We'd like to invite you to join us for snacks, fun "Horse-Birthday" themed activities for the kids and a riding demonstration! The celebration will take place between 1 and 4pm - feel free to drop in as you like, January 2nd, at Briarquest Farm. The address is 5225 Westdel Bourne, Lambeth/London (our home farm). 
Welcome new horse ROSCOE to the Hayes Horsemanship team! Roscoe is a 15 yr old Quarter Horse gelding with over 250 AQHA points on his show record. He has successfully competed in Western Pleasure, Horsemanship, Western Riding, Shwomanship, Trail, Halter, Hunter Under Saddle and even one Barrel Racing class!
Due to his age and the amount of wear and tear generally incurred by a heavy show schedule, we asked our vet to perform a thorough pre-purchase examination (something we encourage all our students to invest in). Roscoe passed with flying colours.
Thanks to Riverbend Deisngs for capturing "Shorty" in action! Shorty's mother is our lesson horse J-lo! Can you see the resemblance?
Pictured in the Ladies class is Peppy (aka Twist). Peppy ended up with 3rd place in the Ladies and 2nd place in the Rookie Professional class.
About halfway to the due date now and the bump is growing! Barely visible from the front...
Pretty obvious from the side!!
We've adding some pictures of our fabulous trip to Congress. We were lucky enough t meet up with our friends from South Florida Equestrian Centre for the Freestyle Reining, yummy eats and lots of shopping!
Saturday, September 25th marked our youth Fun Day. Participants took part in a serious grooming session in preparation for our bareback riding and painting horses!
Hand-led bareback riding was a huge hit. First-timers got an opportunity to get balanced and comfortable while in the capable hands of our volunteers. Experienced bareback riders (and some brave first-timers) experimented with the balance exerises we often start our lessons with. Some riders were even testing their skills to the maximum when asked to close their eyes and say out loud which legs of the horse were moving and when. 
We gave the horse a quick break while the participants lined up and learned some of the basic rules of the event called, "Showmanship". The young ladies learned how to present their horse to the judge from all angles and how to switch from one side of the horse to the other smoothly and gracefully. 
Thanks for participating everyone! We had a great time!
Friday night we drove up to Granton for an intro lesson from Jess Cofell about working cows. Nicole and Lindsey gave their horses a solid warm up before their first attempts at, "tracking" the cows. Lindsey rode a 4 yr old palomino mare who Jessie has been showing this year at some AQHA and NRHA shows. Nicole rode a 3 yr old bay mare who is just beginning her show career. Recognize the bay mare? That's because she's J-lo's baby, "Shorty". 
Lindsey and Nicole took turns with the cows and practices tracked them around and learning to anticipate where they would try to move next. Then we split them up on either side of the arena and each rider's job was to keep them apart and behind their designated line. 
By the end of the lesson the girls had practiced tracking the cows, "boxing" a horse and rider as well as each of the calves. They were successfully moving each individual calf to a designated spot in the arena as well as up and down the long side of the arena. 
September 10th we held our first follow up to the clinic, "5 Days in the Boots of a Horse Trainer", at Bridgecreek Stables. The girls quickly got right back into working with their assigned training horses and picked up right where they left off. After riding outdoors in the sand ring (leading for Karen and Jordan) we decided to take advantage of the beautiful weather and take the horses for a little ride down the road. 
The girls also did a refresher class to brush up on their Showmanship skills, worked their second horses (hooray for Sister whose trainers were Katie and Julianna for mounting and being backed for the first time!) and then dewormed all of the assigned horses. 
To celebrate Justin Bieber's London appearance at the JLC, we had a JB themed lesson! Presley and Promise got right into it with sparkly paint, JB T-shirt and wristbands. We even carried on with our lesson plan to ride to the different beats in the music with Justin Bieber's CD! Watch for these photos on the Justin Bieber official fan page!
4TH
Six of our most advanced riders participated in a clinic from July 19-23 involving many aspects of horse training and care. Participants were assigned two training horses for the week that they were responsible for riding or working with each day. Participants were also expected to manage routine barn care including: feeding, turning out, mucking stalls, watering and sweeping. The ladies also helped out with unloading the hay wagon and dragging the arena with the harrows on the ATV. Activities varied from sidepasses and softening while mounted to ground driving, lungeing, leading, sacking out, saddling and mounting work for the horses with less or no previous mounted training. The horses ranged in ages from 1 yr to 20yrs and included paints, appaloosas, quarter horses, a shetland pony and two halflingers. The girls practiced their trailer loading skills and were witnesses/assitants to the vet while she gelded the yearling colt.
