More Horses, Horses, Horses

Almost two years ago, shortly after I began this blog, I did a post about my first horse, Gayranna, and the offspring she produced from being bred to the Arabian stallion, Seranej. You can find that post here. At the time, I hadn't been able to find a picture of Seramac, one of Gayranna's foals by Seranej. In going through some old photos recently, I found some pictures of Seramac, as well as some other photos worthy of sharing. So here is another horse post. (One every two years isn't so bad, now, is it?)

Gayranna (pronounced Gare-Anna) was Half-Arabian and Half-Thoroughbred, so her foals were three quarters Arabian.

Seramac, as a Yearling in 1972

Gayranna and Heather

In spite of the obvious fading of the photograph, I liked the above unposed picture of Gayranna, with my collie, Heather, in the foreground.

Gayranna was 10 years old and in foal to an Arabian stallion named Raffdaan when I bought her and moved her from California to Indiana in 1967. The resulting foal was a lovely filly which I named Raffdanna.

Raffdanna, as a Yearling in 1968

From then on, Gayranna was bred exclusively to Seranej. Serada was the first from that match and won multiple national championships. He was featured in the earlier post, but I couldn't resist including him in this one, too.

Serada with Trainer, Buck Grass

The above photo was taken by a professional photographer during a photo shoot for The Arabian Horse Journal, a magazine which featured Serada on the cover of its July, 1977, issue.

Serada was shown in Halter, English Pleasure, Western Pleasure, and Driving classes and did well in all of them.

Serada in Driving Class at 1976 Nationals in Louisville, Kentucky

My previous horse post included a picture of LaStrada as a foal. Here is one of him as a yearling, after he was purchased by the same man who had purchased Serada and most of the others over the years. LaStrada was to be the last in that line of foals, as Gayranna was 22 years old by the time he was born in 1979. 

LaStrada, as a Yearling in 1980

LaStrada, as a Two-Year-Old in 1981

In the above picture from 1981, LaStrada, as a two-year-old, was being shown in halter at a show in Ocala, Florida, where he was named Grand Champion Half-Arabian Gelding. I lost track of LaStrada and his owner shortly after that and don't know how the rest of his show career went. But I can't help believing that he did well. He had certainly grown into a beautiful animal by the age of two.