2006 Filly Eos Aphrodite's Kiss with dam *Randan Absolutely Fabulous

Our Royal Welsh Top 10 Girls...

The girls are in order from left to right: 5th Place *Menai Seren Las with Ann Bigley, skip a pony, 7th Place *Randan Absolutely Gorgeous with Colin Tibby, and 8th Place *Ceulan Lena with Barry Shepard. This was an impressive feat for them considering there were 97 entries in this 2003 Royal WelshYearling Fillies class. Their first accomplishment in that class was to make the first cut and stay in when two-thirds of the class were dismissed after an initial look from the judge. Then they made the top 10.  We could not have been more pleased.

It all started at the Randan Stud reduction sale in 2002.  While looking through the barns before the auction, Mom fell in love with a mare and the foal at her side (*Randan Absolutely Fabulous and *Randan Absolutely Gorgeous).  Dad got a bidding card and Mom ended up buying both the mare and filly.

Now that they had the filly, they needed a buddy for her to play with once she was in California.  Prior to the sale Mom and Dad had visited the Ceulan Stud.  There Dad had really liked one of Dr. Wynne’s fillies but she was not for sale.  Dr. Wynne knew that we had bought the Randan filly, and after some persuading, he sold *Ceulan Lena to Dad.

Ifor Williams with the Randan Stud though it would be a great idea if we left the fillies in Wales to be produced by professional handlers and shown as yearlings in local shows and at the Royal Welsh.  He had already asked Colin Tibby if he would take and produce *Randan Absolutely Gorgeous.  We liked that idea but it was too close to the shipping date to wean the filly Gorgeous from her dam *Randan Absolutely Fabulous.  Meanwhile, Peter Jones of the Menai Stud and PJ Exports offered to sell us a filly he had planned on retaining so that we could have her produced and shown instead of Gorgeous, since his filly would be on the correct side of the pond.  I liked the filly he was offering, so we bought *Menai Seren Las.

Then Mom decided she still wanted Gorgeous to be shown in Wales and made arrangements to have the Degenais wean her when she flew into Canada and then have her shipped back to Wales after the weaning.  Colin Tibby still got to produce *Randan Absolutely Gorgeous for Mom.  Barry Shepard took Dad’s filly *Ceulan Lena and the Bigley’s took my filly *Menai Seren Las.  That started a family competition to see who’s filly would do the best and as it turned out, they all did wonderfully throughout their yearling show year (although my pony beat out Mom’s and Dad’s fillies at the Royal Welsh!).

A special thanks to the late Ifor Williams, Dr. Wynne, Ruth, and David Davis, Peter and Ann Jones, Colin Tibby, Ann, Len, Simon and Catrin Bigley, and Barry Shepard for making this possible.