Loch Leven Park Performance Horses & Ponies

18/04/2025

Who can guess his blind side from these videos? 🐴🙈
Small circles aren’t his thing but 10/10 for try 💜💜

28/03/2025

The girls would like to know how much supervisors get paid for this type of hard work! 😂🐴🐴 Mind you, one fell asleep on the job while the other took an extended lunch break and came back when the job was done! 🤪

23/02/2025

We have a secret to share… this 3yo filly, our very own piece of Jed ♥️

For the better part of almost 5 months we’ve have hidden this sass queen in our paddock. Every time we look out, it’s like seeing Jed. She is striking, calm, cheeky and loveable all jam packed into one tiny body. She has his looks, temperament and movement to burn. 🔥

And in true Jed style she carried her tiny beginner pilot around totally green broken, on a howling windy day 💨 and didn’t step out of place. We could have sold her 10 times over already even being told to name our price! Sadly (for everyone else) she is NOT and will NOT be available for purchase.

So welcome Lottie and thank you for being just like Jed, we needed you. 💖

14/02/2025

The Dusty & Rayne poster boy back at it again 🤩 Lewie sporting his brand-new cowhide nose band and I am wearing her new t-shirts, although I don't do them as much justice as Lewie does for her halters! If you look closely you can even see her earrings and hair scrunchie too 💙 if you haven't been over to her page you are missing out!

19/01/2025

Our poster boy 💖
As a brand ambassador for Dusty & Rayne it is his job to do her beautiful crafstmanship justice! If you haven't already you need to head on over to the Dusty & Rayne page! From custom halters, keyrings, earrings, cowhide clocks, serving boards and so much more! Her workmanship is second to none, you won't be disappointed. 😍

13/12/2024

What a delight it was to have a Shetland back at home recently! Loch Leven Park Mystery (Kova) here for the beginnings of his breaking. Remember if you have a LLP Shetland to get in touch if you would like to book them in for training! Sorry not open to public, just a promise to our faithful LLP pony owners ♥️

21/09/2024

In honour of our wonderful Jed, 12 months without our little rockstar; here is your reminder to love the horse first and the sport second 💙

📸 Amy Sue Alston Photography, Whitty Photography & Jane Richards 🫶

18/09/2024

We are not ashamed to say we are biased, how stunning is this boy?! 🥰 Perhaps a beach shoot next.

Photos by Breeze Equine Photography (Briahna)

01/09/2024

Farnborough Beach, Yeppoon QLD.
Our new backyard 🫶
And now every child we seen is dreaming of a bay pony for christmas😆💙

19/08/2024

Who can guess the weight of this fellow? He turned 5yo in January, A1 QH registered and measures 14.1 and 1/2

25/06/2024

Our Shetland era officially closes -at least for now- 💙
A wave of emotions as we re-live what was a phenomenal time in our lives and our little stud. We achieved things we never dreamt of, we felt heartbreak worse than we ever thought possible, we laughed, we smiled, we cried but mostly we loved. Interestingly, as we put this little clip together, our favourite memories were never "winning" or the shows, they were all the fun and adventures we had on our journey, the 'behind the scenes' shall we call them.

So yesterday we said goodbye to our very last shetland, as he arrives safely to his new home this evening. We look back on just some of the ponies that put us on the map. There are so many more and I could talk for hours about the path we paved, the families we met along the way and the ponies that made us a little better for having them in our lives.

To the ones who own them, enjoy them! To the ones we lost along the way, we thank them for their special contribution to our stud and the place they have in our hearts. 💖💖

**we do not own the music**

13/05/2024

Everyone has to earn their keep around here 🤷🏻‍♀️😂 Are working ponies worth as much as working dogs? 🙈

11/05/2024

❣️SOLD SOLD SOLD ❣️
With much deliberation we have come to the conclusion that our young mare at only 9yo would truly be wasted sitting in our paddock. Absolute last opportunity to buy a child's pony from us with a true education. She has been a wonderful broodmare for us and yet still had time to teach numerous little ones the ropes. She deserves a life beyond breeding retirement (with us - she can still breed). Pm for more information 💜

21/04/2024

What retirement from breeding at 22 years young looks like! Ella thoroughly enjoying her little adventures 🥰🌟

14/04/2024

Well as the saying goes, you never stop learning! The challenges and perks of having a horse with an acquired traumatic brain injury are never ending. This weekend we had a huge learning curve and potential breakthrough in Lewie's training. He competed at a two-day barrel racing competition, originally scheduled on a large outdoor campdraft arena but over 100mml of rain meant it was moved to the local indoor. We showed up for our run as normal, warmed up on the outdoor arena beautifully and off we went. We had a beyond appalling run, spooky, slamming the breaks, not turning and just not wanting to run, totally out of character. I tried to brush it off, as he hadn't run in an indoor in over 12 months and was very green when he did, however I felt something was really off. We turned up again on day two with far lower expectations, they had a drum out on the outdoor arena, so we had a good warm up and he was on fire, keen and doing everything right. We went to the indoor for our run and was helped in by a lovely lady with her horse as he was so freaked out heading in (again totally out of character). We had another poor run, (slightly better than the previous day), taking down two drums, not wanting to run and still slamming the breaks on every drum.

Deciding it was time to sit down and think on why he really couldn't handle the indoor I decided to re-test his vision - I tested it quite some time ago and it wasn't 100%. However, this time around after light sensitivity and movement testing, I found him to be completely non-reactive to light or movement in the right eye at all. He was also incredibly over reactive in the left eye - almost like he was freaked out by the light (likely a compensation for the lack of vision in the right eye, accompanied by nerve disruption).

This all makes a lot more sense with things he does in his everyday life all adding up to an inability to see on his right side. This also explains an unwillingness to go into the dark indoor arena, he is unable to see well in the daylight let alone in the dark and may also have a delayed adjustment from light to dark environments.

I have attached an interesting photo of the nerves in a horse's head/neck and where they run. His injury went directly through the top of his poll and down towards his brain, also travelling extensively under the skin down the face and neck. He also suffered a severe concussion that would have put pressure on those nerves underneath where the brain sits for an extended period of time (he spent 6 weeks with an extensively swollen head). He is potentially close to fully blind in his right eye. He does have a lot more going on than just vision impairment, but this was just a very interesting find and a big learning curve we thought we could share.

While this does not adversely affect him it does mean I can be a little more helpful in his training to accommodate this and also, no more indoors! 🥰💙

It is very difficult to find a lot of research on horses with these types of injuries as a lot don't survive or aren't persevered with.

31/03/2024

I think she prefers the broodmare life 🤣 They never forget their training if they are started correctly, Penny hasn’t had a saddle on in about 6 years. Ridden like she hasn’t had a day off and back to a kids pony tomorrow 🙈💜

26/03/2024

I think Lewie was far more impressed to be getting down and dirty again last weekend as compared to being a show pony. 😆 A 3rd place to kick off the season strong (almost kicked our goal of hitting those 18 second runs, agonizingly close but the whole season ahead of us)! Crossing all our fingers and toes he doesn't get a nasty cough this year and can have a cracker 4yo futurity season!

20/03/2024

Poor Lewie 😆😂 I was too busy taking photos for everyone else at the show that I forgot to get ribbon photos.