Dales Pony Focus, June 2020

June, 2020:

Cascadia Heritage is a small family farm focusing on breeding and promoting Dales Ponies and a few other endangered breeds of livestock.  Shuna, George and their son Viggo all work on the farm daily and enjoy spending time with the ponies.  This spring at Cascadia Heritage Farm has been busy!  We welcomed four beautiful Dales Pony foals in the month of May, one big black colt and three black fillies.  Thankfully all the mares foaled uneventfully, and the mares and foals are doing well.  One of the mares, Redprairie Anna, and her filly Cascadiadales Brilliant, will be leaving us after Anna gets back in foal so they can start a small Dales Pony breeding program in Bend, Oregon.  We will all miss them, and Viggo especially will miss Anna as she's his favorite pony to ride.  But he understands there are other children who need to experience the joy of having Dales Ponies too, so he's agreed to let her go.  Our young stallion Roandale Ragged Robin has just begun his breeding career, and we are hoping his first foal will arrive next spring.  Because of our time limitations we've decided to send our older stallion Kingmaker Talisman to spend some time with Jessica Wisdom and Kenton Wright.  They will take him to some shows to help spread awareness about this fabulous breed.  

Months in the planning, changes a constant, lots learned-- we did it!  DPCNA had a great booth with an exhibition stall attached in the Breed and Farm Exhibit at the Stroh Building, ably staffed by members, friends and family. Many thanks to breeders Blackshadowdales, Elysium Farms and Downeastdales for donating generously to the booth costs along with DPCNA funds, and to Deb Trudell for master-minding the extensive booth details.

Dales ponies did two 10 minute ridden demos, ably showing the versatility of the breed as well as their ability to get on with the show in a lively and engaging way. Anja Stadelmann and Clancy did a top notch job at the Fundamentals Forum, where she shared the history of the breed, took questions and Clancy stood being electrically shocked by the microphone in stride. 

Our ponies had constant visitors both in booth rotations and in "C" barn with a million fingers and little hands  poked in, and no one bitten. The hairy ponies were a huge hit, attested to every time a pony was changed out of the booth and visitors were exiled to the sides of the pathway leading out of the pavilion, and we heard, "Oh! There's a Dales Pony!" from pleased new fans.  This is a great way to get the breed known and loved and we are thrilled that DPCNA Midwest is gearing up for EA Ohio!