Lilli is a drafty dark brown dun mare measuring 144 cm tall (just under 14.1 hands) and 20.5 cm cannon bones. Her pedigree is here:
We have a bunch of Lilli’s relatives in our herd due to the outstanding temperaments and other traits that I’ve found them to have and pass along to their offspring:
- Lilli’s daughter, 1dr Moena, by 1dr Ragnvald is a very typie broodmare who continues to produce outstanding foals.
- Lilli’s paternal sister Lucy has been a broodmare in our herd for years. They share the same sire, Reterra Gustaf. We have Lucy’s daughter Raisa, Raisa’s 2 daughters Viska and Vindkast, and Vindkast’s daughter Arva all in our broodmare herd.
- Lilli’s dam, Ashwood Helma, shares the same sire as our late broodmare, Ashwood Alma, who was a therapeutic riding horse. Alma’s daughters in our herd are Nora, Sejline and Vilde. Nora is mother to Lucy and Greta. Greta is mother to Orven and Sunnev.
- Lilli is a full sister to Gracelyn’s dam, Double C Vanilla. We have Gracelyn’s daughters Koryn, Erica, Eileen and Ingunn, and her son, Kallan. We have Koryn’s breeding stallion son Mathis and her daughter Stenetta. We are retaining Erica’s daughter Erja and Ingunn’s daughter Sjofn. We are retaining Mathis’ daughters Bjuti, Arva, Junia and Jordbaer.
Given how many of Lilli’s relatives are in our herd, and to make space for adding more unrelated Fjords to our gene pool, I advertised Lilli for sale in fall of 2026, and the first folks arrived to try her out. She had not had a bit in her mouth for 10 years and the last time she had been mounted was in 2019. Lilli mouthed the egg butt snaffle bit with some confusion, and stood perfectly to be tacked up, mounted and ridden around. We learned that she responds well to voice command and is soft in the mouth, but doesn’t know leg cues. She stops and back very nicely. Her walk is capacious, engaged, swinging and with excellent overstride. Her trot is smooth as butter with very nice cadence. She didn’t have the buttons to canter, so we didn’t ask. She stands very still for dismounts. She shares breath with strangers and follows them around to get attention. She ground drives very nicely too. Kids running around and being kids doesn’t cause Lilli concern. Photo of me riding Lilli first, with credit to M.P.
Another person came to check her out, and to our delight, we discovered that Lilli had been trained in 2016 to stop when the rider is off-balance. Lilli doesn’t care about people tossing bean bags over her, she stands perfectly still for toys and baskets being thrown around her, things falling off her back and rump, and rings tossed over her ears. She’s not reactive and loves engaging with people. She wasn’t bothered to be separated from her foal and the herd for being worked by the humans, and with the second visitor, the herd was across the valley and Lilli wasn’t distressed and distracted by the separation as to make problems for riding.
The visitors absolutely loved Lilli but had personal reservations. This gave me time to really think about this beautiful mare who behaved amazingly for having no formal work done with her for 10 years and had no warmup before being pulled from the pasture to demonstrate what she knew. I want more daughters of hers for our broodmare herd. We have Moena, but I’d really like another daughter out of Lilli by Ace, Mathis, Kasper or Ragnvald. So, I pulled her from our sale list and will keep fingers crossed for another keeper filly from her in future years.
In 2019, I made a post about a simple mounting aide, made from a leadrope, and Lilli very cooperatively demonstrated how it’s used in a video there https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1BczbsVr1f/?mibextid=wwXIfr The below photos are screenshots from the video. I had not ridden or done any training work with Lilli between her 2016 training and this video. I didn’t lunge or otherwise work with her prior to tying her up, setting up the camera and demonstrating how the rope can be used to help a person mount bareback with ease. Lilli has an excellent temperament and retains her training very well.
Link to the full mounting aide post: https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1FN4rNunwf/?mibextid=wwXIfr
Lilli is an outstanding mother and loves people just as much.
I love Lilli’s bold leg bars.
Lilli often has dapples in her fur.
Lilli being ridden after 30 days of training in 2016. Photo thanks to Terie Davenport.
The right hand mare being driven here is Lilli’s full sister, Double C Vanilla. Vanilla is the dam of our 15 hand mare, Double C Gracelyn, and the many horses in our herd from that line and with outstanding temperaments.
Progeny
1dr Losen, brown dun colt, by Lost Trails Ace
1dr Elvin, white dun colt, by Kjor Hunter
1dr Fredrik, white dun colt, by Kjor Hunter
1dr Heilagr, white dun colt, by Kjor Hunter
1dr Janet, brown dun filly, by Kjor Hunter
1dr Moena, brown dun filly, by 1dr Ragnvald, retained as a broodmare
1dr Theis, brown dun colt, by D+ Elko