News February 2010 Boy have I been slipping. Not that there was much happening in January and February. Just getting geared up for show season. A big congratulations to Horizon Farms riders coached by Suzanne Morin that were at Amberlea Meadows first show in February. Arianna and Somnio has an absolutely wonderful show with two Division Reserve Championships and Becky aboard Dunbrody has added another Division Championship to her resume. Suzanne Morin operates Horizon Farms out of Killerney Farms. Stephanie Mah has headed to California for a couple of weeks to show in the sunshine with three of her mounts and the prize winning pony Lil Miss has also joined them for two weeks in the sun. Best of luck to them as they compete at HITS Thermal. Meanwhile, back at the ranch……we are gearing up for our show season. All of our show dates are listed. Still trying to figure out the most time efficient way to run our classes. I thought I had it figured out but some of our competitors were nice enough to let me know that they would like to ride the 2’0 Hunters before the 2’3 Hunters so back to the drawing board for me. I think we are actually going to run the hack classes in the jumper ring and start them about half hour prior to the Crossrail Divisions in the Indoor Arena and the 2’0 Hunters in the Outdoor Hunter Ring. So I am going to adjust the program again. Please check for the updated version by mid March. You will notice a couple of changes too that we have eliminated the Pairs class and added a Jack Benny Class. Sponsors are starting to come on board. Of course Karen and Amy of Horselife are back on board as a sponsor and they will be bringing their trailer to a couple of the shows so bring your wallets. We will try and let you know what shows they will be attending so you can call them if you need anything and perhaps they can bring it to the show with them saving you a trip into the city especially for our competitors that come from out of town. A new product sponsor this year is Gaitpost Magazine. We are thrilled to have them on board with us. Also please check out Heads Up Equestrian www.heads-up.ab.ca. They are having shows on July 17th and August 14th and their programs are online already. We are doing coolers this year for championships so I would welcome anyone who is wishing to sponsor a division to let me know. And also, if you have a good award idea we would love to hear it. Don’t forget our first show is a nice hunter schooling show run in the big ring at Killerney as I think we should be outside by then. Please email us your ideas and also if you are on FACEBOOK please make Killerney Farms your friend. We would love to have people comment about the shows, upload photos of you and your horses – they don’t have to be from our shows – even if you have competed at our shows and have some really cool candid photos please upload them. Make it fun for everyone. December 2009 Well we started to month off right until we got the snowstorm and then that crazy cold weather. Most of the horses said “FORGET IT” when asked if they wanted to go outside – so we kept them in for a couple of days. Barn is so nice and warm and cozy through this cold spell and it is such a comforting feeling stepping into the barn from the frigid outdoors when everything is quiet and the barn is warm and the horses are munching on their hay – PRICELESS Looking forward, we had an inquiry from two time Olympian Jay Hayes about doing a clinic in April. You may remember that Deanna rode with him earlier in 2009 and she loved it. Anyway, he is interested in coming up when he gets back from Florida for three day clinic April 30, May 01 and May 02. This is not for beginners mind you – I would say for people jumping about 3 feet or 0.9m and up,. Email us if you are interested – clinic will be $450 for the three days and there will be 4 riders per group for about 1.5 to 2 hours long. This works really well actually. We will take 19 riders and need commitments by March. We will probably have a clinic that is more geared to the rider who is in the lower hunter and jumper divisions –even if they are doing crossrails. Sven Frei is a Grand Prix rider from Ontario and he does individual rides. He is really great to ride with also. We would like to take this opportunity to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and want to thank everyone for their continued support. We hope to see our old friends and hope to make some new ones this year at our horse shows. All the very best to you and your family and your four legged partners. November 2009 The program for the 2010 Shamrock Series has been posted to our Shows Page as well as our potential dates. I would love to get your feedback on the changes we have made to it – we moved 2’0 hunters to run in indoor arena after crossrails; we cancelled 3’6” jumpers and set the jumpers to start a little earlier with the lowest class first; we removed the pairs class and added a Jack Benny class for those competitors over 39. If you have any ideas or input we would love to hear from you. This program is not written in stone yet so feedback would be appreciated before end of January. Also, we would love to ask all of you to think about sponsoring a division – perhaps a stable would like to get together to sponsor a division, perhaps your company would like to sponsor a division or perhaps there are some companies that are out there that have really neat promotional items that we could give out – lanyards, pens, Frisbees, golf balls, etc. And we always need volunteers and I would love to start a volunteer program for the upcoming year that allows you to earn credits towards your entry fee or your child’s entry fee. I would love feedback on this idea and who would be interested – I am thinking 2 hour shifts – some people are available for 4 hours so the full morning or full afternoon – and some for the entire day - and on what dates. We would ideally love to have the following: two gate people per ring – arena, jumpers, and hunters (the hunters not really needed until the flat classes are over), 2 jump crew per ring – the arena I think is ok if the gate people could look after this but the jumper needs perhaps three people and the hunter ring would need two. Well true to fashion – November is no stirrup month. All is pretty quiet around the farm. We are taking a much needed break from the year and waiting to see what is happening next year for show dates and then we can set ours. Although with the way the weather is we could still be riding outside. We still have a couple of stalls available and we still have some lesson times available so give us a call if you are up for some training over the winter to come out strong next spring.