Prince and Katy
The story so far...
Finding a Shire
After numerous phone calls, emails and viewing adverts in the papers and on the web, we were told to contact Jonathon Waterer of Simply Shires, Chittlehampton, Devon. So I phoned Jonathon and explained what we were planning on doing, he said he had broken a pair of Shires to drive and he knew they were now up for sale. As we only wanted a single he said either horse would be suitable but we would need to contact the owners to see if they would split the pair. The owners Rodney and Linda Greenwood of Camalter Shires in Halifax (www.camaltershires.co.uk ) were very helpful and when we told them our plans and asked if they would split the pair they said they would, so then it was off to Halifax to meet Camalter Prince William and Camalter Prince Pheonix.
Below are some photo's of our visit
Camalter Prince William
Camalter Prince Pheonix
We took them out for a drive in the glorious Halifax weather.
(It was pi**ing down)
Even though Prince William was affectionately refered to as 'Donkey' by Rodney and he only had two white socks, whereas Prince Phoenix had the four white stockings, we decided Prince William was the one for us and after being told by the wife not to commit to buying a horse until she had seen photos of its eyes as she is a great believer that the eyes of the horse will tell you its temperment, I agreed a price and gave Rodney the cheque and subject to the vet inspection the deal was done.
Prince passed the vet check and we had to arrange transport from Yorkshire to Somerset, so Lisa (my wife) arranged for Wofford International Horse Transport to pick the boy up and bring him to Somerset. After an over night stay in Salisbury, Sue and David delivered him to us. Sue said to Lisa she knew for a Shire Mare in Salisbury, typical we had to go all the way to Halifax to find one.
Princes first days in his new home
So the work started to bring him on to drive as a single instead of a pair. We soon found out that Prince was very placid and nothing seemed to phase him, he was as the breed says a 'gentle giant'. He allowed me to put a saddle on him and ride him out for exercise, even though he had never been backed before. Prince loved the attention, he was quite happy to let me lead him around with my children on his back.
Georgia on Prince
Charlie on Prince
With help from my brother in law Robert we started to put Prince to the carriage and take him out for a drive.
Robert with Prince
(as you can see Prince and Robert have a special relationship !!!)
We took Prince out with friends and family, to get him accustomed to the work he would be doing. We would stop at the local pub, because Prince was partial to a drop of beer.
(as you see in the photo so were the passengers)
Prince and me at the pub.
In March we had our first bookings to deliver flowers around the area for mothers day. Three days before Prince went lame, so we called the vet who said it was his fetlock and he would need two weeks rest. We were gutted, we had to ring around, apologizing and cancelling all bookings. We had already bought Billy again from Rodney and Linda, Billy and Prince are half brothers as they have the same mum, but as Billy was a yearling colt to bring on and work with Prince at a later stage we realised we also needed a horse we could use now as a backup and to run along side Prince as a pair so that we wouldn't have to let anyone down again in the future.
Billy as a yearling colt (see Billy's page)
So we started the search, first we rang Rodney to see if he still had Prince Phoenix, but Phoenix had already gone. He didn't know for any Shires that would be suitable for our work. We searched the paper, web and anything else we could think of but still no luck. Lisa decided to ring Sue from Wofford transport even though it was 5 months since we had bought Prince when she had remarked about the Shire she knew for in Salisbury. We rang her and she said she would find out and call us back, about an hour later we were on our way to Salisbury. Sue took us to see Brickell Kathleen, I went in the field and walked towards her, when I was quite close I turned so I had my back to her and waited. It didn't take long for Katy to walk up behind me, give me a sniff and promply knock my hat off just like Prince does. She was 17.2 hands the same as Prince and I was amazed by how similar they looked. We never met the owner but we made an offer and left, Sue rang us as we were on our way home saying the price was agreed and Kathleen would be delivered to us the next day.
Prince and Katy
DOUBLE TROUBLE !
Katy was delivered and we began working with her, first we started to long rein her in the field, then we decided to ride her out, we did not know how much the owners had done with her but she was fine. She was a little more nervous than Prince but she was keen to work. Finally we took her out in the carriage, on her own to start with, she was good but was still slightly nervous. Next we took the pair out on the road and Katy's nerves seemed to dissapear as she had Prince alongside to reassure her.
Neil riding Katy
In the meantime Prince was better and he was now back to work.
Prince and Katy have been working together for some time now, they are the best of friends. We had a phone call from Rodney and Linda to say that Billy's mum had another foal Camalter Albert (Bert) with the same father as Billy so they were full brothers and that apart from a small white mark on Burt's nose and his four white feet to Billy's three they were identical. So after keeping on to the wife until she gave up I phoned Rodney to say we would like to have Bert.