People were seeing spots on October 28th at the 2009 World Appaloosa Sale in Fort Worth, Texas. The sale offered world class quality in 3 different categories: the Yearling Incentive Sale, the Broodmare Incentive Sale, and the Select Sale. Yearlings purchased in the Yearling sale will be eligible to participate in the 2010 World Sale Incentive 2-Year Old Futurity classes. ApHC registered foals of the bred mares offered in the Broodmare sale will be eligible as 2-year olds to compete in the Incentive Futurity classes. The Select Sale offered top quality performance and breeding horses.

The highest selling horse (that sold and was not a consignor repurchase) was Classical Pizzazz, a 2008 yearling stallion who brought $13,500. This handsome colorful colt, a son of the quarter horse stallion Invest In My Pizzazz, was World-qualified to show in Yearling Stallions and Most Colorful at Halter.

Ninety-three horses were offered with 62 changing hands and 31 consignor repurchases. The total, excluding buy-backs, was $125,425 for a sale percentage of 66%. The average was $2,023, with the Top 5 horses that sold averaging $6,340.

Technorati Tags: Appaloosa, ApHC, Appaloosa Horse Club, yearling, broodmare, horse, equine, stallion, colt

Tim Tebow Displays His Second Heisman Trophy Award to Photographers

TIM TEBOW DOES IT AGAIN – Wins Second Heisman Award

Here it is….direct from the Downtown Athletic Club…Tim Tebow Wins his 2nd Heisman Award., setting a new precedent in NCAA record books.  Tebow already had won a Heisman two years ago, and was not favored to win this year, his senior season because of a loss against Alabama at the SEC Championship game. Heisman ballots were tabulated by accounting firm Ernst & Young…and Tebow led all other candidates….to win his second Heisman Trophy as the best football player in the nation. He led single-handedly the Gators to a 12-0 regular season record…and the Gators probably put too much pressure on him for the SEC Championship game by depending on Tebow for 92% of the plays.  Many thought that Tebow would not win this year, but when you look at his leadership, drive, committment and statistics, it is easy to understand how Tebow garnered more vote that Toby Gerhart (Stanford), Colt McCoy (Texas), Mark Ingram (Alabama) or Ndamukong Hsu (Nebraska).

The United States loves Tim Tebow. The world loves Tim Tebow. College football fans love Tim Tebow. Tebow was the face of college football for the past 4 years. He is an incredible talent, who certainly deserves this award for a encore.

Congratulation to Tim Tebow, 2007 and 2009 Heisman Winner !

Etnies teams up with malt liquor kings Colt 45 on a pair of kicks. Rad Collector has the story. “Aww man, Colt 45 has come a long way since Billy Dee. You may have heard about the super limited Colt 45 x etnies collabo shoe a lil while back, but you probably didn’t get a pair in the mail complete with a tall boy 45 in the box. That’s classic! More looks at the collabo in its element after the jump.”

Spegel Boot Grip stocks

 I need to get a set of grips for the other Cobra and was wondering if Spegel’s would do the job.  The newer Cobra has the long handle. I was wondering if that would be a problem.

Yours,

Albert

Dear Albert:

Thank you for the question.

First the good-news – Spegel make the only stocks I put on my self-defense guns.

They are well made, comparable in price to any on the market, are the ONLY set of stocks properly relieved for all models and shapes of speedloaders, and there is enough material in them for a good grip without adding material that would compromise concealment.

Craig Spegel generally make up his Boot Grips for S&W J-, K- and N-frame guns but he currently has the tooling up-and-running for Colt Cobras, Agents and Detective Specials.

Unfortunately your second Colt has a “long” frame and the Spegel Boot Grips are cut only to fit the “short” frame Colts.

There are a few options.

On the high end you can ask your gunsmith what he would charge to “bob” the frame to match the short frame’s dimensions. Unfortunately, when you add up the cost of gunsmithing and the cost of the stocks the total could become prohibitive.

Alternatively, you could go with another stock maker.

Eagle Grips Secret service stocks (for J-frames)

If I have to go that route I would choose a set of Eagle Grip’s Secret service stocks (no connection to the US Secret Service) They do not have the same fit or finish of the Spegel stocks, and they are not relieved for speedloaders to the degree the Spegel stocks are but they are the best second option currently available.

I hope the information is of some help.

Thank you again for the great question.

Yours,

Michael de Bethencourt

macwagen

So I’m not sure if I’ve ever mentioned this, but Becca has a bit of a thing for Colt.

I was around at the Tree House for dinner last night… And actually I’m going to take a tangent here for a moment:

You know how the Pack pays for almost everything for the younger (like 18-25 ish year old) members? It’s crazy. They get a free education (with no limits) and free rent at the treehouse, and last night? Dinner was cooked by a fucking cook.

It’s essentially a messy, smelly, brand spanking new college dorm mansion with a five star cook, room service, and free rent. (Is it just me, or is this situation screaming out ‘we don’t care what kind of people we’re turning out here – shit all over us if you’d like there will be no consequences!’)

The exchange for all the free easy living is that if they work they’re expected to try find work with other shifters in Pack businesses (where we can keep an eye on them), and while they’re young and dumb, they are under the care of the Alphas and leadership while they learn control, and Wolfy life-skills.

Later, when we release them into the wild, and they become mature, full functioning adults (25-35+) they’re expected to stay loyal to the Pack, support Pack businesses, act as role models for younger members, obey Shifter law (thou shalt not shift in front of humans), and obey the rules and recommendations of the Alpha’s.

It’s all funded by Pack businesses, which, because of our long term higher education policy, and loyal members, are doing really quite well. We have a near constant supply of well educated workers, who have years of experience working at the base customer-service level of our businesses – the true meaning of working your way to the top I guess!

Except this new batch of wolves are kind of taking the system for everything it’s got. I’m thinking that this whole ‘entitlement’ theme that we’ve got going on is the cause of some of our issues with discipline and control with the younger members.

The education policy – all they have to do is slap down a bill and an offer of study, and we pay their way. I’ve just found out that there are quite a few kids here who aren’t even GOING to classes. They’re  failing, and we’re still paying. Screw that.

Then again, there’s a whole bunch who aren’t studying, and aren’t working. they hang out at the house and party. (Before last month they hung out at the hotel, ordering room service.) What the hell are they going to do when they hit 30, with no life skills, no job experience, and not even a Bachelor of Arts to show for it?

And the food, rent, alcohol, and expensive furniture (which Tiny keeps having to get fished out of the pool) all get supplied to them no strings attached. (By 5 star chefs!) You know what? If they’re working they should be contributing to running the house. If they’re not working they should be actually running the house and perhaps doing some of the cleaning and cooking themselves.

When we showed up tonight I see that not one of these entitled young douchbags have cleaned ANYTHING since they moved in. And they can’t even cook a meal for themselves.

They’ve had no supervision here. We’ve got twenty four 18-24 year olds alone in the house, because the remainder of the rooms aren’t furnished yet, and the young ones were causing too much noise and lost profit at the hotel.

The older members of the Pack (thirty 25-35 year olds) – including myself, Ran, Tiny, and Andre – ie the leadership and responsible role models! – are still at the hotel.

The whole point of ‘Pack’ is to supervise the younger members until they’re old enough to make smart choices for themselves, support the members without families of their own while they’re learning to co-exist with their wolves, and to create life-long bonds within our family of shifters.

We’re not doing a very good job!! Not through lack of trying though. Ran is pretty much exhausted after the last few years of trying to police this lot almost by himself.

In fact it’s kind of my fault – this whole ‘tree house/ hotel’ split is because essentially I burnt down their old house. And this is what is causing most of the problems right now.

(This right here? Leadership. Fucking. Material.)

fabbio

Anyway. Tangent aside.

We had dinner, and one of the younger girls (Sasha) and Tiny were giving me a guided tour of the house – including the bit that will eventually be my office, and personal suite (suite!!) of rooms.

We’re walking down an un-wallpapered hallway, and I hear a sound. So I go off to investigate, trailed by Sash and Tiny.

I turn a corner, and there in a room full of dry-wall, paint, and tools, is Becca, looking like hell.

“Hey Becca…” I say slowly, trying to figure out exactly what I’ve walked in on here.

And with that she fucking fell to pieces. I stood there for a moment staring in horror. I’m really not much of a touchy-feely-lets-talk-about-our feelings-then-spoon kind of person. I NEVER know what to do with crying people.

However. Despite my reluctance to wade into personally awkward territory, I realize that, in my new position as Alpha, some sort of a response (other than to throw a box of tissues at her) is required.

Tiny’s eyes went huge, and at my nod, went to go shut and guard the door, preventing the spectacle from becoming a whole-pack affair, and making her feel even worse.

What can I say, Becca’s kinda irresponsible, and a little know-it-all-y, but I like her, she’s only 23, and when she’s older, she’ll be a force to reckon with. Maybe even an Alpha or Second. Plus she helped me out when I needed someone to talk to about Pack and all that entails.

Sasha on the other hand was your typical 19 year old drama queen. Without thinking she squealed “Oh my god! Is this about Colt cheating on you? Are you OK?”

I stood for a moment stunned at her stupidity. What the hell? What exactly did she expect the answer there to be? ‘yes, oh, I’m fine, I’m just sobbing like the world’s about to end because I stubbed my toe’?

“Are you fucking out of your mind? Clearly the answer is Fuck No, she’s not OK. If you don’t mind, I’d prefer you wait outside.” I said impatiently.

Sasha went quickly, and I could just see her trying to decide who to go gossip to first. “And Sash? If you say a word of this to anyone I will be really fucking annoyed with you.”

She flashed her throat, and dropped her eyes, and ran. (This kind of power might go to my head if I let it.)

So instead of talking or whatever to Becca (because, lets face it, at times I can suffer from foot in mouth) I just sat beside her and waited.

Slowly, as she began to calm down, she started to tell me about it.

Back when I first met her I assumed she was dating Colt. BUT. It turns out it wasn’t really a relationship, just lots of innuendo, and implication.

Becca WANTS to date him, and did broach the topic, but he always had some kind of excuse, or laughed it off. They had a proper chat this afternoon, and he came up with the lame excuse that she’s too young – he’s 25, she’s 23.

For the first time Becca realized that the thing she had assumed was mutual between her and Colt might not be, in fact, mutual.

Then comes the rumor that Colt and one of the other younger girls at the hotel have been shacking up. Worse yet, the rumor comes from one of the other younger girls here, who had to KNOW that bringing it up in front of other people was going to hurt Becca.

The thing is, I like Colt, but it’s true. He can be a bit of a hound, and a butt-head towards girls. He thinks he’s gods gift, and is out for a good time. If he wasn’t into Becca he really should have been straight with her from the start, but then again, Becca should have probably taken off the rose-tinted glasses and made a few deductions of her own.

And as for the girls here being nasty to each other for the sake of it? What the hell?? I thought Pack was supposed to be supportive, and family-building.

Anyway. There’s nothing I can do there in particular as Alpha, because I am NOT going to stick my head onto relationship crap in my first week. It would set a very bad tone – It’s not why I’m Alpha.

At the same time though… I would kind of like to shake them all by the backs of their necks and tell them to play nice.

***

To Ayla,From Ayla- Re: "DO NOT GET INVOLVED."

Sort out the big stuff
(money/ supervision/ role models/ bullying/ attitude
problems) and the small stuff 
(relationships/ gossip/ general stupid behavior/
cleaning schedules/ grades) will sort it's self out. 

***

sarah0s

Phew. Anyway. Later I sat out on the balcony trying to figure out all this crap. Ran came up and sat behind me rubbing his thumb at the base of my neck.

“You’re thinking very hard…”

I frowned. “To think you once accused me of not thinking at all… There are some big problems here…”

He leaned in to kiss where he had been rubbing. “I believe at the time you had walked into an alley full of rabid hyenas and had your stomach ripped open… You kind of have to forgive me for that accusation… And yeah, there are. I’ve got some ideas, and I know you must have some too. I thought we could start with daily leadership meetings.”

I signed and leaned back into his shoulder. Meetings suck. “Yeah. That sounds like a must. We need to get all the problems reported to one/both of the seconds and then work on the big stuff first. We need to get this place finished, furnished, and full of older wolves too.”

He nodded. “Yeah. They’re destroying it. I’m thinking we come back tomorrow morning, boot-camp style, and scare the living crap out of them all. Put the fear of Alpha in them, and lay down he law… I’ve been putting it off because of all the other stuff I’ve had to deal with lately, but I think it’s time.”

I thought about it. “So… You want to scare them into submission, using my dangerous reputation, and your own badass aura of cool?”

“Exactly.”

I nodded slowly. “That’ll work. It’ll be less effective, though, when they find out you’re now my bitch boy, and I’m just a smartass.”

Ran chuckled and slid his hand up to a non-business meeting appropriate position. “Bitch Man. And we’ll just do our best to keep that hidden for now. Besides, you break out that riding crop, and none of them will ask questions”

Then we made out like horny teenagers.

***

So… Now I’m just chilling out at home. Ran’s back at the hotel getting some sleep, because tomorrow will be early, and we do not really sleep when we stay together. Plus we decided that we need to make sure we don’t take the relationship too fast and rush through dating and stuff because we’re doing so much together.

Tomorrow will be crazy. I’ve been slack at work because I have so much to wrap my head around with Pack, and my summer school paper has all these readings that I missed last week… And I’m out of food again, and so is Rump.

So. Fucking. Tired.

I think that when looking at college football award candidates, they need to meet two factors: consistent performance throughout the season and stepping up to a higher level in their big games.

This morning, ESPN’s Joe Schad announced his award picks via Twitter, which matched up with most of America. They were:

Heisman Trophy (Most Outstanding Player):

1) Ndamukong Suh, Nebraska, DT

2) Mark Ingram, Alabama, RB

3) CJ Spiller, Clemson, RB

Davey O’Brien Award (Most outstanding QB):

1) Colt McCoy

2) Tim Tebow

3) Case Keenum

There are a couple local names that didn’t make these two lists, and to be quite honest, I’m appalled.

Colt McCoy is a class act and led Texas (along a very easy road) to the National Championship this year. Sure he had the aforementioned consistency, but let’s look at his two biggest games: Oklahoma in the Red River Shootout and Nebraska in the Big 12 Championship. Against the Sooners, McCoy had just one touchdown along with one interception. And in his win last night over the Cornhuskers, McCoy had three interceptions and didn’t throw a single touchdown. Sure he has 27 passing touchdowns on the year and a passer rating of 147, but who wouldn’t playing in this year’s Big 12. Oregon’s field general, Jeremiah Masoli, doesn’t have the same kind of season numbers that McCoy had, but in his 4 most important games (Cal, USC, @Arizona, and OSU), Masoli’s numbers were great. In those 4 games, he had a 65% completion rate, an average QB rating of 154, 12 total touchdowns, and only 2 interceptions. In the Arizona game alone, Masoli had 6 total touchdowns. That’s a whole lot better than McCoy’s one touchdown and four interceptions in his two big games.

C.J. Spiller is a man; there’s no doubt about it. He will be drafted in an early round and most likely be successful. Last night, in the ACC Championship loss to Georgia Tech, Spiller went off with 233 rushing yards, 4 TDs, and a yards per carry average of 11.7. The kid is a player, but are his season stats really that meritable? Oregon’s own LaMichael James has Spiller beat in every single season rushing stat column, including 331 more rushing yards and 3 more touchdowns.

I am not saying that I believe that Masoli or James should be named this year’s Heisman, but they are just two guys from one team. People need to see that there are much more prolific, deserving players out there than the guys with a 99 in their overall on EA Sports’ NCAA Football 2010.

Colt is making progress in his quest to get mobile. Tomorrow he will be 7 months old! Wow that went by fast. Anyways, he is starting to pull himself up onto his knees when he is playing. His only probelm with that is keeping his balance. Otherwise he take a face plant or ends up laying on his toys.

And he has finally started rolling from his back to his stomach. I knew he could do it but had never seen him do it. I figured he just didn’t want to because he isn’t all that thrilled of being on his stomach….at least not until recently. Lately though when I am getting him dressed in his room he rolls from his back to his stomach to get to a box of diapers. In the past I tried to convince him to roll over to get to his toys. I should have known that a box would do the trick!!! As I said as of late he is enjoying time on his stomach more and he is getting into the crawling position a little bit. I bet by the end of the month he will either be scooting or crawling a little. Ugh!

For many, Thanksgiving means the Three F’s: food, family, and football. To this, I add Fotography. And Fillies. And many Furlongs of graded stakes action.

Cigar Mile Day is generally the last hurrah of the season for New York racing fans. This time of year, the weather gets chilly, racing at Aqueduct moves to the inner dirt course, and the holidays approach.

I brought my friend Lisa to the track and she did a great job as my assistant. She also learned quite a bit about the light at the track and how to get the proper exposure for bright sun and the shade of the grandstand.

Before you know it, Derby Fever will be upon us. This Saturday gave racing fans a little more information about their favorite two-year-olds.

Launch N Relaunch broke his maiden with ease.

Buddy’s Saint (center) won the Remsen handily.

Although they did not take a trip to the winner’s circle, there were many other nice colts at the Big A that day, including Imaging:

Highveldt Storm:

Lentenor, full brother of Barbaro. Barbaro’s Kentucky Derby was one of my favorite races of the decade, but I never got to see the great colt in person so it was a treat to see his younger brother carrying on the legacy.

But the day was not all about the colts. Stardom Bound had an eventful return from her layoff. Peach Brew stumbled out of the gate at the start of the Gazelle- if you view the video (below), you can see that it happened in the blink of an eye, but the photo shows how much it can affect a horse’s game.

The marquee race of the day was the Hill ‘n’ Dale Cigar Mile Handicap. Kodiak Kowboy won the race and a real shot at this year’s Eclipse Award for Champion Sprinter.

Furlongs and Furlongs of Fun for this Fotographer. Hope you had a good weekend as well.

Casi ya por la mitad de la temporada, os traigo el trailer del episodio número 10 de la quinta temporada de Sobrenatural. Lleva por título “Abandon all Hope”.

Sinopsis: Sam, Dean y Castiel encuentran en colt y van en busca de lucifer. Para ayudarles forman un equipo de cazadores, Bobby, Ellem y Jo, y se juntan en la que podrá ser su ultima noche.

Today Colt started something new. Something I don’t particularly like. Every time I leave the room….shoot everytime I am more than 5 feet away from him he would just cry…..cry really hard. At first I just thought he was mad about something but it continued all day. Colt hardly ever cries….so this is a big deal to me. Today he was crying real tears.

Bruce made a good point and I think he is right. He left on Sunday to Ft Benning for Jump Master school. Perhaps Colt realizes his daddy is missing and is scared that if he loses sight of me that I will go MIA as well. After all, around 6 months is when babies start to catch on to things like this and also (from what I have read) is when seperation anxiety starts to kick in.

So my ‘bebe’ has gotten a lot of extra loves, hugs, and snuggles today.