Short post tonight, because I am just too dead tired to write anything much and it's been a long, hot week already.
But I am so very thrilled that a wonderful former client is coming back into the fold, bringing her multi-National Champion stallion and we are at present planning his return to the show ring, this time under saddle!!
A very dear friend told me about this horse in the Spring of last year and we all, including the broker, spent several months working to bring the deal for my client's acquisition of this incredible horse to fruition.
Many conversations later, almost one year to the day today, he came home to this very special client.
This horse is a two time National Champion with several additional National Top Tens in both the US and Canada in Stallion Halter, and he was pinned Top Five this year at Scottsdale in the Freestyle Liberty class.
More details will be forthcoming soon, but we are just so very excited for what the future holds!!
~SFTS
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Oh, come on, tell us his name! And post pictures!
ReplyDeleteThis phenomenal horse's name is *Noble Lord JP :)
ReplyDeletePictures are here.
Congratulations STFS. I know you will do well with Noble Lord.
ReplyDeleteThis does show what a good trainer and people person you are. Unsatisfied customers don't come back with expensive horses needing to be trained.
Crackpots on the other hand..... Well, lets just say that some people (including my mom by the by. Though we do get along well) just aren't happy unless they are stirring a pot.
I hadn't thought of this for decades, just typing those words "stirring the pot" brought back a flood of memories from one of my least successful bosses. Things would be running along smoothly at the business, people getting things done, our clients mostly happy with our work. Then Alli would have to go and "stir the pot" She would transfer everybody around the office without rhyme or reason and give them new duties. I mean, you would come into work Monday morning and find that your office had been moved and now you were head of sales rather than design interface. In most companies changes would take months to iron out the details of. Or she would rewrite the employee handbook and then be upset when the employees didn't (couldn't) follow the new directions. She use to punish her employees by giving them reviews. To heck with this annual review thing, we might get reviews every other month or every six months. At one point she was mad at my staff (don't bother to get angry at artists, they will get you back by making sure your face is used to sell bug spray) and gave us all reviews to fill out on ourselves (she was too busy to do it her self). So I had all my employees fill out the review as exceeds expectations on all accounts. Then I signed them. She had to put those reviews in their files and then try to explain why the reviews fell across the board next time.
All I could figure out was she must have had a difficult childhood and needed the continued drama to make her feel that she was doing her job, that she was in control, cause we all had to keep turning to her (she was our boss) to figure out if we were doing what she wanted.
He is lovely, I take it he is not an Egyptian Walking Onion?
ReplyDeleteThanks Kaede!
ReplyDeleteAs a side note, he does have a bit of Egyptian blood through his dam ~ she is a product of a half-brother/half-sister mating, and the sire of both her sire and her dam is a horse named Limazar, himself by the well known Nazeer son *Ansata Ibn Halima, an Egyptian import. :)
Oh Kaede, you crack me up so much!
ReplyDeleteI've had a few bosses like that--at my company, managers circulate through different departments more often than I change my underwear. By the time I get the new manager trained, they are off to a new department and another one comes in, who is always so full of "great ideas" to "improve" my department!
There's nothing like getting a review from a boss who has no idea what my department even does--they use the helpful "review writing wizard," which contains stock phrases for them to cut & paste, such as "insert name here sets a good example for his/her staff and communicates positively to motivate them." And more blah blah.
In the meantime, it becomes more and more difficult to light a fire under my staff to get the actual work done, as they are pulled in so many different directions by whatever new policy happens to be in vogue today.
Now you've got me started about the "Employee Handbook": which, when it first came out, we all had to sign in the presence of a manager as if it were the Rosetta Stone. But now, all of a sudden it is just a "guide" to "help" the employees understand the "company culture."
In other words, company policy is whatever happens to be expedient for the moment. Which, currently, is that all our hours have been cut (with the same amount of work) because today's manager gets a bonus for cutting expenses.
Whew! I feel so much better, thanks for letting me vent about work! As it's now (Thursday night)my weekend, due to the above-mentioned cut in hours.
Back to real stuff--horses! Noble Lord is totally gorgeous. I'm partial to bays anyway, and love his expression--proud, intelligent, kind eye.
Nice work, SFTS--keep us posted on how he does. A true Egyptian Walking Onion indeed!
All these job/work related stories make me even more glad I am blessed to get to be my own boss!
ReplyDeleteMy husband was laid off his job of 15 years back at the end of 2005, and though we went through a really tough time for a number of months (especially trying to get the nightmare of UI insurance worked out, ugh), once he went back to the construction field he is so much happier. He too is his own boss, he truly loves what he does and is so much happier a person.
That company he used to work for would drive him crazy, they always brought in "department heads" who knew nothing about what his department built, and they constantly hired engineers who would design things that had no practical application (and in the process spend millions of dollars), which would need to be re-worked so they fit in to whatever project my hubby was working on [aircraft, defense department work and commercial airlines, then automotive applications].
Would have driven me nuts, dealing with all that!! Horses are so much easier to relate to, even with their sometimes horse people! :)
Thanks littledog! He's going to be shown this Fall at Halter, possibly in Sport Horse In Hand and presented at a few Stallion showings. Then next year he's heading back into the ring as a Western Pleasure horse.
This past Summer he was enrolled in the Nevada Silver Sire Breeders program in Reno at the AHA Region 3 Championships, plus he's got a number of Scottsdale, Regional and National winning babies, grandbabies and great-grandbabies, including last year's US National Champion Half-Arabian Yearling Sweepstakes Colt He Be Showy DFA, a grandson.
We are really looking forward to having a grand time in the show ring with him!!