Brumby Tails

A Brumbies Life - VBA Atomic

Below is a story about VBA Atomic – Tommy – and his wonderful new life. Tommy was caught from the Limestone region of the Alpine National Park in Vic as a weanling foal. Tommy is now eighteen months old and living near Dinner Plain – very close to where he originated! Tommy’s new owner Katie is delighted with him, as you can see and we are looking forwards to hearing more about Tommy as he progresses!

‘We are well here. Tommy Hoss is such a confident, clever, spunky little man! I’m really appreciating his whole vibe! I’ve got some good photos of him coming, and tomorrow I'll try and get a few of him doing what he did this morning - he's not so sure of push bikes yet (last time we went off the farm to check out some low key scenery, cars etc, and find some fresh pick he got quite startled and fearful of a person on a bike), so in my effort to de-sensitise him I rode over there today, did what I needed to do, he checked out the bike thoroughly, putting as much of it in his mouth as possible, then before I left I proceeded to ride around in their paddock..... well..... he thought this was fantastically interesting and trotted and cantered around after me, about a metre or two away, floating along with his neck arched and eyes and ears fixed firmly on me - that was a great game thanks very much! So tomorrow I'll take a camera man over and see if we can capture him and his antics on film!

We measured him yesterday and he is 13.1hh. The tape measure also approximates his weight which is 300kgs. We've had some cold, wet weather up here already and I’ve gotta say, I’m so stoked to have a brumby after all those years of my beautiful thin skinned throughbred boy! Tommys coat is so good he's perfectly dry underneath even after 3 days of persistent rain and he has enough sense to stand between the bigger horses with rugs on to shelter himself! He's also quite accustomed to his feeds now - he has a little feed of chaff, sunny seeds & vit/mins each day, and so he now realises it’s his absolute birthright to be fed and loved and provided for! Cheeky little monkey!’
 

VBA Armani - loving life!

Hi Colleen, Just a quick note to let you know that Armani is going fantastic. He is a real sweetheart and I love him to bits. He is a very handsome black now, he has been gelded, he has had a farrier trim him and he is getting used to being rugged at night times. He shares a paddock with my two riding horses now and he is much more relaxed than when he was paddocked with our two ponies, ponies are naughty and they were a bad influence, they teach bad tricks. I handle him twice daily and he is brushed pretty much every day when he is brought in for a feed and rugged. he absolutely loves to have his butt scratched and each night sometimes after dark when I release him back out into the paddock, we have our ARMANI time and before he walks off to meet with the horses we have a cuddle then he takes a step and then leans/turns his rump to me for a scratch. After several minutes of that, he is satisfied and lopes of down the hill. I hope to get some more photos of him soon and get them in for the competiton. Regards, Lisa.
 

Victorian Alps to Tasmania - what a trip! VBA Annikas story..

Colleen, thought you may like some up to date photos of Annika - Annie as she is known here.

Her condition has greatly improved and amazingly she has grown 3", almost a hand (in two months!), and been in season twice. She loves life, food and my husband's gelding Czar! She likes her men tall - he's about twice her size. We have rugged her since day 2 and she accepts a wide variety of prepared horse feed, with a special love of warm boiled barley. It is wonderful to see her cavorting around the paddock just so full of life, so different from the sad little girl that arrived (Annie went over to Tassie on the boat – an epic trip for a little gal from the Alps!). She moves very nicely. Fast, sure and quick on the turn and this coupled with lovely short cannon bones make her an excellent prospect for polocrosse or to breed a polocrosse mount from her. She is groomed every few days and has had her first wash through which she was well behaved. If something scary happens she runs from the paddock to the yards as they are her "safe place" and peers suspiciously from behind the pussy willow trees until she thinks it's safe. If I go outside she calls, for attention or food or just to let you know I haven't gone unnoticed. I can catch her in the paddock with a bucket of feed but she runs about and plays games with Rod - she is definitely a one person horse!