Alright, I teased this kiddo to you guys last week but it’s time for his official introduction! Michelle was really excited when Chanel started shaping up like she was going to foal on May 4th. Star Wars day is fun after all (I mean I’m not into Star Wars but most people are and they say it’s fun so let’s go with that) and she was ready to go with the perfect P name: Padawan. But then Chanel foaled on May 3rd and kinda… put a bit of a wrench in that plan. I reasoned that she must still be on European time, therefore she thought it was the 4th, so it still counts. Close enough, anyway? By that point Michelle already loved the name Padawan, so… too late to be undone. The barn name options were between Obi and Jedi – she tried out both for a few days to see which one fit more. Obi it is!

He’s bay, like his full brother Patrick, but unlike our beloved Patticakes, Obi won’t gray out. He’ll stay bay, and he’s got 3 white feet and a big nice blaze as icing on the cake. Right off the bat I think he looks a little beefier than Patrick, but we’ll see what he looks like in another week or so. The game of comparing and contrasting the two brothers has already begun.

Michelle was a little bummed I think to get another colt (she really wanted a filly so she could retain it for her breeding program – we don’t keep colts, they’re all for sale automatically) but he sure is a super cute little thing. Fancy and nicely put together and pretty full of himself. He does have the whole “really really ridiculously good looking” thing in common with Patrick.

If those boys keep posing like that all the time these Foal Friday posts are gonna get really long really fast. Who can narrow down which photos to post when they’re THAT cute?

Aside from just standing there looking ri-damn-diculously adorable, he has a lot of things that he already really likes to do. While Patrick is more of a bouncing kind of guy, Obi leans more Pippa’s direction and is a big fan of galloping. A lot. All over the place.

He also was very quick to figure out the pole in his turnout, and showed a lot of intelligence in how he approached it. He popped over it a few times slowly, figuring out his feet, then gradually amped up the speed, the repetitions, and the angles. A lot of foals are either a little hesitant of it for a while, a little overly careful, or so bold that they just go at it 100 miles an hour without putting much thought behind it. Obi, not so much. He’s a thinker, this kid. And a couple times when he got the distance wrong he went right back and did something a little different the next time to fix it. Pretty cool to see from a week old foal, the instincts are fun to see on display.

He’s clever. Really clever.

And while he wasn’t bred to event, apparently he’d like to audition for the part, because he also conquered the “water” (ok fine, the puddle) straight away. He trotted up to it, took a little peek to make sure it was safe, and then marched right on in.

He’s an interesting mix of intelligence, carefulness, and bravery. At least initially. It’ll be neat to see how he evolves over time, especially once he’s introduced to the other foals and goes into a herd dynamic. Hopefully next week they’ll all be able to meet, which I’m sure Chanel will be really happy about. Obi is currently torturing her in any number of ways, like she’s his own personal jungle gym.

I’m especially interested to see how things unfold between him and Pippa. He’s a more dominant, in-your-face personality than Patrick, and he’s pretty big for his britches at the moment. I mean, my money is DEFINITELY on Pippa,… he might be in for a bit of a shock to find out that others won’t tolerate his nonsense quite as graciously as Chanel.

We did have one new addition overnight – Stormie had a filly! It’s too dark to get pics so y’all have to wait til next week. Ginger will be soon to follow I think, she’s 334 days and has some actual white milk that looks pretty close to ready. Hopefully by this time next week we’ll have two new faces!