Royal Diva Diary: 4 months old photo update

ROYAL DIVA, born May 2017, AES Dam: Tilly (Irish cob), Sire: Royaldik (OLD)

This is one of my favourite photo taken by Becky Bunce on the day of this photoshoot. Something touching in this image of a foal that is about to be weaned soon, standing seemingly alone, looking ahead, so close to full independence. Yet, the mare is there right behind her, always watchful and always ready to protect her offspring.

Until next update 🙂

Breeding my horse of a lifetime: Nine minutes with Royal Diva – from heartbeat to 6 weeks old [VIDEO]

Diva walking Kelly back to her car in style 😉 4th July 2017.

The youngest Academy super star mascot, Royal Diva, is 6 weeks old and growing by day. She shed her first frogs and her foal coat is slowly shedding too leaving her face slightly moth eaten in appearance 😉

She has learnt to lead for short periods of time, pick her feet up, got acquainted with an overnight stabling, learnt to eat grass and come to call 😉 You can watch her giving Kelly a welcome HERE.  Her hooves are changing as her diet is expanding and you can see the deeper rings marking her date of birth now clearly growing down.

For most part, she leads a quiet life interspersed with short moments of human visits couple of times a day.

She’s feisty at times but overall appears to have a nice, inquisitive, confident level temperament, loves people and thrives on scratches 😉 Tilly is a fabulous Mum leaving Diva plenty of space to explore and has lost some of her constant protectiveness she showed at the beginning.

 

The little filly is oh so alive and such a personality and yet, exactly a year ago, on 5th July 2016, Diva was nothing more than a confirmed heartbeat on the vet’s monitor.

The video below will take you on a nine minutes long emotional journey that might make you want to breed your own little diva! You’ve been warned! 😉

Breeding my little horse of a lifetime: 2 weeks on – vet checks, getting to know the foal and choosing the name

By Kelly Hill

My little Tilly and Royaldik baby will be two weeks tomorrow. I didn’t expect her to be so pretty! Even though I hoped for the bay filly, I would have been happy with any colour by the end. I had her emergency checked at labour by Chess Valley Vets, she had tetanus antitoxin injection and later on my usual vet triple checked her for me, eyes, heart, conformation, gave me pointers on what to look for health wise in the next week or so.

Both the filly and mum are well, Tilly has plenty of milk and even though she was possessive at the beginning, she wasn’t aggressive, just preferred to keep everyone away from the foal. The baby has good conformation, is a nice size and I love her!

It took me a while to chose the name but I settled on Royal Diva, Diva as her stable name. It suited her character but having said that, she will probably have many more names too 😉

She’s very inquisitive, fearless, verging on rude, wants to know everything and everyone.  I think my best experience so far is watching her learn the world, trying to walk and run.

Until next update! 🙂