Faside Estate Blog

April 29, 2012

We have now nearly finished lambing and we now have our first mother and foal of 2012. We will soon be adding a foal page for this years foals and hopefully we should have four foals by the end of the season!

Our friend up North near The Trossachs has a similar set up to ourselves at Campsie Cottages so if you want to explore the Highlands we can certainly endorse that place and it makes a great combo with Faside Estate.

March 12, 2012

We are getting close to lambing season and we have recently added a section to our website on our sheep. They are mainly rare breed black Wensleydale and at different times of the year we intend to have various products on sale including wool, mutton and sheep skins.

If you want to read more about our flock, please browse of Faside Flock section.

March 3, 2012

We have recently been pulling all the information together on the properties we rent out and we have created a website called www.edinburgh-propertyrentals.com to have the information available online. Along with providing self catering and bed and breakfast holiday accommodation, we also provide long term lets on properties, predominantly in Edinburgh.

We constantly try and evolve what goes on at Faside and one of our most recent projects is breeding rare breed Wensleydale sheep. A few years ago we ran an architecture practice at Faside and then we decided to make a change in lifestyle and more use of the castle and this is now our fourth year since beginning holiday lets and setting up the horses breeding facility.

January 14, 2012

For the first time ever we have taken part in a competition with Visit Scotland where you can win a two day break in The Tower, plus 300 pounds spending money and a meal for two at a local restaurant!

If you want to take part, you can enter via the Visit Scotland Promotion and we wish you good luck!

December 21, 2011

The castle is looking remarkably Christmasy at the moment and we are about to make mulled cider from our homemade cider from our orchard here, in the grounds. The perfect Christmas treat. We wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

December 3, 2011

We are very happy to be on the front cover of this years accommodation publication for Embrace Scotland which was a very pleasant surprise for us and it is a very nice photo of the castle in the sunshine.

We have also recently anticipated in an instruction guide for self catering accommodation providers in Scotland and our website is used as an example of a real world project and hopefully gives an interesting insight into the set up of our self catering holiday accommodation business.

November 27, 2011

We have just added a page for our new mare Diarderry who is a 16.3hh three year old by Emma Hindles Grand Prix dressage stallion Diamond Hit out of a Londonerry x Weltmeyer mare. Diaderry is in foal to Scolari who is by Sandro Hit x De Niro for 2012.

We have also bought a new Black Wensleydale ram who is quite special as he came from two white parents and thus is a new bloodline for our rare Black Wensleydales flock. His name is Forest Lea Jack and you can read about our flock at www.faside-estate.com/fasideflock.

October 1, 2011

We have just had a visit from a group of Veterinary Students who have come across from Holland to get a better idea of the Scottish horse industry. We were able to show them many of the foals at the castle and tell them about the our experiences we have had in starting the horse breeding programme back in 2007 to the present day. We hope the information we gave will be beneficial and it was enjoyable have so many people interested in the horses to talk to. We have uploaded some photos from the event to Facebook.

This was the first visit of this kind that we have hosted and we found it a very positive experience and we believe it important to increase awareness of the breeding of sports horse in Scotland. We strongly believe the horse breeding industry requires better support in Scotland than it presently receives.

September 14, 2011

We have just revamped our website and we have now separated the horses and the accommodation into two websites due to the volume of information. We now have the original website www.faside-estate.com which we will use for the self catering holiday accommodation and our new website which is dedicated solely to the sports horses, www.fasidestud.com. We hope everything is working on both websites and if anyone has any feedback, please feel free to get in touch.

We have nearly completed fencing at some new land purchased near the Estate and this will allow for us to keep increasing the amount of livestock that we keep. We will also soon be creating a website to the rare bread sheep that we keep at Faside. The motivation for this is that we have recently learned that their are more pandas in the world than there are black Whensleydale sheep and this is something we are keen to bring peoples attention to.

August 6, 2011

We have 3 mares in foal for 2012. In April Reggae is due another Breitling W foal who will be a full sibling to this years chestnut colt Greitling. Champagne Supernova is back in foal to Hotline due in May. Our young homebred mare Dawn Til Dusk is expecting a June foal by Johnson who stands at Team Nijhof in Holland.

Once her foal is weaned our broodmare Russian Roulette will be for sale. She is by the BWBS Champion stallion Rosenburg (Rohdiamant x Ramiro).

July 1, 2011

We now have over 50 videos of the mares and foals online at out Youtube Channel. It is now possible to Subscribe to new videos via our Channel or again on Facebook! We have now successfully completed the purchase of some further land for the mares and foals and hopefully this will mean many more mares and foals in the years ahead!

June 17, 2011

We have now had the last foal of the year which was born last week. All the foals have fortunately been born fit and healthy and many of the foals will be available after weaning. Due to the number of photographs and videos which exist of the horses we have created a new Facebook page dedicated just to them!

This will hopefully allow anyone specifically interested in the horses to get video and photo updates and those who are interested in the Castle and Estate can follow our regular updates!

June 3, 2011

We had a visit the other day from a member of The Council in East Lothian and we were discussing the possibility of creating a sculpture trail at The Old Course in Musselburgh. East Lothian has just hosted an international golf competition but one thing many people do not know is the Old Course in Musselburgh was recognized by Guinness World Records as being older than St Andrews and hosted The Open Championship 32 years before St Andrews did.

Musselburgh Old Course was also the first Golf course in the world to host an all female golf competition and the 200th anniversary of that event is this year and employed the first person in history to maintain and manage a course. Musselburgh was also the home of the Honorable Society for Edinburgh Golfers which later became Muirfield which is hosting The Open Championship in 2013.

We have put in motion a proposal for a commemorative sculpture trail in Musselburgh and our proposal is available in PDF. To download a copy, please Click Here.

May 14, 2011

We have added a Special Offer to all guests that book any of our self catering holiday accommodation at Faside Estate.

We currently also have Late Availability offers which are applied to the prices automatically if you book any of the self catering holiday accommodation within 20 days of the stay itself!

May 11, 2011

This morning our broodmare Reggae produced a lovely chestnut colt by the FN breeding index leader Breitling. This is the 5th foal Reggae has had at the Stud. Photos to follow!

Our next mare due to foal is Champagne Supernova by Sandreo. She was our first foal born at Faside Stud back in 2007 and is out of With Love. She is in foal to Hotline due at the start of June.

Most of our 2011 lambs have been born, with two Shetland x Wensleydales born this morning. All our purebred Wensleydales have been born with just a couple of Shetland left to go now!

March 17, 2011

On another positive note we have had the annual inspection from Visit Scotland and all the properties have maintained there current ratings and we received a lot of positive feedback from the assessor about the self catering holiday accommodation.

We have also managed to complete on the purchasing of some additional land in East Lothian for accommodating our livestock. We are very excited about this purchase and we will be adding some photos to our page on Facebook.

Foals for 2011 will start to appear on this years Foals Page in the coming months!

March 16, 2011

More exciting news! Our Rosenburg mare Rosewould produced a beautiful bay filly on the 15th March at about 5pm. Photographs, web page and name to follow!

Her sire is Sir Donnerhall, whose pedigree is the perfect combination of genes from Sandro Hit and Donnerhall. He comes from a strong damline and is out of the Brilliantring mare Contenance D.

Sir Donnerhall received the highest dressage index score ever awarded to date of 163 points in his 70-day test. Even as a five year-old Bundeschampion and Vice World Champion he fascinated onlookers with his feather-light movements and exceptional presence. A consistent producer of performance horses, Sir Donnerhall has sired Champion and Premium stallions as well as top priced auction horses including Schickeria who sold at the North Rhine-Westphalian Elite Auction for EUR 355,000. Her dam, Rosewould, is by BWBS champion stallion Rosenburg who combines some the best dressage and showjumping lines in Europe. These include the dressage legend Rohdiamant (Rubinstein) who was the champion dressage horse of his generation in Oldenburg and a main premium stallion with a huge dressage index of 150.01 points.

Rosenburgs dam sire is Ramino (Ramiro) who was Champion stallion at his performance test and went on to compete Internationally in Show Jumping. Ramino is the sire of Loretta, the dam of Sandro Hit.

The next mare due to foal is Russian Roulette and then we have a bit of a break until the end of May when number three is due! We are also due to start lambing at the start of April.

February 23, 2011

Faside Stud are delighted to welcome a new broodmare to our breeding programme, and a very special one at that! Donnerkind has competed internationally with Paralympic rider Lee Pearson. In 2003 at the World Championships in Belgium she won an individual Gold medal in the Kur, and helped secure team Gold. She also won the 2003 British Dressage National Championship, and won both the Championship Test and Kur at the 2003 French International. As well as an exceptional career in both Para and able-bodied dressage, Donnerkind is graded in the Hanoverian Main Stud Book and the Oldenburg Head Stud Book. Born in Germany, Donnerkind was on the front cover of the Hanoverian Studbook as a three year old. She is by the great Donnerhall and comes from an impressive mare line which has also produced the stallion Being Bling and the international dressage horse Fleurie (who competes for Sweden). Her webpage will be created soon.

February 11, 2011

The sires of our youngsters have has some excellent results recently. Monarch of the Glens sire, Mill Law is top of British Eventings 2010 Rankings for sires of 5 and 6 year old event horses, winning by a huge margin of 42 points. A 6 year old by Mill Law came 17th at the World Young Horse Championships at Le Lion d Angers.

Eutopian Loves sire Johnson won the VHO Trophy at the 2011 KWPN Stallion Show in Den Bosch with an expressive, flawless test scoring him 77 per cent. Johnson is not only a super dressage horse but also fantastic sire, producing the performance test winner Bretton Woods and the winner in Den Bosch, Breezer. At the Pavo Cup final for 4 year olds Johnson was leading sire with 6 offspring of the best 25 in the finals! Faside Sandalwoods sire San Amour produced a stunning uphill stallion who became Champion Stallion at the 2011 South German Stallion Licensing in Munich. No less than 5 of San Amours progeny were selected for the 2010 Oldenburg Stallion Licensing in Vechta and 8 of the 43 stallions were by Sir Donnerhall, who Rosewould is in foal to for 2011.

February 5, 2011

Sarkozy, the sire of Faside Eutopian Melody, was selected for 2010 World Championships for Young Dressage Horses. Due to the success of his progeny Sandro Hit was the USEF Dressage Sire of the Year 2010, with 3805 points, almost 1000 points higher than the second placed stallion. In the 2010 German Breeding Value Index three of the sires of our foals due in 2011 scored very highly: Hotline with 158 points (86 reliability), Breitling W with 170 points (86 reliability) and Sir Donnerhall with 166 points (96 reliability).

The breeding value index is indicative of the performance potential a sire passes on to his offspring. The index is based on data collected from more than 590,000 horses. More than 11 million scores from competition shows, 2,7 million scores from riding horse classes and 75,000 results from breed shows as well as 7,000 scores from stallion performance tests are tabulated to determine the breeding value index. (Euro Dressage) Our first foals are due in about 6 weeks time!