"Cloud" (by Canyonleigh Cloud Chaser x C. Amazing Grace)at 7 months old, at her new home in the hunter Valley,has already demonstrated her jumping ability by clearing the wooden boundary fence. Once only, thank goodness!

Line bred, again; both sire and dam derive from Pep (Peppermint Valley Supreme x Sutton's Fascinating Rhythm) and Kalarama Penny (Goldmount Challenger(IMP) x Penny West (IMP)

Cato at Macarthur One Day Event, ridden by Debbie Betts,Pupil of Heath and Rozzie Ryan at NSW Equestrian Centre, Lochinvar, Autumn 1998

Bloomsbury's Top Cat (aka "Cato")by Peppermint Valley Commander x Kalarama Penny, was a full brother to Canyonleigh Katy Stardust, dam of Rocco.
Rocco's sire, C. Echo Commander (by Pep x Sutton's Golden Spirit: another daughter of Kalarama Penny, by S. Anacacho King) is closely line bred, and has inherited colour, size and the jumping gene.

This is Rocco at age 6, August 2007, at Anambah, Hunter Valley ODE. Placed 2nd; just prior to E.I.

Training news

Interesting to consider what genetic traits will surface when Cloud starts her training.
I was accompanying Kate Chadderton and Rocco to the Berrima One Day Event around Easter 1997 and dropped in to Canyonleigh Stud, just down the road, to catch up with new manager, Mark Gee, and Kalarama Penny's daughter Katy Stardust, the first of KP's offspring born at Canyonleigh when I went into partnership with Betty Jenkins after I relocated from Camden to Canberra. Katy was so named as she was born on my niece Katy's birthday, and she's been family ever since. She was fine, in foal to C. Bigshot, but I couldn't look past a 3 months old filly foal from Canyonleigh Amazing Grace. "Shades of Rocco"! A robust palomino filly with the 'family bloodlines'; her sire, C. Cloudchaser is Katy's son and dam, C. Amazing Grace, is by Katy's sire, Peppermint Valley Commander. I had no intention of taking on another youngster, but in the end couldn't resist. I floated Cloud, and her dam, home just before EI set in. She had settled well in the paddock and I went inside for lunch only to be called outside by a passing motorist! Cloud had jumped clean over the post and rail surrounds and was grazing on the roadside.
An instant leading lesson, (lucky I'd left the headstall on)! She'd proved her tractability and her jumping heritage!!
She's a bit heavier that Rocco, but probably won't grow as tall and heavy as Bloomsbury's Top Cat (full brother to grandmother Katy, and a winning eventer!). All three, palominos, have a great "eye". Cato checked out fence lines and electric fences and went under or over as the situation allowed! Rocco is a super-cool assessor of distances or heights and has the back-end propulsion to 'jump the Harbour Bridge'! Cloud is yet to be proven but the genetic inclination is strong.
It's fascinating to test out the genetic propensity!

Training news

Looks like Cloud ("C. Gracious Cloud", By Canyonleigh Cloudchaser from C. Amazing Grace) has well and truly reached the stage, at 2-and-a-half, for a visit to the breaker. Up until now, she's been content to grow contentedly in the paddock with the mob. She's taken to the role of weanling-nanny with remarkable aplomb, very capably shielding young Galahad from potential rough and tumble from 3-year-old "Pan", but now she's looking to make something else happen!

She learnt from Maybellene to swing the yard gate just after dawn so that I'd hear the "creaks" and emerge from the house for the morning feed. When I clipped the gate closed she found that she could swing a lead rope hanging on another gate so that the metal clip makes a very effect clank...endlessly. If I don't appear quickly enough she'll meander up to the dog yard to stir a bit of reaction from the dogs. This morning's addition to the repertoire is to appear outside my bedroom window and 'stand on tiptoes' to reach across the electric fence and nuzzle the flyscreen on my window!! What next?

I'll bring Pan home from North Kaludah at the end of September to mind Laddie and pack Cloud off to breaker Jeremy Janjic to give her something more to engage the brain.

I hope fence, flyscreen etc. can withstand her attentions till then.

Bloomsbury News Update

Just getting set up to leave the paddocks clean and easy to manage while I'm out of action. My 20-year-old green machine with the gravity-feed petrol 'carked it', so I traded it in for a 3 year-old work-horse.
Should have known better than to choose a Yellow one. Jinxed! Is she a "Lemon"?
Needed to be jump-started; perhaps the battery was not holding charge because it had been "8 months in storage". Ran it for 10 minutes, 3 times, then she "popped"/"blew" or something!! Dropped all the oil out the bottom of the engine.
Ken says "it's serious" so I ran it downhill into the horse float and carted it back to the dealer this afternoon. Hopefully under warranty, and it should be back with a new engine within the week.

I worry about the colour!!