Jien's Page
Click on any picture to get a larger view.
Introduction
I got my filly, Jien, on 5 November, 2004, when she was about 8.5 months old (born 20 Feb, 2004). She’s been at the barn about 3 weeks now (29 Nov), and this is her story to date. We don’t have much of a memory constraint on storage for this site, so I intend to use this site and a blog to record Jien’s journey to adulthood; it’s the first time I’ve been around a really young horse, and certainly the first time I’ve been responsible for one. What all the foregoing is in aid of is that this page will contain links to other pages, where there are LOTS more pictures and LOTS more text. The intent is to avoid making you load all 300+ thumbnails UNLESS YOU WANT TO. Of course, *I'd* want to.
There are one to a few pictures of each “episode” in Jien’s life to date, and a link for each event. Click on the link to get the Rest of the Story.
Quicklinks within this page:
Husband Hunting for Al - Feb 04
I buy a Filly
Jien's First Labor Day
Jien Comes Home
Week 1
Week 2
Week 3
By the way, one of Jien's breeder's requests is that each of the horses sired by her stallion, Splash, have "splash" somewhere in their name. "Jien" is the Cantonese character for "powerful and flexible", as well as "splash" - so her registered name is Jien-ger Splash.
As background, last year I decided that I was going to need another horse sometime, since Al is currently 19. I wanted to work something out so that the horse would be coming into its prime as I actually had time to ride it – so that meant ending up with a mature horse in about 6 years. For variety of reasons, I decided to breed my mare, Ali. Al's weak point is her temperament, which is . . . excitable, so I looked around for a proven calm stallion. After looking for awhile, I took some of my knowledgeable horse buddies with me and visited Canyonside Ranch, home of Splash. The story of that visit is at Husband Hunting for Al. To cut to the chase, we decided we liked Robbi Pruitt and her stallion, Splash, and took Ali up for breeding - that story is at Al has a Conjugal Visit to Canyonside Ranch.
I think probably fortunately for me, the breeding didn't take. When I went up to bring Ali back, I chatted with Robbi about what she had available and ended up buying a, at that point, 5 month old filly. The complete story on that is at this page. The first two pictures are of Neon Leon and Jack, a three year old and one year old gelding, respectively. I was really taken with both of them. The last two pictures show what Jien looked like at that point.
Wayne and I went up over Labor Day, just to check her out. On the Saturday of the weekend, she was a baby. On the Monday of the weekend, she got weaned and, boy was she mad, as you can see from the pictures above. More of the story is at Jien's First Labor Day.
I finally got to bring her home on November 5. Three of my friends went with me to Bend to pick her up: Judy, Caitlin and Valena. Judy and Caitlin are both experienced horse people who I was counting on in case of emergency. Valena is the a relative newbie, like me, but was really interested in meeting Robbi, who is a mine of information. Caitlin, Judy and Valena toured the ranch with Robbi as tour guide. More pictures of the people involved and the other horses at the ranch, and discussion of our trip up to the ranch are here and here.
The people are, from left to right, Judy, Caitlin, Valena, and Robbi, the breeder.
The horses are, from left to right, Splash, Jien's sire, Valena and the other filly, and Rwanda, Jien's dam. The last photo is a group shot.
I spent the day following Jien around in the 15 acre pasture that she shared with 5 of her best buddies. All of them except Jien found me to be fascinating - so I got some good pictures of her buddies, and some good pictures of Jien walking away from me. The rest of the pictures of Jien are here and the rest of the pictures of her buddies are here. The little beige horse was really scruffy and really cute. Jien is the horse in the top two pics.
