This is RiverPointe Mia’s Blue Bell Knoll, or, as we called her, “Bell.”

Bell’s dam, RiverPointe Moon Over Miami (Mia) was purchased in the autumn of 2023 in foal to Thorn Hill Quimby, a homozygous roan stallion.  We knew for certain that Mia would be having a blue roan foal, since she was homozygous black.  Anticipation built as we considered whether she would have a colt or a filly and whether the foal would have the “Phantom of the Opera” mask that Mia had from her Eden White 3 gene in the spring of 2024.  Mia was the first mare scheduled to foal in 2024 until Liza jumped ahead of her and foaled out Lucky a few days before Bell was born.

People sometimes ask us what color/pattern focus we have for our Gypsy Horse herd.  We tell them, “All of them.”  Proper Gypsy Horses come in every color of the rainbow, so we don’t limit ourselves to just one portion of the palette.  For the “tobiano” purists, I challenge you to find a picture of Gypsy/Romany people and their horses with a tobiano horse in the photograph from the 1930s or earlier.  I’ve done it, and I can find no tobiano horses owned by Gypsy people in those photographs.  There are solids, greys (British spelling), Sabino, what they would call Blagdon, but there are no piebald nor skewbald horses pictured.  Many of their horses from that era also didn’t have gobs of feather.  There may be photographs out there, but I’m not able to find them.

We really wanted a blue roan filly.  We wanted one so bad that for the longest time, we were going to be willing to ignore one of our self-imposed rules that we would not retain Gypsy Horse foals born after the year 2022.  We wanted to keep Bell for ourselves.

Bell came into the world loving humans.  She also had just enough “umph” in her personality that she was not a “dead head.”  There was a period of bad weather and outside interferences about three to four weeks into her life where I had skipped two days with my daily “hands-on” activities with her.  That third day with her showed me that she was slipping just a little bit, so I re-doubled my commitment to continuing the daily hands-on (I always have eyes on them every day, but during the formative periods, I believe it’s important to spend time touching them daily even if it’s only for a minute or two).  She bounced back quickly to the daily interactions, and never had another period of backsliding.

She was going to be of a decent size.  That combined with her parentage meant that she was going to be a fantastic specimen as a future riding horse.  It felt shameful to keep her back as a broodmare on a breeding farm.  Time passed and we re-focused on our principles.  If the exact perfect new owner would come along, we would be willing to part with her in the right situation.

Our farm has gone through a series of stages.  The first stages were non-Gypsy Horses.  Then Gypsy Horses became our focus.  Then we focused on smaller Gypsy Horses that were well-suited to driving disciplines (what they were originally bred for).  2024 has been about breeding stock improvement toward those goals.  We’ve settled on conformation, type, temperament, and discipline for our Gypsy Horse breeding operations, and we got a start on our miniature Gypsy Vanner breeding program.  We did a bit of exploratory horse showing in 2024.  It was a good year, and we made a lot of moves to improve our overall plan toward our goals.

2024 was a hard year for selling foals just as 2023 had been.  This meant that to improve our herd with an eye on our goals, we had to be creative, since most buyers did not have money in hand to seal the deal for a purchase.  Some of our young stock made way for the acquisition of middle-aged broodmares of promising potential.

Bell was part of one of those deals that were made.  She went to a fantastic new owner, and we received a broodmare in that exchange that we have high hopes for in the coming years.  Munchkin will be introduced later (horse number 48).

Bell was one of those fillies that just took everything in stride.  She learned to trailer in minutes.  She learned to lead and tie without much effort.  She was in the middle of the class for her first farrier session, but not one of the most difficult.  She’s going to be a special girl, and we wish her and her new owner all the best in the years to come.  We’re tickled every time we get a new update on Bell and her antics (who knew that she’d be fascinated with cows?).