Thursday, December 9, 2010

Customer Appreciation Celebration!

Thank you for your support and business in 2010!

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).
Everyone is welcome, so bring your families and horsey-friends!

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

AQHA World Show Final Runs


The American Quarter Horse World Show wrapped up on the weekend in Oklahoma City.

Click the event to see the winning run below:


Senior Cutting


Senior Working Cow Horse


Senior Tie Down Roping


Senior Barrel Racing


Senior Pole Bending


Senior Reining


Senior Western Riding


Senior Trail


Team Penning



There are also results for all of the Amateur events, English events and Open Junior events. For more results check out the AQHA World Show results page HERE.

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Nic Update, In the Boots of a Horse Trainer - 4, and Roscoe's "first" show!

Things have been busy at the farms this month. A few highlights:

Nic, the very first lesson horse we used as Hayes Horsemanship, is now living North East of Toronto on Rice Lake. Photos of her, "Vacation Home" and her loving buddy Marilyn, can be viewed on our facebook page. Marilyn's home overlooks Rice Lake and offers 75 apple trees in the pasture which Nic takes full advantage of!

Click Here to see Nic

Unfortunately, we've just heard from the vet that Nic is no longer in foal for 2011. She's doing just fine but somewhere along the line has absorbed the baby (still in the very early stages).


Our 4th session in our "In the Boots of a Horse Trainer" series was a great success. The "trainers" worked really hard once again with new horse assignments this time. Each trainer worked with one horse in the morning and then observed a demonstration with the yearling gelding about leading and ground manners. They helped out around the barn with cobwebs and sweeping and then tacked up for a trail ride around the corn field just across the laneway from the farm. Pictures can be seen on our facebook page CLICK HERE.



Roscoe, the newest horse to join the Hayes Horsemanship team, had his first show with Lindsay this past weekend. We were so busy banding, grooming and learning the ropes of the Western Riding stuff that we forgot to get pictures (sorry!!!). Roscoe was awesome throughout the whole show and we ended up with 3rd place under one judge and 4th place under the other judge in the Western Riding class. Now it's back to practicing before the next show in February!

Thursday, November 4, 2010

Welcome Roscoe!

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.






We look forward to some type of Meet n' Greet with Roscoe at Briarquest Farms so everyone can get a better look at him!

Pictures of Year End ORHA Show


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.











Friday, October 22, 2010

Last Show of the Year

Ontario Reining Horse show this weekend at the Agriplex in London!

For show schedule CLICK HERE

See ya there!

Friday, October 15, 2010

Video Clips from Congress Freestyle '10

CLICK HERE to link directly to our video page on Facebook and watch some of the clips of the 2010 Freestyle Reining at Quarter Horse Congress

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Peanut's Baby Bump - half way there

About halfway to the due date now and the bump is growing! Barely visible from the front...
Pretty obvious from the side!!


Congress '10

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!






















































Monday, September 27, 2010

Fun Day!

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.
Then it was time for some fun! The paints were laid out carefully and the participants got to work painting their horses. Lesson horse Wyatt was covered in every colour hand prints, finger prints and splatter paint. Lesson horse Jane was painted with a beautiful combination of pink, yellow, green and blue polka dots. Student horse Molly was a true masterpiece in stripes, handprints and a face mask. Student horse Promise was painted with white and light blue fairy wings, a rainbow across her hips and a big red heart on her shoulder. Some of the horses manes, tails and forelocks were carefully braided as well.










Thanks for participating everyone! We had a great time!





Intro to Working Cows

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.
Thanks to Jessie for providing horses, cows and some great instruction!


Friday, September 24, 2010

We're in The RIDER!


Be sure to check us out in the September issue of, "The Rider - Ontario's Horse Industry Newspaper" along with Ian Millar, Amber Marshall and some of the great equine associations in Ontario.
The article is on page 10 and is titled, "The Next Generation of Great Horsepeople Starts Here!", and includes a brief summary of our clinic in July, 5 Days in the Boots of a Horse Trainer. You may recognize Victoria Gordon riding Misty, Emily Ponte leaning over Sprite's back, and Katie Frost's boots and helmet behind Peanut in the pictures selected for the article.

6th Day in the Boots of a Horse Trainer

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.
Once again, the horse trainers did a phenomenal job and had some fun! Thanks to the Bridgecreek Stables gang for sharing their facility and horses!



We HEART Justin Bieber!

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!


Thursday, August 26, 2010

CONGRATS NICOLE AND J LO!!

4TH
Open Reining
At the Ontario Quarter Horse Association show in Ilderton Aug. 21st.


Your fill of horsey stuff

Thanks to Stacey Martin for sharing this website with us:
Enter the mare and sire's colours and see what the likelihood is for each possible colour for the offspring!!
Don't forget our annual trip to All American Quarter Horse Congress is coming up. We will be collecting money for Freestyle Reining tickets by September 1st for the performance October 9th in Columbus, Ohio. Tickets are only on sale for a couple weeks and then will only be available the day of the event if they are not sold out. Order your tickets through Hayes Horsemanship for $30 Canadian to sit with our growing group!

Monday, July 26, 2010

5 Days in the Boots of a Horse Trainer

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.
Below are some of the pictures taken throughout the week, as well as the practice "sale pictures" with a few of the horses who participated in the clinic.