Sugar

"That we should exist to the praise of His glory..."    Ephesians 1:12 
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Sugar as a youngster

Sugar Champagne Lace ("Sugar")

2001 AQHA, IQPA, ICHR filly 
Amber cream 

Current owner:
Rev. Barbara A. Kostelnik
Cincinnati, OH 

Bred by:
Alvin & Cheryle Van Zee
Corsica, SD

HER PEDIGREE (after the first page, scroll down for her generation 4 through 8 pedigrees.)

The picture above (and those in the 2004 table, below) were taken on April 9, 2004, when she still had her winter coat, but had had her mane & tail thinned,  trimmed and shampooed to show off the darker colored layers more effectively. She was exactly 14H, barefoot with a stick with a level in it, and 850 lbs by a weight tape, back then. 

As of  4/11/08 she had matured to 14.3 H (while long in the hoof) and nearly 1,000 lbs (by the weight tape, which seems to usually read low!)   She will turn 7 on May 17, 2008. 

Pics on this page are in this order: most recent at top, oldest at bottom.

April 17, 2008:

 (Wow, I hadn't updated this page since 2004! )   In exactly one month she'll be 7 years old, and has matured into a "real horse".  What does that mean?  Well, for one thing, I'd been calling her "my little filly" for far too long... now that she's 7, she's definitely a grown-up horse -- a mare.  But also, she was a late bloomer, like our Doc, and just finished *growing* recently -- in need of a hoof trim she's 14.3 H, which means that after the trip she'll still be bigger than pony size.  So, no Quarter Pony registration for her, after all!  And She weighs just under 1,000 as mentioned above.

Pics from two days before her  6th birthday, in May 2007, after a bath with dark blue shampoo!  Some of these were meant to illustrate the "swirly" coloring that many dark-pointed champagne horses have on their lower legs.

The next week I took one to show her dished, etc. profile:
 

Then there was what they called "the blizzard of 2008", which drifted so much from the wind you can't tell how much we actually got. We left the horses in their stalls, for a change, and when we turned them out the next day they were still muddy from before the snow.  But the snow was soooo pretty...

And finally, after thoroughly confusing her previously, we taught her that it was all right to canter under saddle.  Solomon was riding her when it finally sank in on April 15, 2008, and then the next day one of my previous riding students did it.  Here is a video capture of it:
That's old Amir grazing, and me at the bottom of the hill.

And the short video of her cantering, taken by her dad on my non-video camera, is here (hope this works, it's my first video on a web site, AFAIK).  She breaks into a trot at the top of the hill.

OK, I can't get it to work yet.  Let's try it this way:
Click here to see the .mov video. I hope.  Yay!  I did it!  So, that's all for now...

The pictures and text in this table are from 2004

sugar_ride_l.jpg (123029 bytes)

I enjoy riding her bareback, just because I can.  She doesn't neck rein yet, so when I have only one lead on her halter, I can only turn her in that direction!

sugar_ride_bend.jpg (86480 bytes)

I trained her, using treats, to bend her neck around to whichever shoulder I tap.

sugar_ride_f.jpg (71981 bytes)

A pause.  Please excuse my casual, slightly tilted seat.  I think she is nicely muscled, though she still has a very immature build for nearly 3.  When she finishes I think she will be a compact tank!

sugar_low_r.jpg (95449 bytes)

This is a combination "how I trimmed her mane and tail" and overall body shot.  Sometimes it looks like she has a wonderfully sloping shoulder!

sugar_pose_l.jpg (136583 bytes)

Other side.  I trimmed the top, white/yellow layer off her tail and trimmed the bottom sun-bleached ends off, too.

sugar_rump.jpg (71423 bytes)

Just a rump/tail shot.  Shows the frequently-observed champagne dorsal shading.  I only removed some of the white/yellow hair because she looked like palomino or perlino, and I wanted to show her true amber cream coloring better.

sugar_mane.jpg (162459 bytes)

Very revealing mane shot, though unflattering to the filly herself.

sugar_rear_2.jpg (190085 bytes)

This is a little game we play when we are both bored with round-penning.

sugar_rear_1.jpg (122167 bytes)

Sometimes she plays it more enthusiastically than others!

Summer of 2003, below; she's a 2 year old here:

Sugar_rump_03.jpg (143914 bytes)  barb_on_sugar.jpg (162770 bytes) riding.jpg (588234 bytes) Sugar under-color of mane.jpg (170653 bytes)  Sugar_front.jpg (264177 bytes) Sugar_head.jpg (191391 bytes)    Sugar_left_moving.jpg (264585 bytes) sugar_l.jpg (67110 bytes) Sugar_leftx2.jpg (220426 bytes) Sugar_mane_face-big.jpg (250853 bytes) sugar_original_mane.jpg (155705 bytes) (That last one is HUGE.  I'm including the under-tail shot for educational purposes... here is a 2 year old amber champagne + cream.  I think it's amazing that her tail skin, though sprouting a good bit of brownish hair, is an un-freckled shade of pink!)

 

Pictures in the row below were all taken by the Van Zees in  South Dakota in May 2002, at exactly one year of age. 
  sunny-head.jpg (122789 bytes)  Mvc-027s.jpg (158279 bytes)  Mvc-025s1.jpg (106168 bytes) Mvc-022s.jpg (93365 bytes) Mvc-019s.jpg (143261 bytes) Mvc-020s.jpg (84591 bytes)  

And here are my favorite foal imprinting pictures of her, also from the Van Zees.
sunny_alvin_1.jpg (32010 bytes) sunny_alvin_2.jpg (35710 bytes) sunny_alvin_3.jpg (68307 bytes) sugars_dam_lace_of_savage.jpg (105677 bytes) I've included her dam, Lace of Savage.

Sugar is appendix AQHA.  Her dam is racing bred, goes back to Go Man Go, and goes back to King and Three Bars each numerous times. Sugar has the quiet disposition and also the coloring of her sire, Sugars Uno ("Cane") (click name/link or see pics below.) (These pics are a bit overexposed, I think.)
cane I.JPG (71959 bytes) cane II.JPG (69425 bytes) cane IV.JPG (64234 bytes) cane III.JPG (64381 bytes) 

They tell me he is the fastest horse on the ranch!  He has numerous lines back to Skipper W  (Nick Shoemaker).

Apart from all that performance in her pedigree, Sugar should throw about 50% champagne foals, and when you add the cream gene in we'll have a 75% chance of dilute color every time.

She was originally registered as "Sunny Champagne Lace", but I changed her name last year to "Sugar Champange Lace".

DOB: 5/17/01

 


"Amir" ] Bill ("Bill Bailey") ] Learn About Horses ] May 2004 ] Doc ] [ Sugar ] Kids-1999 ] March 2000 ] May 2000 ] Horse Saga ]