This is RiverPointe Farms Moon Over Miami, aka “Mia.”

Mia is a black mare (EE aa W20/n).  Those are simple genetics, but most that are knowledgeable about horse genetics know the value of a homozygous black horse.  For one, black horses are traditional favorites in the hearts of many children and adults alike (“Black Beauty” for example).  A homozygous black horse will only have base black offspring unless an agouti gene is also introduced (which would make the foal bay-based).  Mia has no agouti genes, so it would need to be provided by the stallion to make bay-based offspring.  Of additional advantage is that many color combinations have base black as highly desirable (grulla, silver dapple, black-based dappled gray, blue roan).  On top of that, the W20 gene (or another hidden, undiscovered white factor gene) that she has, and is in her family lineage, creates all sorts of fantastically wonderful and unusual white facial masks.  Mia has a Phantom of the Opera mask unlike any other I’ve ever seen.

Mia is bred to a red roan stallion (Thorn Hill Quimby) that is homozygous red, homozygous non-agouti, and homozygous roan.  What this means is that she is due with a 100% chance to have a blue roan foal.  It will likely be a very standard looking blue roan colt or filly or there is likely a 50% chance that the white factors will come across and it will be a very uniquely masked blue roan colt or filly.  SSFR Lucky Number Seven and SSFR Chloe have examples of those unique mask markings also.

Mia’s due date is April 9th this year, which means she goes on foal watch the 19th of March, and she’s the reason that I need to finish up my winter introduction project.  Once I have mares on foal watch, I won’t likely get a lot of sleep until Bina has her foal late July or very early August.  I’m running out of wintertime to do this before we get very busy.

This won’t be our first blue roan foal, but our last blue roan filly was a Tennessee Walking Horse.  I’m very excited for this foal and for foaling season to kick off.

Mia, like Bina, fit the parameters for where I wanted to go with our expansion last year.

Mia, other than trailering (a one-time event where she was just stubborn…some horses just hate to walk into dark cave-like structures unless they’re very desensitized to it), is one of the sweetest, most compliant, and most attentive mares we own.  If I have her on a lead line, it doesn’t matter which direction I move, she stands at perfect attention facing me.  Even a small sidestep and she sidesteps to adjust facing me.  Someone spent a very long time training her very, very well.

And that’s where I need to talk about RiverPointe Farms again.  Every single horse we have ever acquired from RiverPointe Farms has had extremely superb training on them for handling.  Mia is our fourth of six horses from RiverPointe Farms.  All six have been wonderfully trained in ground manners, and one I’ll introduce soon can drive.

For a short time after Mia was quarantined, she was in our paddock with Jewel’s crew (younglings, yearlings, Nazareth’s pregnant mares).  We then moved her over into Mason’s paddock for several reasons.  It was there that she made friends with Princess, who had been lonely in that paddock after her colt, Zake, had been weaned.  I like to see when my horses have friendships bloom where they do everything with their friend.  They eat together, they drink together, they hang out in the pine branches overhanging one side of their paddock to give themselves back-scratches with the branches, and they look like beached whales together when it gets hot out.  It’s just all very sweet with the two of them.

Mia is likely with us for a very long time.  Her demeanor, easygoing attitude, and just all-around easy to care for status makes her exactly the kind of mare that we look for.  Judging by her full sister Elvira, and her trajectory, she should also bloom into a much hairier girl as she gets a little age on her.