Latest News

After a very good time in which it proved we were really meant to stay together and that especially the children did fully accept the new situation, Erik Hendriks and I married on the 9th of September 2006!! He and his three brothers have a big company called Hendriks Graszoden http://www.hendriksgraszoden.nl Together we got a son called Rick Emanuel Alphonsus on the 31st of December. He made our meanwhile 6 mans band complete (counting only the humans!). We managed to buy a lovely peace of land with a piece of forest in it for my ponies and made a new place for the Hovawart dogs at our house, kept the very best pup this time and bought a Leonberger to it as well.. It was offcourse all easier sad then done and again lot of work, time, stress and money spend before it was just a bit ready.

Just recently we bought some other animals to it like chicken and birds and now after 4 weeks I do already have found exactly 3 eggs and eaten one of them as the two others still looked a bit strange to me even after they were boiled for at least 7 minutes. The two passionata's however have laid an egg and we hope there will be a first offspring coming out there soon from them.

I decided to reduce the no of ponies but they're still 20 around...:-o Fell Ponies, Tinkers/Irish Cobs and coloured mini's. The latest were not at all ment to be but some Russian guys wanted me to get them mini's (immediately!!) and those that were not taken are still here and two of them foaled again. Since I had them anyway I also bought a spotted stallion to them...And since we do have the land and the forest well fenced off and will only keep the no of ponies finally that this piece of land can have and since I do want something instead.......and since I do like so many animals, we also are gonne keep white Wallaby's and white Apalca's in their place for our own fun and breeding (enough reasons??).

Very sad news: Greenholme Jess and her foal died. The foal was coming out in what the vet called a "dog sit position" The front and back feet were forwards. The foal died half out, couldn't go any further and Jess had to be sadly put to sleep as there was no way to survive for her. All we could do was to end the pain she was suffering as we found them this morning like that. She was not able to stand on her legs anymore and her blood was already dark as it was poisioned...A very sad end for such a great and lovely mare that brought so many excellent foals. And a very black and very, very sad day for us too..so definitive and nothing a human could do about it. One feels just hopeless. Yesterday she was just all fine.. Thomas Capstick said to it that an old farmer once had said to him it was better if dead visited your farm and lifestock as long as it stayed away from your house and family (or something like that). It makes one realise again indeed and again too how fragile life is and how special it is to have such a great bunch together that do well. But it is and stays very sad anyway too when things like this do happen as they do.

11.04.2007 all black colt
Blue Mountain Jonty
(Heltondale Dainty x Townend Jonty)

Tinker Tom went to a serious Dutch Irish Cob breeder in the Summer of 2006. He will be shown, trained for Western Riding and be Stallion at Stud there.
At the Irish Cob Societies inspection the enthusiast new owner was told that Tom was definitive 1st premium Star Stallion.

Sammy – Irish Cob - will arrive at our place at the 26th of August 2006. He is a 3-coloured 1st premium colt with one blue eye out of 1st premium Star Champion Parents!!

WE ARE VERY PROUD TO ANNOUNCH THAT MURTHWAITE ICEMAN (full brother of the three times overall Champion in the UK Mw Look at Me and of the rare colour grey, see stallion for service page) PASSED HIS EXAMINATION AND WILL BE OUR STALLION FOR STUD FROM NOW ON. FROZEN SEMEN WILL HOPEFULLY BE AVAILABLE SOON FOR ABROAD!!!!

Murthwaite Chanthal will be imported to the USA from Cheryl Dutton of Braeberry Farm USA in 2006 after having had her foal by Heltondale Bobby and being served again in 2006. http://www.braeberry.com/chanthal.asp

Greenholme Viv will be imported to the USA from Dachia Arritola in the Spring of 2006 after being served from one of our stallions, probably Murthwaite Iceman.

Murthwaite Snowdrop will be imported to Denmark in the Spring of 2006 by Jeanette Kunz, after being served from Townend Jonty.

Murthwaite Polly Perkins will be imported to the US in 2006 after having had her foal by Heltondale Bobby and being in foal again.
http://www.wishuponaster.com

Blue Mountain Heather
Youngstock and Reserve Champion 2004
(Heltondale Bobby X Heltondale Jewel IV)

Blue Mountain I'm Dainty's Diamond
(Bracklin Rob Roy x Heltondale Dainty VII)
Youngstock Champion 2005

Murthwaite Iceman
(Heltondale Bobby x Greenholme Jess)
Youngstock Champion 2005
Full brother to Murthwaite Look at Me,
the 3-times Overall Champion UK
FPS Stallion and Colt Show

So much changed since the last update of this website. My husband and I divorced and except two I've sold all my Fell ponies and no it wasn't feeling good. Then I started anew knowing just recently I would keep the land and stables and got the chance to have the ponies run into a grazing project of Stichting Limburgs Landschap into their latest addition of their project to have the original ditch run back in its old ways and to get the nature back as it once should have been. Within this part is 20 hectares of real good grazing. Imagine that in Holland where space is rare and expensive, one has to pay about a 50,000 USD/Euro's (approx. 32,000 GBP) for just one hectare (1,000 x 1,000 meters) it would be impossible for a single person to buy or rent the land when it was not inherited, not to speak about to have it fenced off.

The most positive thing happened that the ponies I'd to sell came back to me and run into this project together with mine and other people's Fell ponies. Since it's not just one piece, but divided into many fields, it was ideal for me to let run several herds and groups of different ages in. The people of the project are totally enthusiast like I am and many people visit them. Until now they only knew the Koniks which run into their projects everywhere and which are preserved from a Charity called the Ark, which means they will never be for sale for private persons. Their experience and what they've learned from History is that the individual people always want to change something of the breed and every individual will have it's own idea about how a pony/horse should be kept and bred, which had never proven to be to the benefit of the breed in total as a whole. So they only sell little herds off to other grazing projects.

Bye for now and I hope everyone enjoys the photo's (I do not have a digital camera), Sabine

Murthwaite Lucky Dip

On behalf of Thomas Capstick we are offering Murthwaite Queenie for sale, foaled 1990 S. Heltondale Black Prince III x D. Foggy Gill Queenie, although my children and I would very much like to keep her for ourselves. She's correctly built, well ridden and lightly driven, calm, sweet and easy to do, kind and patient with children and she worked with disabled. She's running out with Heltondale Bobby right now.

The new arrivals

We're very happy to announce that on the 11th of November, one day later than planned due to the bad weather, the other four really wanted Fell Ponies have arrived safely: (for the full pedigrees, just click on the names).

Lownthwaite Star II FP50591G	A black gelding with the looks of a stallion foaled May 1996 S. Lownthwaite Guardian FP643G* D. Lownthwaite Star Trek 15144*
Murthwaite Sapphire FP3462	A successfully shown grey filly foaled May 2000 S. Murthwaite Bross FP50539* D. Greenholme Dusty FP 1692
Murthwaite Noble FP1192C	A beautiful colt foal foaled May 2001 S. Murthwaite Bross FP50539C* D. Heltondale Lucy X FP1874*
Murthwaite Duke FP51191C	Beautiful and very curious colt foal from June 2001 S. Murthwaite Bross FP50539C* D. Murthwaite Magic FP2360*

Pictures and more detailed descriptions of the above mentioned ponies will follow.

We are very glad with the new arrivals and spend as much time as we can with them to get to know each other. It's remarkable how quickly they recovered from their journey and adapted to their new surroundings. The colt foals will hopefully make a good driving pair in the future and the gelding hopefully will in the more near future, as my hubby Huub really misses driving at the moment. The colt foals seem to see in the grey filly Sapphire a substitute for their mothers and seek social contact with her all the time, meanwhile trying to steal her hay which she accepts but the gelding Star on the other hand doesn't allow them to. Fortunately the foals followed Sapphire as they arrived. The gelding is the absolute star in begging for tidbits (already he has torn a pocket off my jacket as I was mucking out and he didn't get what he was looking for..). It seemed to be a good decision not to lock the foals up in a normal stable for the first days but to divide the big stable (actually for the smaller ponies) for them so they can run around, can see everything what's happening around them and to be social with each other and their neighbors and it gives us a good change to get them used to us and a little bit of handling before we turn them out.

We are happy and satisfied like they appear to be, which is a positive start and a promise.

New Imports

We really have the Fell Pony fever! We have mported another 2 colt foals, a grey filly and a gelding, which makes 8 Fell ponies now. Of course we need to arrange more land, stables and other necessary (and nice unnecesarry) things and of course we made most of the arrangements in the last minute (which actually meant working at night again). We grumble once in a while about all the excitement, but in a way love it too and seem to need a bit of pressure.

Today, as I started writing this, an excavating machine and a concrete mixer came and of course we still had to do a lot of handwork ourselves to make everything ready for their arrival, besides the daily work going on. But now a nice and welcome bed of straw, new fields and 4 enthusiastic Fell pony friends (we and our two kids), not to forget the 4 of the same kind are waiting and really looking forward for them to come this coming Saturday if the weather stays friendly.

Our days are strictly planned to make this all possible. It's a lot of hard work. It costs a lot of money too (I hear you wondering about that). But until now we only got more dedicated and enthusiastic about it each day and are so glad we made the decision last year to go on just with Fell Ponies although we really had a hard time to separate us from the others we've sold, who will always stay a part of us too, who we'll never forget and the good time we'd with them. Although they're somewhere else now and belong to someone else officially, it's still like they will always be a part of us anyway as we will always love and miss them. Like the ponies we have here are a part of someone else too and remind us of and tell us a lot about their former owners and the way they were kept/trained/socialised etcetera.

	May 2004
Drybarrows Linda, bred by Chris Thompson, our first fellpony, belonging to family van Dam now, gave birth to a healthy, hairy colt foal by Heltondale Bobby in 2003 called Hinter (which I bought back and who's in the grazing project now), went to the Dutch Breed Show and became a STAR mare with a FIRST premium!! Thomas Capstick of the Murthwaite Fell Pony stud showed her.