Jolanda fan de Groenbank

ACHIEVEMENTS

2011 - Awarded KFPS 1st Premie as a foal in the UK

Jolanda was born on 30th May 2011 - the 4th daughter of our KFPS Model mare Femma by the stallion Gjalt 426 who, amongst other things is renowned for his great suspension, superb character and low kinship of just 16.1% .

Jolanda showed a lot of promise as a foal and was judged by the inspectors from the KFPS at the UK Gradings in 2011 and awarded 1st Premie which only 5% of foals achieve each year.

Jolanda lived with our herd of Friesians which included her sisters Vela, Ischka & Neeka and her aunty 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 Jolanda was developing too quickly and was diagnosed with epiphysitis, which meant her growth plates were not developing evenly. She was weaned earlier than normal in order to try and slow her growth. During those early years of growth she was intermittently lame and 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 farrier Chris Milby closely monitored her development and made her remedial shoes to help keep her growing 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 and now she is fully mature she does have one shoulder bigger than the other.

Training Jolanda has been an interesting journey due to her imbalances and in the early days she found it almost impossible to work on a circle and its 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 proved herself to be an extremely kind and reliable mare in her work and has gradually started getting more involved in our Experience days. As a big mare she does need riders to get involved with her to help her stretch and loosen up but she has proved to be a firm favourite with visitors due to her temperament, presence and natural carrying ability due to her lovely strong back. Those who are not particularly supple through the hips will struggle 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 social media and through our online training packages.