I was just having a look at our last blog post and noted I said 'this weekend is a quiet one' I then chuckled, I am a comedian sometimes haha so here we go.

Starting Thursday after the usual parental activities of work, school pick up, swimming lessons and groceries it was time to feed out at home and check on everyone, where we noticed Charlie was waxing up!
Tonight, was the night, we moved her to her own somewhat drier paddock and now we wait. Matt hopped in bed to catch a few hours, personally I am better at staying up and sleeping later so I stayed up to do checks through-out the night, checking every 20 min (long enough to watch an episode of Modern Family haha) the first few checks, she was munching away happily, but as the checks progressed you could see she was getting uncomfortable, laying down, and looking at her belly. I gave Matt a call and we watched from the car together until we noticed her water break.
​When the water breaks you can usually expect a foal around 15min later. 

As stated in our previous blog post, mares this season all seem to be going over their due dates. Charlie was no exception, usually mares' foal around 345 days, Charlie was sitting at 370days! So the foal was going to be on the larger side as Charlie was pushing things weren't progressing as quickly as usual, so we helped her with every push she did we helped pull Esther out. 12:30am and she was here!! 
Full of sass, she was trying to stand up nearly straight away!
​With foaling there is a general 1-2-3 rule to use as a guideline of what things should be happening and by when. 

1. By the first hour the foal should be up and standing
2. By the 2nd hour the foal should be nursing
3. 3rd hour the mare should pass her placenta
   All of these steps were being checked off successfully. After the placenta had been passed, we spread it out to check for any tears or evidence that the mare may have retained some of the placenta. We noticed that the left horn of the placenta was slightly shredded so we knew we would need to get a vet out to check on Charlie and give her a flush, if we were to leave her unseen, she would turn toxic and may die.

So, as we waited for the vet to arrive, Matt ducked off for the school drop off & I started to move the horses as that is what we had planned to do before another bout of rain hit, it never ends! so we moved all of the horses & foals around and I caught Prim & Peach as they were scheduled to head to Ballarat to help eat some of the belly high grass at my parent's property (I had planned to do that first thing, but Charlie & Esther changed those plans, all good!) 
​
By this time our vet from Bendigo Equine arrived and we put Charlie into the crush and began her flush, as Charlie is such a big mare and a vet's arm is only so long, she wasn't able to get into all corners of the uterus, so we elected to take Charlie into the vets for further care and to have a sleep over. The overnight stay also meant that the vets could perform an IGG on Esther for us (an IGG test is a blood test that measures the number of antibodies in foals) Foals are born with no infection fighting antibodies, so foals must have colostrum to receive the antibodies that they need, foals have approx. 18hrs to consume as much colostrum via their intestinal lining before the shop shuts, also each hour the colostrum quality lessens. This is why at the 24hr mark we will perform a snap test/IGG test to check the foal got all of the goodies! If a foal does fail a plasma infusion can boost antibody levels. 

Once Matt returned from the vets, it was my turn for a road trip and I loaded Prim & Peach up & headed to Ballarat, Matt went the opposite way and headed to pick up Billie from school.
​The girls unloaded at Ballarat and thought they were in heaven; I think 2 days later they still haven't lifted their heads! I checked Honey & Luna who were already there for a spell, they lifted their heads for a moment and carried on with their 'busy' schedule 

And then it was finally the end of Friday!
Saturday, Matt headed back to the vets and bought Charlie & Esther home after they were given the all clear, Esther was happy to be home and ran around testing out her long legs.
​Charlie was all clean after one more flush in the morning at the vets, we were given some oxytocin which is used to help contract her uterus, just to help.
Thankfully the remainder of the weekend has been much more uneventful, with general work, like trying to mow in the mud before our friends arrived for their wedding rehearsal, getting our dining cart ready for its debut this coming weekend, working with the foals and doing some feet, a bit of Bush poetry listening at the Maldon Folk Festival. oh, and some more mowing! 

As we near the end of this season with only 2 more foals due any day, it is time for Matt & I to sit down and go over our plans for the future and make any changes to our stud as we go forward. What goals do we want to achieve? What mares do we want to breed from this year? What plans do we have for the foals born this season? What plans do we have for the mares this season? Who is being bought into work? Who can start to be broken in? What shows do we want to go to? What plans do we have with our partners at Porcupine Village? 
Things are constantly changing so we have to constantly review our plans. 

Hopefully this week is a bit drier so we can have a successful weekend filled with a wedding and Clydesdale Adventures!

Until then

Yet again it is raining, I am stuck inside with 2 run down boys keeping nice and warm, religiously peering out the window hoping to see a mare in labor. We still have 3 more foals due to finish this season and this weather or there must be something in the air that is making the mares foal down late this season. Either way.. we are tired haha.

We are so lucky that things are not as bad as it is in other areas of Victoria with their floods!
Last week things we a bit touch and go at one stage, our property is 160yo and the house is built on the edge of a creek so as that creek kept rising up and up, we were thinking the house was going to get flooded but thankfully we didn't get another down pour and all of the water dispersed as quickly as it came. When this house was originally built, they definitely studied the layout of the property as when there is a flood the water does flow around the property (into our sheds) but at least the house has still remained dry. 

Following on from our first blog introducing Matt, it is now my turn to introduce myself to the Sandy Creek Team. 
I am Jaimie, Matthew's wife and mother of our 2 beautiful boys Billie & Hunter.
My story is that of the girl that grew up with horses from day dot, as my mum was always working horses so I would watch from my playpen as she would work her horses, when I was of age, I joined Ballarat Pony Club the same club that my mum attended also as a teenager. Growing up mum & I would work together breaking and training horses & ponies, my payment when we would sell one of these horses or ponies... A brand-new toy of course! Living the dream, working ponies and stocking up on toys haha 

As years went on, I progressed through the levels at Pony Club competing in all disciplines from Novelties, Dressage, Eventing & Showjumping.
At 13 I was selected to represent Victoria at the Pony Club Nationals held in Toowoomba QLD on the Junior Dressage Team where our team placed 3rd. The week leading up to that big event I was also competing in States with my games team on the same pony that I was taking to QLD for dressage, he was a very talented pony, considering when we bought him, he was used as a mountain climbing pony! I owe Hamish a lot. 

Soon my legs were too big so I started riding my thoroughbreds my 2 main horses were Scarlet & Angus. With these 2 magical horses I competed at top level Pony Club in Dressage & Eventing and transitioned away from Pony Club to EA. 
With these 2 horses I was on the Junior Eventing squads and competed almost every weekend travelling all across Victoria to do the Eventing circuit with many successes and fails along the way all shaping me to who I am now. 

Soon I was an adult and doing adulty things and my time for competition was slowing down as I started working. I did the 9 - 5 admin job for some time until I couldn't handle being locked inside and saw a position at Sovereign Hill in the horse department and the rest was history.
I was working there as a rider, riding through the streets, bringing horses up from the paddocks and learning all about the heavy horses. Soon Sovereign Hill hired some young fella to drive the horses and well now here we are haha

Matt & I together coming from vastly different backgrounds have really complimented each other and helped to bring out the best in our stud (and each other as we are terribly competitive haha) we keep learning and growing, plus we are weirdos so it always keeps things fun. 
have so many plans and goals to work towards, it is all very exciting and we can't wait to keep sharing it all with you.  

I can hear a little person waking up from his afternoon nap, so best I wrap this introduction up!
​
I know lots of people are wanting us to do a blog on show preparation and tips etc we are a bit quiet this weekend but the following weekend we are booked for a wedding so I will allow the time to get pictures and videos of how we prepare our horses for that (washing, mane rolls, tail presentation) just to scratch the surface because really there is so much information!! But we have to start somewhere right! 

Until next time! 

..
Welcome to the first of hopefully many blogs.. depending on my level of motivation!
We thought hey why not give this a try and give even more insight into the happenings of Sandy Creek Clydesdales, this includes the good, the bad and the ugly! 

As we ready ourselves for a busy weekend, with a wedding tomorrow with our 2 horses:
Brooke & Noah who will be pulling our lovely white lorry from the Historic Maldon Railway Station home of some beautiful Steam Trains! Followed by a busy Sunday, we are heading to the Maffra Show where Matt will be judging the Heavy Harness Ring! I thought that's not busy enough. let's start a blog! So here we go. 

For our first blog I figure the best place for us to start is with a little introduction.

                                                We will start with Matthew's Story
Sandy Creek Clydesdales (although not officially named) was started approx. 15years ago by Matthew at the age of 13. It all started when he was starting his Blacksmithing apprenticeship, every black Smith needs a Clydesdale right? And like chips you can't have just 1!

Not long into his journey Matt was approached by Sovereign Hill as they had heard great things as they were seeking a driver to drive the teams around their museum, this is where Jaimie (Me) & Matt met.
We both worked in the horse department, Matt a driver and me as a rider. At this time Matthew had approx 40 Clydesdales. 
Matthew continued his passion, driving large teams whilst also breaking in outside client's horses to harness and he dived headfirst into establishing and breeding purebred Clydesdales.

As Sandy Creek Clydesdales grew naturally so did Matt's knowledge as he dedicates every breathing moment to educating himself about everything Clydesdale, often I will find him watching youtube videos, reading every literary piece written about Clydesdales to even right now as I type, we are live streaming the 2022 World Clydesdale Show being held in Scotland. 

​Matt has offered many interstate clinics, judged at many local, state & national shows as well as competing himself at Royal Shows, National Shows & even partaking in a world record attempt for most horses ploughing at the same time, here he drove a team of 10 horses at 'WooBack Yass'.

​He is too modest to write any of this stuff down, but I am too proud of him not to tell his story, probably why I married him haha. 

Now as we raise a young family Matt has returned to his roots being a full time Blacksmith at our new place of work only 5min away from home - Porcupine Village. He is back at the forge creating magnificent pieces again with his amazing attention to detail. Here Sandy Creek Clydesdales has also partnered with Porcupine Village. This partnership offers us another outlet to offer education to the broader community about this rare breed and the history it carries with it. 
​

I hope you will enjoy our story; I don't know how often we will post but we will try and keep this going, I think it will be a great way and another avenue to share some content from a more in-depth view for those interested. 
If you have anything in particular that you want us to talk about, drop us a comment or email and we will get to it. 

Toodles!