Jolanda was born on the 30th of May, 2011, the fourth daughter of our KFPS Model mare, Femma. Her sire, Gjalt 426, is renowned for his great suspension, superb character and low kinship of just 16.1%, among other things. She showed a lot of promise as a foal. Judged by KFPS inspectors at the 2011 UK Gradings, Jolanda was awarded 1st Premie which is achieved by only 5% of foals each year.

Jolanda grew up with our herd of Friesians, including sisters Vela, Ischka & Neeka, and her Auntie Renske who had a particular soft spot for her. With her mum being tall at 16.3hh, and her father being just over 17hh, Jolanda was always going to be a big girl! Unfortunately, she developed too quickly and was diagnosed with epiphysitis, which meant her growth plates were not developing evenly. She was weaned earlier than normal in an attempt to slow her growth. During those early growth years, she was intermittently lame, so the decision was made to leave her to fully develop before considering any kind of training.

You will see in one of the pictures in Jolanda's gallery that as a youngster, she was very narrow in the chest and both front legs appeared twisted from the shoulder. Our talented farrier, Chris Milby, closely monitored her progress and made her remedial shoes to help her grow as well as possible. As her chest started to develop and widen, she became straighter in front. However, her right leg remained twisted from the shoulder. Now that she is fully mature, you can see she has one shoulder bigger than the other.

Training Jolanda has been an interesting journey due to her imbalances. In the early days, she found it almost impossible to work on a circle. As such, it's not the type of work we have pushed with her for fear of causing further problems. It would be very easy to label her as being 'lame', but she is not in pain when she works--she is simply uneven and takes a fair amount of work to loosen up.

Jolanda has proven herself to be an extremely kind and reliable mare in her work, and has gradually gotten more involved in our Experience Days. She has become a firm favorite with visitors due to her gentle temperament and presence, and she has a lovely strong back. Those who are not particularly supple through the hips wiould struggle sitting on Jolanda as she is very wide!

Jolanda's ongoing journey and how we tackle her physical issues can be viewed by followers on our YouTube channel and our social media pages.