News

OCTOBER 2007

We have just had exciting news about Sovereign Hit’s bloodlines.  A Sandro Hit/Donnerhall son became the 2007 licensing champion at the Hanoverian Stallion licensing in Verden, Germany on October 27. The dark bay colt went on to sell in the auction for the top price of 700 000 euros!  Click here for pictures and more information.

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER

Fall has arrived and winter is just around the corner.  We are busy at the farm getting everything set for winter time.  The shop/barn is up and the inside work on it has begun.  The shop and AgPro Consulting office should be ready to go this winter.  The barn will be left to be finished next spring.  The horses are all getting fuzzy and Tessa tells me that she is more than ready to wean Bogart!  We have found a weaning partner for him with one of my student’s lone foal so Bogey will have to wait until the end of November for him to be ready to come here. 

Picture: Furry and ready for winter!

The Parkland Dressage Festival was fantastic!  We had amazing weather and a wonderful show.  Everything ran incredibly smoothly, the Gala evening was a huge hit with the riders, sponsors and a large public attendance.  The Youth Nationals were a success – great riding and very happy competitors with a lot of loot thanks to all the great sponsorship.  All of Sheri’s students had some great rides.  Encore had some nice First level classes and was Reserve Champion in the FEI Five year old class. 

After the show wrapped up, Sheri took a nice long vacation to Spain and forgot about horses for a little while.  Now back and completely refreshed, it is time to get serious about winter training.  It will be an exciting few months with all the great horses in the barn.  Matteus and Venice will be back in competition to see who can get a solid Third level ready first!  Waverly will be training for Third/Fourth level.  Encore will be working towards Second/Third level.  Farrah will be preparing for the FEI Five Year olds and Regala for the FEI Four Year olds.  Nicky has had to retire from the show ring to continue his breeding career but his daughter, Rainy will be taking the Palomino spot and training for the dressage ring next year.  Sovereign will be moving in shortly to begin his ground work and backing.  He is full of himself and ready for some work!

JULY/AUGUST

What a busy summer it has been!!  July started off with Sheri teaching clinics in Rocky Mountain House for a riding camp and in Benalto and Red Deer for the Central Area Pony Clubs.  Bogart continued to grow and thrive – he is quite a character and sure needs a weaning mate for this fall!!  Tessa was bred to Rousseau but has come up open and will be left for rebreeding next year.  TC was rebred to Donarweiss as we did not have a foal from that cross this year.  The five year old Warmblood/Arab cross mare Swansea went to a pony club rider in Sundre for a couple of months of jumping schooling – she loves it and just can’t get enough. 

On August 1 Sheri, Isabelle and Jean Duckering headed up to Amberlea Meadows for their Summer Show with two trailers and six horses!!  What a busy five days that was.  Waverly (owned by Alisa Harris and bred by Aspelund Ridge) was the star of the group at her first show since last season.  She was the First Level Open Champion with Sheri and had a score of 73% in one of her tests.  Farrah (owned and bred by Aspelund Ridge) attended her first national show and by the time day five rolled around was pretty much an old hand at it all.  She placed third in the Four Year Old Performance Futurity class.  Encore (owned by Krista Aasman and bred by Aspelund Ridge) competed in First level and the FEI 5 Year Old Futurity winning the class with 74.4.  It was a great weekend for our old broodmare Maggie – she was the dam of Waverly and Encore and the grand dam of Farrah.  Thank you to Isabelle, Jean and Lori for all their hard work over the weekend to keep a very busy schedule doable!

Picture: The Maggie Gene

After Amberlea the plan to head south to Devonwood, OR and Spokane, WA was changed when Devonwood cancelled due to a case of EHV.  Garry and Sheri ended up leaving for Spokane only on Aug 14.  Sovereign Hit, Venice and Matteus headed out for the big trip.  Sovereign had a wonderfully educational week.  He showed in the breed show on Friday and was so in love with himself in the indoor mirrors that he didn’t show himself as he should have.  But there were lots of comments on him and good remarks from the judges.  He placed third in both the 2 yr old colts/geldings and the Hanoverian class.  There was a round pen available so we made good use of it and he now is lunging very nicely.  It was a great experience for him to get out amongst other horses in an exciting environment.  Matteus was wonderful again.  He had the high score of the dressage show with 73% on Sat and was Reserve Champion for Training level 1 point behind Venice.  Venice was a dream!  In the breed show she won her 4 yr and older mare class and the Dutch class.  She was Reserve Champion Mare and Reserve Grand Champion of the whole show.  First in the Materiale class with 90% - 10 for her walk.  Then on Sat she scored 71% in both Training tests for the Training championship.  On Sunday we tried our first FEI 5 Year Old class and despite being not quite as ready as she should have been she scored 80.2 with a 9 on her walk.  What an exciting mare!!

Picture: Venice – Champion Mare!

Once home from Spokane we begin ground breaking here at the farm for our new barn/shop building.  We hope to be done this fall.  We are now heavy into getting ready for the Parkland Dressage Festival.  Sheri is once again the organizer and this year has taken on the Youth Nationals in addition to the Provincials and Regionals.  Busy times for the next two weeks!

MAY/JUNE

With Isabelle Forsstrom starting work on April 30, Sheri and Garry left on May 1 for two weeks in BC.  Venice, Matteus and JR Nick Shoemaker were on board for two shows.  At the Southlands Spring Show things got off to a rocky start when Venice had a bad scare about the whole grounds, horses in the distance etc.  After spending four hours working with her the first day and three hours the second day I began to wonder what I had done bringing her so far for her first show!  However she pulled it together just in time and scored up to 72%.  She ended up Training level champion.  Matteus made his dressage debut with solid scores.  Nicky performed his first Second level tests well with scores around 60%.  At Thunderbird things continued to improve for Venice as she just kept getting better.  She was once again Training Champion with scores up to 73.9%.  Matteus also showed he had a learned a thing or two at Southlands and was not far behind her with 71%.  Nicky began to show signs of tiredness from the trip so took it easy this show.  Once back from BC we had two weeks until Amberlea.  The same three went along and Nicky was feeling better and also benefited from a saddle change – he scored a solid 62% in one test.  For Venice and Matteus the battle was on – if she scored a 72, he scored a 72.8.  They alternated 1st and 2nd for most of the classes and in the end he took the Championship with her the Reserve with scores up to 75% for both of them!! 

Picture: Matteus wins this time

Once home from Amberlea, Sheri had a short breather before heading to Chinook Country for the summer show.  She went as a coach as well as riding Justin for Teena Houle and Eisenberg for Lori Frank.  It was another successful weekend with Justin winning the reserve championship in Training and Eisenberg winning the championship in Second level.  The end of June was the Alberta Invitational Warmblood sale and this year Aspelund Ridge presented Rafia and Farrah.  Congratulations to Beth Hacking on the purchase of Rafia as a lovely hunter prospect. 

Picture: Rafia at auction

During the sale weekend Tessa also did her job and presented us with a lovely colt, Bogart by Hilltop Bugatti.  He is the image of his mother – not a speck of white on him.  The following week Sheri headed down to Anderson Ranch for the Calgary summer show.  There was a large number of students there and in addition she competed with Wanja (owned by Carina Forsstrom) and Eisenberg at Second level.  It was very successful for all – Lori Frank was the champion at First level and in the kur with scores over 70%.  Isabelle had her highest scores ever with Wanja.  Alyssa Brewer and Carlie Ringland both achieved their final necessary scores to qualify for the Youth Nationals.