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Home for me is a ranch about eighty miles southwest of Edmonton, Alberta located in the country, near the village of Winfield. What makes this place ideal for me is that my home is close to pavement but I have access to sections of lease land without travelling on a road. The hilly pastures have acres of tame grazing land interspersed with pine, spruce, larch, poplar, birch and willow. The beaver dams, dugouts and muskegs make the countryside beautiful to behold plus giving the horse and cow pastures lots of water. Because the terrain is also home for wild animals such as deer, elk, moose, coyotes, wolves and lynx it gives us a "live in the wilderness" feeling. [HOME SWEET HOME] |
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The hilly terrain, and I do mean hilly, and miles of trails presents us with the ideal setting in which to raise horses and break them to drive.We love this area of Alberta and hope to continue to raise horses for many more years.
[THIS SHOWS FALL ROUNDUP WHEN WE MOVE ALL THE MARES AND FOALS HOME FROM THEIR PASTURES] We raise registered Percherons, Belgian and Tennessee Walking Horses. I like the draft horses better at this stage in my life as I do not ride saddle horses as much as I used to. We made a decision to raise and train our drafts and spend as much time as possible driving teams to just enjoy the miles of trails we are lucky enough to have at our fingertips. As Winston passed away I still drive but do not train horses to the harness anymore. |
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As a result we are slowly selling the Tennessee Walker breeding stock and concentrating more on the drafts. We still love the docile nature, easy trainability and smooth ride the Tennessee Walkers give us but we have to cut back on the number of horses we own. Selling the Tennessee Walkers was one of the really difficult decisions we had to make. We have two bred mares and many young fillies for sale.This winter, 2009, I hope to get some of them stared under saddle. So many of our horses are sensible "people horses" and love to be handled. In 2007 we used the black Percheron stallion WINDY HILL BATMAN to pasture breed our herd of percheron mares. Every spring we wait in anticipation of having that very special foal born. We have some beautiful horses sired by WINDY HILL BATMAN and are privileged to own him. In 2008, we bred six mares sired by Windy Hill Batman to A horse we purchased from Ohio, Hillside Foley King #M28348. He is a big, bold promising young stallion so we are hoping for quality foals in the spring of 2009.
Picture shows Batman watching over his mares.
WINDY HILL BATMAN IS FOR SALE AS WE HAVE TOO MANY OF HIS DAUGHTERS TO USE HIM FOR BREEDING ANY LONGER. PRIVATE TREATY |
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In the breeding season of 2004, we used 'CRAWFORD`S PRINCE GEORGE'[Jordy] an Asseltine Prince William son.
I love this picture of "Jordy" quietly grazing beside a dugout with his mares. |
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'CEE DEE`S ELLWOOD' is a blue roan stallion that consistently sires blue roan foals. He is out of a black percheron mare and sired by a red roan Belgian stallion.
Ellwood has been sold and I hope the new owners are enjoying him as much as we did.
Here is Ellwood with some other stallions on pasture. |
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I mentioned we also raise some hackney cross horses. Currently we have two teams of hackney X clyde cross mares that are simply a dream to drive. We did not breed them for a foal in 2009 but do have some of their youngsters left from previous years. Two fillies and one gelding are looking for new homes. This shows the hackney stallion 'ORCHARD GORE SHOWBOY HARRY' in his winter coat. Harry can move those knees right up to his chin and I`m sure if you could see him move you would understand where the saying,"Moving like a hackney" came from. "Harry" has been sold and it sounds like the new owners love him as much as we did. |
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Here is the 2004 foal, 'CEE DEE`S LASS` CELEBRATION' sired by Windy Hill Batman and out of Hobman`s Lass. Take a note of the maple leaf marking. To make it more unusual, the colt was born on July 1, 2004 ----- truly a Canadian horse. He now makes his home in Ontario. We still raise a few Percheron foals and sell them off the ranch by private treaty. At the moment we have two grey brood mares and one black filly for sale. |
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This picture is a 2004 colt,'CEE DEE`S PENNY`S KING' sired by Crawford`s Prince George and out of our Constrico granddaughter, Lynwood Sue. This colt is leggy and has lots of action. The belgian foals will start arriving in May of 2009.
In 2008 We used a stallion called CRAWFORD`S ROBBIE. He is an 18hh horse that moves like a 'floating machine'. Those foals should be astounding movers. |
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Our Tennessee Walker foal, 'CEE DEE MELODY`S KAISER' is seen here with his dam, Cee Dee Melody in Motion. He was sired by Evening Strolling Thunder and is now making his new home in Nova Scotia.
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