TCJpart 16 Trakehners UK Newsletter

Hello fellow Trakehner lovers!

I have just written my first Tom & Henry story for the TRAKEHNER UK Newsletter.  I have started with a little background, and if I am asked to write one every issue (thrice anually), I will endevour to write the amusing stories as they happen, and they happen all the time here at chez Rand.


Anyone familiar with the Holme Grove website will know that Susan publishes letters, stories and photos of her herd progeny, and you can tell by reading them how proud we are sharing our lives with these incredible creatures, and how proud, and justly so, Susan and Barbara are to share the stories with us.


Here is  my first go:

Story for Trakehner UK newsletter

 Hello all fellow Trakehner lovers!

I work in a very creative, high octane, office environment in London.  A Design Room at M&S. My colleagues mostly live locally and so they have cats, which is great because I have 5 of my own and cat stories are very funny!

So it was I was at my desk when I received an email from someone I didn’t know in Kidswear, inviting me to an M&S Horse owners Club Lunch!!! Well you can imagine!!? It's great working here but it just got so much better.  We endeavour to meet every month and all we do – whilst we eat – is talk about our horses and share pictures and stories, its brilliant!

Our members have a variety of equines from thoroughbreds to Irish sport horses, I am alone in my Trakehner ownership.  And while many beloved pictures of coiffure’d horses are passed under my nose, of course I am suitably complimentary, but I can’t help feeling sorry for them for not having Trakehners in their lives – they have such great bums and personalities!

Did I mention Tom and Henry have incredibly gorgeous arses, suspect all Trakehners are built this way, pretty heads, great necks and oh so amazing rear ends!?

Tom & Henry of course, take fame in their strides now so any news from me that more people at work are hearing about them goes by without so much as a sniff.  They recently had their photos taken for HORSE magazine for a safety feature I worked on with them and that was an interesting morning. Plus they star in my blog, which is where it all began with my writing about them.

HORSE magazine interviewed me for a safety feature; the Editor Jo Browne had read my blog and thought my work for road safety was inspiring.  And it only started because I will go above and beyond to protect my boys from anything that might ruffle their manes; I wasn't aiming to be a campaigner. Then she asked me if she could send a photographer to my cottage to take shots of me riding my boys around the village to support the story of safety. Well I jumped at the chance for my boys to star in a three page spread!!!

I took the day off work, my boss didn't really understand but she humoured me. I got my farrier Steve out of his sick bed to come a check their shoes (thank you Steve), I brushed the boys to within an inch of their lives and even cleaned their tack, and I surprised even myself when I remembered how to put it all back together again!

The photographer took some great shots.  My husband John on his bike (because it all started with cycle safety), my friends and neighbours and their son on his bike, all drove and cycled past me.  I was a glowing beacon of illumination head to hoof in hi-viz, so the message was clear, safety. They are the funniest horses, they took everything in their beautiful floaty strides, that Trakehner stride we are all familiar with, and anyone who has seen the November issue will agree they looked gorgeous; well they are sons of Solomon and Prokofiev!

A quick Trakehner question though:

Not sure whether it’s a Trakehner thing, but they eat out of the bin instead of the freshly filled haybars, they bob for apples, they chase the cats around the land, they stand still with no headcollar to get groomed and tacked up, they turn their bottoms to me for a scratch and I know what they want, they’ve trained me!. this seems perfectly normal to me....but I’m getting comments that perhaps Trakehners are just a bit too clever...well we'd all agree with that I’m sure?

Tune in boys and girls next time for 'What Tom & Henry did next'.

Shelley Rand