Sjoukje fan de Groenbank

ACHIEVEMENTS

2015 - Awarded KFPS 2nd Premie at UK Inspections

Sjoukje is Femma’s fourth daughter, and the second daughter from the stallion Sake 449. Ischka was the first one, who showed such promise as a youngster hence the reason for breeding Femma to Sake once again.

Unfortunately this breeding combination has not proved successful. We lost Ischka at the age of 5 to the hereditary condition of Aortopulmomary Fistulation which affects approximately 2% of the Friesian population.

Naturally the concern has always been that Sjoukje could suffer the same fate and due to this we chose not to start working her till she turned 5. As an early 6yo she was backed and took to the training really well. She was showing great promise in her schooling work until she went lame in late 2019 when she was found to have some arthritic changes in her front right foot.

After medication and over 6 months of rest and restricted movement there appeared little improvement and further investigations in late 2020 found a fracture to the extensor process in this foot. She remained on rest until Spring 2021 but sadly this is a non union fracture so will not repair. Sjoukje has found a way to move to accommodate this and is clearly not in pain. She now works very closely with Holly Dobson who re-named her 'special child' as she has been somewhat interesting to work with on the ground and they are both learning a lot together.

Going back to Sjoukjes birth, this in itself was traumatic. Femma suffered a uterine prolapse as she gave birth, a life threatening but rare problem. Fortunately, with the amazing help and dedication of our vets Femma pulled through and was able to be a great mum to Sjoukje.

Sjoukje spent most of her days in a field with her sisters Jolanda and Ineka, together with several other horses while she was growing. It soon became apparent Sjoukje was a cheeky filly, not afraid of anything and she was always the first to come up to you in the field, trying to chew your shoes or whatever else she could. She even had the nickname 'licky horse' and regularly soaks our poor farrier Chris with her kisses when he's doing her front feet! Chris makes her special shoes to help keep her feet as comfortable as possible.

When Sjoukje turned 2yrs old we took her to be graded by the KFPS inspectors, and she was awarded 2nd Premie but sadly she will never gain entry to the main studbook due to the problems with her feet.

As an extremely intelligent and curious mare, Sjoukje needs to be doing something so it is wonderful she can work with Holly on some less traditional type of exercise that takes into account the fracture. She thrives on attention so is a great horse for visitors to spend time with due to her unconditional love of people.

Sjoukje has already learnt to bow, kneel and leg yield with Holly and you can follow her progress on our social media channels.