News Flash:
To help celebrate Charlie’s birthday, our driving instructor Geir
Kanstadt put together a Gypsy horse four-in-hand! We think this is
the first four-in-hand of Gypsies in the Rocky Mountain region, and we
can’t wait to get it trained-up for use in parades. The wheelers are
Nuala (our main driving mare) and her daughter Grainne ni Mhaille (a
3-year old mare who had been driving for about 3 weeks when we put the
four-up together!). The leaders are Nuala’s 4-year old son Anois
(driving for about 3 months) and his 5-year old half-sister
Lisdoonvarna (driving for about 2 years). They made a striking team
hitched to Geir’s marathon cart, and as well as a memorable birthday
present! Click here to check out the
PhotoShow!
News Flash: The Celtic
Traveller on-line store is now open! Click
here! WE'RE
HAVING A SALE!
News
Flash: After staying up four nights on foal watch, we are
thrilled to share with you photos of the first foals sired by our
stallion Parnell's Leannan (our "blue" son of Clonnoneen Dunbrody of
Rosecreigh). On April 13, our lovely white mare Parnell's Roisin
gave birth to a handsome little colt, Parnell's Caoinlean
(pronounced "Quinlan") at 2:00am. Quinlan (shown on the left) is a
striking black & white piebald pattern. Since he also got his dad's
single copy of the grey gene, he will mature to a "blue and white"
pinto pattern as he sheds out his foal coat. Not to be outdone (or
give us a night's rest!), Parnell's Cahir gave birth to a gorgeous
filly, Parnell's Si-gaoithe (pronounced "shi-gwee"), the following
morning at 3:00am. Si-gaoithe, which means "the fairy wind" in
Gaelic, is a lovely little black and white piebald. She did not get
Leannan's grey gene, so she will stay a piebald pattern. The foals
just turned two months old and have been turned out on pasture with
their dams and the rest of the brood mares for over 6 weeks now. Quin
is already starting to turn blue/grey on his head and rump, and
Si-Gaoithe just gets faster and faster as she whirls around the
pasture, further and further away from her dam! Everyone is enjoying
Summer in the Rockies, and there is much more interaction between the
foals (mainly on Si-Gaoithe’s terms)! It’s amazing how distracted you
can get by two young Gypsy foals, but we wouldn’t miss the opportunity
for anything. Check back frequently over the next few weeks as we
will post more pictures to their pages and links to PhotoShows.
News
Flash: John Barker, our friend and authoritative collector of
Romany Gypsy vehicles, has just published a new limited edition book
entitled “Romany Relics: The Wagon Book”. This superb book is a
catalog of existing Gypsy vardos, and contains 300 color plates and
over 250 black & white pictures from “wagon time” in the British
Isles. Please visit his website at
www.romanyrelics.com for information on obtaining your copy. If
you love the wagons that these horses were born to pull, you need a
copy of this book!
News Flash:
There’s still time to register for one of the premier Gypsy Horse
Shows in the Rocky Mountain region: The Continental Divide Horse Show
& Gypsy Breed Classic will be held at The Ranch in Loveland, Colorado
from August 20-22, 2010. There will be around 30 classes for Gypsy
horses, including In Hand, Driving, Western and English (including a
Hunter Hack class with jumps!) Gypsy horses are also encouraged to
compete in the Open classes with Morgans, Saddlebreds and Freisians.
Contact the secretary at
GypsyHorseClassic@gmail.com to get a
premium book or more information!
Welcome to The Irish Rose,
home of Parnell's Irish Cobs. We became fascinated with these small,
colorful, draft-type horses and their link to our Irish ancestry a few
years ago, and decided to start a horse breeding operation here in
Northern Colorado. These horses, commonly referred to as
Gypsy horses, Gypsy
Vanners, Gypsy Cobs or Tinker horses, are renowned for
their extremely docile nature, endurance, weight-pulling ability and
extraordinary looks. As you will see from the pictures, a trademark
of these horses is the extreme thickness of mane and tail, as well as
the extravagant "feathering" on the legs.
At Parnell's, our goal is to breed,
train and show the finest traditional
Irish Cobs. We are meeting this
goal by carefully matching our
broodmares with hand-picked
stallions
in terms of conformation and color. We also believe that it is
equally important to maintain their well-deserved reputation for being
hard-working horses with gentle dispositions, whether in harness or
under saddle, and we focus on these qualities as well. We currently
have nine horses available for purchase, including four mares, four
geldings and one stallion prospect - please see the
Horses for Sale
page for more information and pictures.
We are pleased that we have been able
to preserve another part of the Irish culture in the form of
traditional driving
vehicles. We are privileged to own two Irish
Gypsy vardos
or living wagons,
an English
Gypsy flat cart and and an authentic
Irish
jaunting cart - please make sure you check the
Driving Vehicles
page for more information and photos of these lovely vehicles!
Thank you for visiting our website - we
hope you will enjoy the pictures of our fine horses and our
traditional Gypsy driving vehicles. Please contact us for more
information regarding our available
Horses for Sale. Our farm,
The Irish Rose,
is only an hour North of Denver, CO and we would love to show you our
horses in person!
Parnell's Irish Cobs, LLC
Charlie and Jan Cox
