Coral at one year old, May 2005.


Definitely a gangly teenager now! May 2005.


She just needs a pair of wings and she could be Pegasus :-)


Coral with Carrie (dun filly) and Pat, July 2005.


Coral and Carrie, August 2005. I was attempting to get these gals to do something more exciting than eating. Here is Coral expressing her opinion!


Coral heard her friend Carrie, who was in the barn, calling to her. August 2005.


I really liked the way her mane looked in this picture!


Coral has really filled out over the summer and now looks more horse-like than foal-like. October 2005.


Coral and Carrie. Carrie will be leaving for her new home in CA at the end of the month (October 2005). It's kind of sad to think that soon this friendship will be split up. I guess you have to learn to deal with it if you breed and sell horses. Our Pat and his half sister Mimi are lucky- they will never be parted.


Most of the pictures I've taken of Coral this year have been with my old Sony. I couldn't seem to get the new Nikon to behave- it was blinded by Coral's "whiteness", making all the pictures I took of her in full sun overexposed, and for a long while I couldn't figure out what to do. Well, I finally changed the settings to center weighted metering so the camera will adjust exposure to the value of the subject in the center of the frame. Much better- don't you know I was happy! November 2005.


Here is the conformation shot I tried all summer to get! Of course, now she is all hairy and those red clay stains are not coming off with anything short of a bath, but I still think she's beautiful!


We have been having a January warm spell- 70 degree days- and I've been taking full advantage of it to get outside and enjoy my horses! Here is Coral at sunset. It's not hard to imagine a unicorn horn growing out of her forehead! January 2006.


Coral is watching Jim on his bike. I'd asked Jim to ride it down by the horses so they would look at him instead of eating, and I could get some good pictures of Connor. I didn't expect that Coral would also be fascinated by the bike. June 2006.


Coral and Connor checking out the bike.


Jim bought one of those big exercise balls for the horses to play with. I took the ball out into the pasture and set it down. Coral was watching, trying to figure out what I had brought. Then the breeze caught it, so it moved!! February 2007.


Coral was not too sure what it was at first, but it took her less than a minute to go up to the ball and start pushing it around!


Coral has made a new friend. Charli is a little more sedate of a companion than her full brother Connor was for Coral. Guess it's an all girl's club now. July 2007.


8/14/07: Coral's been neglected in the photo department lately. So I gave her a bath, trimmed her feet, and then did my best to get her to pose for some pictures. I got a couple noodling around, jog trotting pictures that were ok, as you can see above. But Coral really just wanted to eat.


Just then, Jim got home from work, so I called to him to come help me. He only got half way down to the barn and then started flapping our mail in the air to get Coral's attention. Well, you would have thought she had seen an alien spaceship landing. Here she is taking a good look before going into action (see the next series of photos).


She snorted, flagged her tail and went into a huge trot that a park horse would envy. You can kind of see the "gray Arab" resemblance in these pictures. She kept this show going for a good five minutes and I was really wishing I had the camcorder instead of the digital camera!


Coral has spent the summer with Frosty and Charli. Charli adores her. Lately I have noticed that Coral is looking more full bodied and mature- less like a young horse and more like a grown up mare. September 2007.


May 2008. Coral reminds me of the beautiful Crabbett/old type Arabs I admired in the pages of ARABIAN HORSE WORLD magazine, a library favorite when I was growing up.


Coral is getting spotted! I admit to being a bit perplexed by this. See that spot on Coral's rump? That is NOT dirt (in fact, I had just bathed her and this is about as clean as I have ever gotten her). It is a Bend Or spot! She now has developed a few other smudges and hints of Bend Or spots elsewhere too; there is gray hair in the core of her tail and a few stray gray hairs in her mane. Her dapples are fairly obvious right now as well. So- just how minimal can sooty (Bend Or spots are thought to be related to sooty) be? We know sooty runs in this family (Californio) but Goldoak's offspring tend to be not only fairly light in shade but not as sooty as the other branches of the family tree.  Late May 2008.