Blue Feather Farms

Hello and Welcome to Blue Feather Farms, home of a few very special Gypsy Vanner Horses.

Gypsy horses are an incredible breed. They are a beauty to behold, and their character a joy with which to work. Their size and temperament make them ideal companions for those like myself at, lets just say over 50.

I have been breeding horses for 30 years, including; Thoroughbreds, Warmbloods, Clydesdales and Gypsy Vanners. As I got older (and more brittle), I was looking for a horse with the kind, cooperative temperament and build of the Clydesdale in a smaller package, and then I discovered the Gypsy Vanner.

All blue Feather Farms horses are registered with the Gypsy Vanner Horse Society.

Contact for Blue Feather Farms via email at: foals@bluefeatherfarms.com

All of the Blue Feather Farms foals have been sold – please feel free to check back next year

Lava – SOLD

Arctic Ocean - SOLD

Glacier- SOLD

The Mares of Blue Feather Farm

Arctic Winter

Sire: Blond Boy Price’s Roadsweeper colt (by The Roadsweeper, UK)

Dam: Jo Wiltshire’s red and white mare, Matilda (by The Paddy Horse) (Arctic Winter’s dam is also the dam of The Lottery Horse, so she is a ½ sister to Lottery through their mutual dam!)

I imported Winter as a 7 year old from the wonderful Coates Gypsy in the UK (www.gypsyhorses.co.uk). She is a calm and confidant mare that is the alpha mare of the herd. She just takes everything in stride, and has imparted her temperament to each of the two foals she has raised for me thus far.

Winter is a very well bred Gypsy Vanner mare, with a good deal of her parentage known for an imported horse. Her sire is a son of The Roadsweeper, known as Blond Boy Price’s Roadsweeper colt. Her dam is the mare Joe Wiltshire’s red and white mare, Matilda - who in addition to Winter, foaled the stallion The Lottery Horse. Winter looks a great deal in markings and conformation like her ½ brother Lottery.

Winter has incredibly heavy feathers, which fall to the ground and spread out inches from the bottom of her foot. Her tail as well is very thick and luxurious, and I am very happy that it is solid black, no white to have to keep clean! Her mane and forelock are naturally thick as well, but this has been a blessing in disguise, as she is constantly getting hunks of mane caught in all sorts of things (we found enough hair to make a wig for two other horses in a water bucket hanging contraption).

I broke Winter to ride once she got to the US, and after a few days of getting used to the saddle, she has been trailing around with me on occasion, taking it all in stride. I’ve ridden her during the time she has been raising her foals, and each time the foals have had the same reaction – upset that I have taken over the ‘milk dispenser’ and chasing around us all the time we ride – which proved to be a good opportunity to see how the foals move.

Arctic Winter’s fabulous colt Alaskan Winter is now in Canada at:

www.muttnwood.com

Athena

Sire: Latcho Drom

Dam: Crown Darby (by The Gypsy King)

Thena is a heavily built mare who pushes off her back end to create a long stride for such a robust mare. I’ve just started riding her, and the walk is definitely her preferred gait (second only to whoa). She likes to please, so a carefully timed ‘good girl’ generally gets her working harder. Thena is an embryo transfer foal with some of the good early bloodlines to come to the US, and her pedigree is DNA confirmed for both sire and dam. She is homozygous for black and heterozygous for Tobiano.

Blue Feather

Sire: Foundation (UK)

Dam: Foundation (UK)

I imported Blue Feather as a 10 year old from the wonderful Coates Gypsy in the UK (www.gypsyhorses.co.uk). She is a sweet, gently and timid mare.

Like her son Pompeii, she is a true blue roan. In the springtime she has beautiful reversed dapples, and a photo of her was used for the new edition of Dr. Sponenberg’s book on Equine Color Genetics to demonstrate the ‘reversed dapple’ effect which is seen only in true roan horses.

After a valiant struggle on the part of our wonderful veterinarian, we sadly lost Blue Feather in 2011.