It has been a quiet time in many ways but extremely busy in others. All three of our stud foals arrived safely (two colts and a filly) although Sparkle kept us guessing. She waxed up twelve days before she foaled and ran a lot of milk for eleven days. We were extremely sleep deprived by the twelfth day having got up to her every night, often several times but she then decided to foal at five thirty in the afternoon. At that point we were just relieved that all was well. We have never had a mare do that before and were starting to convince ourselves that something was wrong. We are delighted with all three foals and as the photos below show they are all growing rapidly and are really smart foals. All will probably be for sale at weaning in the Autumn. There are more photos on the foal 2020 page

The last few weeks have been tricky for us but compared with many we are so very lucky. The stud has had many plans changed or postponed. We did have one visiting mare before the lock down but sadly all other planned visitors had to be cancelled as was a semen collection from Tinker for a mare in Scotland. We were also unable to take Melitta to her intended husband. Both our stallions Hollybrooke Tinker and Skywalker have covered our own mares and if all goes to plan we will have more foals in 2021 than we have had for some years.
An event that cheered us up on the 19th April was the arrival of our first foal of the year. It was an easy birth but the mare retained her afterbirth and needed some veterinary attention. Thankfully she recovered quickly. It is a big strong bay colt foal by Hollybrooke Tinker out of Hollybrooke Crystal. The photo was taken when he was one day old. There are more photos on the 2020 foal page.
The second photo taken before the lock down, is of Hollybrooke Maxwell at his first British Dressage outing of the year at The Grange. He  did his best elementary test to date scoring 67.6% in elementary 43  to win his section. Lets hope it won't be too long before we are all out and about competing again.

The New Forest Point to Point on Boxing Day was run in absolutely atrocious conditions but it was never the less a successful day for the stud. The photo of John winning his race on his NF cross TB shows just how bad the weather was. Other successes on the day included the winner of the ladies race which was a first cross out of a TB mare sired by Hollybrooke Huckleberry. Hollybrooke Halo who ran in the open race for New Forest ponies and was third. The second photo is Hollybrooke Brown Sugar showing yet again what a versatile pony she is. She gave her young rider a great and safe ride to be third in the children's race.
Other Hollybrooke ponies that have been out and about over the winter include Hollybrooke Duke, who has been doing some arena eventing training. (Photos thanks to Kerry Bates)

Hollybrooke Cappuccino (left) and Hollybrooke Annie have both been polishing their dressage skills. Annie has qualified for both the Pony Club Winter Areas & NPS dressage championships.