there – I can’t believe how quickly the time just flies by us! The Christmas Holiday and the slide into the 2009 just happen way too quick! We have had the privilege of spending a lot of quality time with part of our family – of course we’ve missed the ones that weren’t able to come and visit! What a surprise we got on the 27th of December when long time friends from Canada pulled in with their big Motorhome and their dogs and their cat – how exciting. Patrick has known those people for over 20 years. Matter in fact he has worked for them for a year and a half during his stay in Canada. So the joy was great to see them again and we hope to have them stay here for a while longer! A few days ago, we were excited to welcome Daniela, our former exchange student from Switzerland, for a few days. She’s visiting from New York this time, since she has gotten a job at the Swiss Embassy there. So you see, never a dull moment at the Gruninger’s. We hope that you had a wonderful slide into the New Year and that things will prosper for you!
Have a GREAT 2009
For all who we’ve missed
Walking in the winter wonder land……well, we might not have a lot of snow in Florida at this time of the year (or ever for that matter), but the radio has been playing Christmas music around the clock for the past month, so how can we not get into the spirit?!
Wow – once again, the year just flew by! It’ll be Christmas before we know it! Time for us to gear up again and write our yearly Christmas letter…. Since Patrick was spending some time in Switzerland last Christmas and New Year’s, I was able to show at the FCHA Winter Circuit – my first time. Always wanted to go, but it’s just such a family time that it never happened. Sue and I ended up winning the 10’000 NHNP Circuit Championship! Now Scooter better follow in her footsteps.
Andy, Patrick’s brother came to visit us for a couple of weeks. Of course we always love his company and were excited to see him again. It’s been way too long since we’ve seen him last! The time just passed way too quickly though. After a rather cold and gray Florida winter we embraced the Spring and the foaling season. We had two foals arrive out of our own Quarter Horse mares and a few outside foals that were Thoroughbreds who belonged to customers. All the foaling and rebreeding went over just fine – little bumps here and there, but nothing out of the ordinary. However as time progressed, our one filly, Crystal, wasn’t doing well…. We think that she ended up being born with a partial blockage of the small intestine that enabled her to digest the mare’s milk, but once she started taking in solid food, she was going downhill pretty fast. Needless to say we were heartbroken to have to put her down, but such is life. Chicco, the other colt though was blooming and continues to do so. He’s out on the pasture with our last year’s colt, Hank. We were lucky to find a new home for one of our horses we bought in Texas last year. Gucci calls Oregon her new home now. Good luck with her Patsy! Of course one of our highlights is our yearly trip across the country to Montana. Patrick had the opportunity to spend a few extra days with me up there, which we both enjoyed greatly.
The Summer just passed way too quickly -at least for me. It’s always hard on Patrick, having to stay home during that time and mow the pastures all day long as the grass is growing faster than the horses can eat it. But September came and our trip back to Florida with it. We once again lucked out and had an eventless trip other than stopping to admire the beautiful scenery along the way. We always try to make the best and most fun out of our trips and include some extra time to see some of the beautiful country we decided to live in. So we stopped in Cody, Wyoming for an extra day. Went to the fantastic museum and did some local sightseeing. Then we took the route through Texas again, where we once again stopped at the Big Texan Steakhouse.
We didn’t have much time to get bored, we had back to back company from Switzerland. Long time friends and ‘ a long lost cousin’ made our days brighter and we enjoyed every minute of their time spent with us. Thanks for visiting!!!
Smarty our second horse from our last year’s Texas trip found a new home with Antonio – what a great pair they make. The annual Pat Wyse Community Clinic was coming up pretty quickly and was just around the corner in November. We had a GREAT turnout – thank you all for participating and making it another successful year!
Well and with that, the year started to head to an end. The next and probably last highlight this year was our trip to Texas, to the Cutting Horse Futurity
– of course we couldn’t help attending the horse sales and came home with two nice mares again. And now we are in our last stages of the year… Next week we’ll be celebrating Christmas. This time we’ll be celebrating it at our place, hopefully amongst our dearest friends and closest family here.
We hope that your Christmas will be Merry and your New Year to come will be Happy, Successful and Worry-Free. Keep in touch – we think of you often
Hugs from the Gruningers at Cambridge Star Farm
Sandy and Patrick and all their Critters
in case you would like to know what we are up to throughout the year – we’d love for you to check out our blog. We try to keep it updated, as to what is going on here at the Cambridge Star Farm www.thebasichandle.wordpress.com or our website www.thebasichandle.com !
oh… wondering what we came home with?
Well, we bought two mares. They are both two year old in training….. well, now they are on R&R at the Cambridge Star Hotel. But they’ll be back in training soon. I can’t wait to see what I have got! It’s like in a candy store and you are too full to try any of them 
– Pat bought two geldings. One he took to Montana with him (which he ended up riding him today – can’t wait to hear how THAT went) and one I took to Florida with me. I will bring that one up with me when I am leaving next Summer…. The gelding I call “Ollie” for Oliver Hardy. First he constantly eats and second he’s quite the comedian. So Ollie it is. Then our two mares we named “Misty” for the dark bay and “Ceena” for the red roan. Misty is by Cattin out of a daughter of Haidas Little Pep and Ceena is by Boonsmal Cee Lena out of a daughter of Smartest Little Pep. So they are all on vacation for a bit. They sure must have been in bootcamp for a while to get ready for the sale. So they can have some hard earned Christmas Holiday. Besides, Misty’s spur marks need to heal before I even can ride her. I they are finally to scab over and hopefully they’ll be closed up and growing hair before too long. Poor thing. I think those were the biggest spur marks I have ever seen. But both fillies are really friendly and people oriented and just looove to be fussed with. Sofar I am really happy with my new additions…. or are they new addictions?
I will have to post pictures later…. I’m having a hard time downloading them….
I’m Back!!!
Hello everybody! We are back from out trip to TX. It was a fun trip – as always. Hope y’all can make it one year as well. Lots of good horses to look at, horse sales every day, great cutting to watch and (horsey)shopping out the wazoo…. Stacy and David ended up having to stay home at the last minute, so I took a cab from the airport and went to the celebrity cutting myself and waited for Pat and Doreen to arrive later on in the evening to pick me up….. from then on the fun began…. we went to horse sales two days in the row (I love the ones where they show the horses on cattle and people bid while the horses work cows). So the first two days the sales were with the horses under saddle (2yo in training, seasoned show horses etc) … then followed by horses in hand (yearlings, studs, broodmares) – so those are usually a bit boring unless you are there to seriously buy…. so that’s usually the time we go and watch some cutting and start shopping. Patrick arrived Wednesday evening and we had a couple of nice days all together before heading out on Saturday morning in the wee hours…. we drove all the way to Baton Rouge, where we unloaded the ponies and let them rest for the night. Then we left at around 2.30 in morning to finish our trip back to Anthony……the horses travelled well and settled in just dandy here in Florida (so far). Now they will get a rest for a few weeks and we’ll see what we got after the New Year’s….I’ll try to post some pictures soon… the ones I took today didn’t do them justice….
select yearling sale
here is the herd settling at the Will Rogers Colliseum for the Non-Pro Semi-Finals…
TR Dual Rey
Have you seen this video? This is one of my favorite stallions to watch perform! They are ALL just phenomenal – but TR definitely got his own style, don’t you think? Look half way through the video how TR folds up his front legs and just crawls…. way cool…..can you tell I’m getting excited to go to the NCHA Futurity?
even a Camel can do it….
Well, if a Camel can do the lead changes, we definitely do not have any excuses left to miss them anymore on our Quarter Horses! Isn’t that clip pretty neat? Now I am just waiting for the sliding stops and the spins!
The mighty Widget
Hi there again…. here I thought Widget and I were up for all the laughs… but we both pulled through and were showing those big horses how to nail the leadchanges in the center of the pen – HA! But seriously – I was glad that the sand in the arena wasn’t any deeper or Widget would have been sinking in knee high
