Femma L

ACHIEVEMENTS

Femma is a truly regal mare well aware of the fact she is the Queen of the Greenbank Farm Stud. Born in 2001, imported to the UK in 2005 and in 2008 became the very first of her breed in the UK to be awarded the prestigious MODEL status by the international inspection jury of Koninklijke Vereniging Het Friesch Paarden Stamboek (KFPS).

KFPS Inspectors, Jaap Boersma and Popke van de Meulen, praised Femma for her 'upstanding presence, excellent conformation and superb movement' and bestowed awards of 'Best Mare' and 'Overall Champion of the 2008 UK inspections', but the highest accolade was still to come with her finally being crowned with 'MODEL' mare status.

To put this into context, only a handful of Friesian mares throughout the world receive the 'Model' title each year. To qualify for Model status, mares must be over seven years of age, have raised a foal, be awarded a first premium at a Breeders Show and a Central Inspection. They are also required to have scored in excess of 77 points in ridden and driven performance tests in the Netherlands. In short, they must be amongst the best examples of the breed in the world. Femma scored an outstanding 81.5 points for her ridden test and 80.0 points for her carriage driving test.

Femma is such an outstanding example of the Friesian breed that we couldn't ask for a better foundation mare for our long-term breeding aspirations. In 2009 we took an embryo from Femma and inseminated it into a recipient mare, Jubilee, who produced 'Ineka fan de Groenbank' a beautiful, tall filly by Tsjerk 328 in January2010.

After taking the embryo we inseminated Femma again, this time with semen from the beautiful young stallion Sake 449, the first approved son of the prolific Doaitsen 420. In March 2010 Femma produced a third daughter, Ischka fan de Groenbank.

Both of Femma's daughters were graded at the FHAGBI inspections and received 2nd and 1st Premies respectively.

Femma gave birth to a healthy & very long-legged filly foal on 30 May 2011 called Jolanda fan de Groenbank. Jolanda is by Gjalt 426 which makes this filly an exciting breeding prospect as she has a kinship percentage of just 16.7% and inbreeding of 1.37% so hopefully, in years to come, she will do her bit to contribute to widening the gene pool.

Femma went on to have a fourth foul Sjouke fan de Groenbank on the 7th July 2013, whose dad was also Sake 449 who fathered Ishka in 2010. However, Femma had a difficult pregnancy and we were in great fear of losing her when she suffered a uterine prolapse giving birth. Fortunately, with the amazing help and dedication of our vet, Jess Gillon (from Frame, Swift & Partners), Femma pulled through and has since lived a happy retired life with her horse husband Hoitze looking over the fields and seeking lots of human attention in their field by the house.