Virtual Pwnies

Virtual Pwnies
Delving into the overlooked world of horses in media and video games.

Friday, June 29, 2012

Dominant White Standardbred at Fair Winds Farm!

So last week Heather and I met with the owner Mark Mullen of Fair Winds Farm in Cream Ridge NJ.  Last month a 95% white colt born out of the Brown mare Coochi Mama and the bay stallion Art Major.  Color genetics geeks know what that means.  A de novo dominant white mutation on the KIT locus! (Translation:  A new mutation/change in the colt's DNA caused a new white pattern)


Since I live in the state, and cool horse color stuff like this almost never happens here, I promptly called up the farm and asked if I could visit, take pictures, geek out over the foal and interview the farm owner.  They agreed to a meeting and with Heather as my navigator/photographer we head over to Cream Ridge.  After arriving we were allowed into the enclosure to get better shots and video of the little yet to be named KIT mutation.

It was in the mid 90's when we drove up.  Needless to say it was hot.  The most interesting thing to note was that although his dam did not like the heat, the colt seemed fine because his white coloration reflected the sun.  Another fun thing about the colt is that he appears to be Chestnut (not extremely common in standardbreds) on top of being Dominant White...  well, underneath the Dominant White, but you know what I mean.  The most amusing and neat part about his tiny bits of color?  His tail has a racing stripe.

It sadly might roan out and fade as he gets older.  But it is very cool.

 After petting the little guy, with Heather taking pictures, while I took video while he tried to eat my camera, we all sat in a field on the property to do an audio interview with Mr. Mullen.  As you may be able to tell I was excited and nervous to actually be there.  I even mispronounced Mr. Mullen's name in the beginning.  I don't have much audio interview experience as you may tell.  Talking to myself and a microphone, totally.  Describing equine themed plays and Broadway productions with close friends, yup.  Talking to living people who are respected in their industry who I only just met in person, had to get used to it.

Without further ado, there is the video with the audio interview!



Mr. Mullen does not own the colt, but takes care of the colt and his dam on the farm.  The owner, Pete Congilose, currently has a naming contest going on for the little guy.

 You can mail him at whitecolt@ustrotting.com to tell him your suggestions.

As of now White Knight and Blank Canvas are top choices.  So is Micky Blue eyes, but the colt is dominant white, so his baby blues have already faded to brown.  My horse crazy niece is obsessed with the Disney movie Tangled and wants him to be called Maximus.  Although I have no idea for a proper race name for the guy, I kind of hope his barn name will be Kit to stand for his new color mutation on the KIT locus. ;)


HUGE thanks to Mr. Mullen and the staff at Fair Winds Farm.  They were wonderfully nice and understanding of two horse crazed color enthusiast coming to their farm.  We will be trying to visit the little guy again after he is weaned in the fall.

Monday, June 18, 2012

Stephen Colbert Horse Ballet


If foam fingers didn't spook horses, I would totally bring one to a show.  Click the link, watch, and enjoy.


P.S.  Wishing I wasn't busy this past weekend.  The USEF event was held practically in my backyard!
P.P.S.  I was dressed up as Obi-wan Kenobi for a Star Wars themed birthday party for the nephews. 

...May the force be with you.

Wednesday, June 13, 2012

Late to Memorial Day

Hi!

Long time no blog.  Really long time.


I'm not dead I swear, just in limbo.  Not THAT limbo, (notice the not dead part in the last sentence).  Or even THIS LIMBO .  (Though it is a really fun limbo that I've been playing, but I wouldn't play it around children or those stuffy Victorian women.  Violence and giant wasps and all that...)

A technological limbo,  I am making the switch.  I am officially a Mac!

 The computer.  But that is a nice Mac too.

I have stuff and things and random, so much random!  But my random is currently stuck on a hard-drive that I have slowly been coaxing onto a new computer.  It doesn't like change.

In the mean time as this was happening I wanted to share images I had been taking or random horse related stuff I would run into on my phone.  Since I am horrible about having my camera on me at all times.  I also found out that all the images I have been taking on my camera phone are irretrievable.

Was it something I did?  Something I broke?  Or did it accidentally fall in a toilet?  No!  They just made my phone so you can take pictures, but not get them off the phone.  Ever.  Did I mention my phone is old?  Ancient even.  The model before it didn't even have letters above the numbers just hieroglyphs.  So I may have to do a new thing where we look at out of focus blurry images from my phone taken by my camera!  It might suck I warn you.

It's Twilight Sparkle as a pinata!  If you squint your eyes and tilt your head.  More to come regrettably.

Also this.


It's a gray horse statue on the side of the road.  It's next to a landscaping company near my town.  Now I have passed by this thing for several years.  This guy gets dressed up for whatever holiday is on it's way and I've always wanted to take images of it.  But I almost never did because of the four lanes of traffic I would have to be crazy enough to be in the middle of to get a decent shot.


Yup, I'm that crazy.

 Notice the car on the far left going "FWOSH"

Thankfully there is a small patchy grass area between the 4 lanes and instant death.  So expect some fun images of this guy around the various holidays.  Happy late Memorial Day!  I hope to interview whoever dresses him up, but every time I visit no one is there.

Beautygirl1510 and I will have a post on the equine show Appasionata that we were lucky enough to see...  Right before it's US tour for this year was permanently suspended.  Yeah...

I am also working on having another video up soonish?  Kinda, maybe...  We know my track record with this, it could be another several months given my technological luck.  Is is Equestriad the review I have been promising since the Mary King Riding Star vid came out 9 months ago?  Actually no.  It will be the first Obligatory Equine Episode!  Where an episode with a horse (or equine)  in it from a TV series is made fun of... I mean.  Deeply read into and examined... yeah.  You will find out what TV series it is from when it's posted!

I have some hopes for trying to get back on random-but-not-months-apart-at-a-time schedule soon and thanks to everyone for hanging in there!

I would like to thank cassiem from HGS for helping encourage me to post something.  ^_^  Thanks again!