Almaz is a Cover Girl Again!

Allie made it as a cover girl again on the front cover of the Canadian Trakehner magazine!

Thanks to Judy Collins for the super photo!.

More Pics from Eastern Breeders

KF Almaz+//: Eastern Canadian Breeders Half-Arabian Show Hack Champion


















Cognac Amberfyre: Eastern Canadian Breeders Reserve Champion Purebred Stallions.

We Are the Champions!

Wow! That all I can say about Allies' show at the Eastern Canadian Arabian Breeders Championships.

She proved herself in every way that she is now becoming a true sport horse Arabian!

Champion: Half-Arabian Sport Horse Mares in Hand

Champion: English Show Hack (Main Ring)

Reserve Champion: 2 year old Half-Arabian Mares and over (main ring)

Top Six: H/A Sport Horse Under Saddle

Top Six: Half-Arabian Hunter Pleasure

So if those show results were not enough, we did the dressage classes on Sunday. The chestnut princess wowed the crowds, and got some of the highest scores of the day, even in open competition.

1st: Second Level Test 4 Arabian 65.00%

1st: Third Level Test 2 68.718%

Amazing comment from the judge Elaine Potter: "Nice, really nice to see quality dressage with a high quality Arabian".

So the icing on the cake was winning a breeding to Cognac Amberfyre, a gorgeous grey purebred Arabian stallion by Hennessy.............now who to use the breeding with?

I'll post more pics especially of the stallion when JudyC sends them to me. Speaking of Judy, a huge thankyou from Allie and me for being a great groom this weekend. You were great!

Pictured: Dessia Miller presenting me with the Stallion breeding for winning the H/A Sport Horse Mares in Hand. Picture courtesy of Judy C.

Dressage Niagara...... Fun in the Sun on Saturday!

Saturday May 26th. What a fun show at Niagara! Three horses representing my stable; Sara on Barras' Destiny (Cedar) and myself with Gen Custer (aka Mav) and KF Almaz (Allie).

It was time to celebrate with a bottle of Mumms' Champagne with Sara; this was her first Prix St. George ride! They did good too! Only a percent behind Mav and I with 59% Way to go Sara; you looked great in Tails!

Mav was a character as usual, gaining looks of amazement from people when I told them he is an Arabian/QuarterHorse. We did an Intermediare 1 freestyle with some Western tunes including "Save a Horse Ride a Cowboy" as our opening music. We got 64% for our effort. I'm wanting to apply to ride a freestyle at US Sport Horse Nationals, so this was our first attempt to get the necessary scores to go. Thanks to everyone for the positive feedback on the music. I just can't see the "Westerny" looking horse half-passing to classical music ; just to stuffy for this fun little guy.

Allie was great as usual. She's come such a long way from the Booooooring Training Level rides. If we can get over the flying bucks for flying changes, we'll have it licked! She still got 63% for both of her Third Level trips. At least I got one out of 4 completely clean this time.

The crowd at got a "kick" out of it. (No pun intended). Gotta have some humor at a dressage show.

Thanks to Les again for the great pics.

Huge Storm Hits Nearby: Farm is Untouched

Do you ever have that gut feeling? Well today was one of them. I had heard a weather warning for our area, saw the black clouds and decided to batton down the hatches. I'm glad I did.

Even the horses outside were begging to come in.

Les and I took all the vehicles and parked them in the arena, as the weather forecasters were calling for hail.

Then all hell broke loose. As you can see from the pics, not even 1/2km from me the literal devestation that the "down draft" or "tornado" caused.

Just after the picture of the barn was taken, I ran down into the basement as I was probably the most scared I have been from a storm. With winds that I guess exceeded 100kms per hour, pea sized hail, and super black clouds, I was sure that we were going to get wiped out.

After doing a visual of the farm, I was surprised to only see a couple of full garbage cans toppled and a missing wash bucket. The horses were fine in the stables, and apart from a valley that had turned into a river, Kirkridge escaped damage.

The little town down the road was another story, as you can see from the pics.

We were VERY lucky.

CCF Porshah- For Sale

Some pics from today's schooling have been added to my webshots site. Just click on the title to go to the webshots page to see more pics.
"Po" is a 4 year old Anglo-Arabian 15.2h mare schooling second level. She would make an EXCELLENT ladies' or juniors' horse. She has a wonderful temperament. Po has won in Sport Horse under saddle, in-hand, and Hunter pleasure classes. She would make a super mount that will excell in any discipline. For more information contact elaine.ward@yahoo.com

Hey Sophie....Is that a Semi-Private Lesson?

No they are not twins, it's Sophie and Beech in Paris having their lesson today. Thanks to Lise, Sophies' mom for sending me the pics and I thought I would get creative and make it a "double" lesson. Sophie is a member of the Mt. Nemo Pony Club, and will be attending Pony Club competitions in Dressage and Jumping this summer :)

Update on Corey

I took some pics of Corey today riding Annaconda. To my readers who don't know, Corey is visually impaired. He is doing very well, and really put my mare through her paces today. It just proves how important feel and balance really is!

"Princess" Allies' first Third Level Test

I was spoiled for choice of what picture to post, so what the heck! Why not put both up for people to admire. This is Allie in her first Third Level ride ever at Milestone last weekend.

Thanks to JudyC for the pics again!

Looking Cool Warming Up at Milestone

Thanks to JudyC my student and photographer for taking this neat pic of Mav and I.

Nice extension on grass eh?

Milestone Arabian Dressage Show

Mav and Allie were really good at the show. Even though the scores were pretty low from the judges point of view, I could not complain about the quality of my rides. This was Allies first shot at Second and Third Level. I think you will see the real quality of my rides from the pics.

Mav was his usual self; even a little more than usual. Our Prix St. George ride was a wee bit tense, and he proved that he is not a dead-head by almost dumping me before I got in the ring. The judged moved her chair and he took off! Thanks to "Eagle Eyes" Jacquie who found my lost button from my jacket outside the sand ring when the Mad Palomino took the mad panic leap from hell.

Lauren and Moon did quite well, managing to come right behind me in both Second Level and H/A Sport Horse Show Hack.

Allie's show hack round was undoubtedly the BEST trip ever in that class. I even got a "Wow" comment from Cheryl Ehrlick who was announcing for the class when I rode by her!

Mikayla and Cameo won the Training 1 and came second in Training 2. Not bad out of 19 and 17 horses respectably! And Mikayla is only 13 years old!

So, here are some of the pics courtesy of Kirkridge's very own papparazzi; Les. Judy our other photographer will be bringing her pics tomorrow to sift through. I think between Les and Judy, they have over 500 pics!

Thanks again to Judy, Jacquie, Deanna and Les for being there helping me get the beasties to the show ring.

Ride Times for Sat May 5th at Milestone

Here are the times for Mav and Allie:
9:05am Prix St. George
11:30 Intermediate1
12:45 Third Level
1:45 Second Level

Showing off our Winnings at the COAI Banquet

Here we are showing off our winnings at the COAI Banquet in London on Saturday.

From Left to right:

Sara: Third Level AA Champion

Lauren: Second Level Jr. Champion

Me: Training Level Open Champ, 3rd at 1st Level, Roster of Riders

Rosemarie: Training Level AA Champion, Trillium Championships Training Level AA Champion, Roster of Riders

Thanks to Rosemarie for the pic!

Kirkridge Horses on Youtube!

Yeah!

Horses are now going onto Youtube!

CCF Porshah is for sale. See her Vid at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81kk6wXCViI

Almaz+// in her first ride outside this year:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOYM_AjgdM4

Pictured is Allie from the videos

Almaz-802 Wins Trakehner Kudos

Almaz- 802, as Allie is registered in the Canadian Trakehner Horse Society was awarded the 2006 Canadian Trakehner Award for outstanding performance and promotion of the Trakehner breed in Canada. This is the second time that Allie has taken this prestigious award in the last 3 years.

Elaine's Bio

Elaine Ward began her riding career at age 3. First a successful Western youth rider, her interest in dressage developed after watching an international dressage event in Toronto in 1973.
Even though dressage was so new to Canada and lacked instructors,Elaine relied mostly on books and attending clinics with top European trainers such as Reiner Klimke and Jaap Pot. Dedication paid off in1976 with Elaine and her first Anglo-Arabian Mikelle becoming Ontario Junior Dressage Champions. She would repeat this feat in 1980 with Deja Vu a QH/TB mare.
During the early 80's Elaine competed on both Mikelle and Deja Vu in the US and Canada successfully through Intermediare 1.
She was a member of the Bronze Medal Team at the First North
American Continental Young Rider Championships in Chicago with Deja Vu and would win the Team Gold and Individual Bronze in 1983 at the ACYRDC's in Boston. Elaine began her teaching and training career at age 16, and it became a full time occupation in the mid eighties. Her students have competed successfully to Intermediare 1, and have earned many Championships in the Hunter/Jumper and even the Western Show rings. Elaine credits the success of her students with the way she teaches them; "don't rely on me being at your side all of the time to help you, learn to analyze the problems and correct them independently". She has an uncanny ability to determine whether the rider is communicating and balancing for the horse to understand the aids. Her concentration is on energy flow between the horse and rider.Elaine's first Grand Prix competition was in 1987 with Deja Vu and they were good enough to be long listed for the Canadian Team in 1988. Elaine and Deja Vu went on to win many classes and Championships before retiring her from the show ring in 1991 to become a schoolmaster. Elaine's next show mount would become the Trakehner mare Anaconda by Condus out of Arista. Born in 1984, her first year of major showing was in 1990 at Basic1 and 2, moving up to Medium 1 and 2 a year later. in 1991 Annie was the Ontario Medium Trillium Champion and has not looked back. Just like her father Condus and her relations Chrysos, Lavinia, Leonidas owned by Hilda Gurney of California. Anaconda has competed at Prix St. George and Intermediare 1. In 1997 her scores were in the 60's and they were the Toronto CADORA PSG/INT 1 Champion in June. Since then Annaconda has had a foal, Almaz and has returned to work as a schoolmaster.
In 1998 Elaine was the Canadian National Reserve Champion at Prix St.George with Sunar Born Lucky, an Anglo-Arabian that started his dressage career at age 12 back in 1992 and won 12 Regional Level Championships during his show career.
From 1999 to 2003, Elaine put her showing on hold and concentrated on her students, who won countless championships at the Trillium Dressage Shows, and Regional Arabian Championships in Ontario.
In 2004 Elaine began to campaign Annaconda's daughter KF Almaz+//. In her first season she amassed Regional and Local Championships at Training Level, and was the Eastern Canadian Arabian Horse Association's Dressage Horse of the Year.
Since that time Almaz has received her Legion of Excellence from the Arabian Horse association, and was in the top 10 of all Arabian horses with awarded points. Please refer to the blog for more show results.
Her gelding Gen Custer is now at Prix St. George and Intermediate 1, and is also a valued schoolmaster for students. He is now schooling all of the Grand Prix movements.
KF Almaz will campaign at Second and Third Level in 2007, along with Gen Custer and her new upcoming horse Dakota CW. Along with Elaine's string of dressage horses, she is also looking forward to seeing a student compete at Prix St.George in 2007.
Elaine's students with many breeds of horses have won many awards and championships to Intemediate 1 the past 28 years. These horses have been trained by Elaine, from scratch, and not purchased already at that level.
Elaine is presently teaching riders at her farm Kirkridge Equestrian Centre on her advanced level school horses and has horses in training.

Mav's Funny of the Week

A little editing makes for one funny pic of Mav!

Great advertisement for teeth cleaning!

Now to get a tooth brush big enough. He likes peppermints, so the toothpaste should not be a problem :)

Double click on the photo for a life size look at his stained chompers.

I've got this collage as my wallpaper on the computer. Who would'nt get a chuckle about this picture?

Dakota CW (Doc) Pics...Finally!

Hey All: Here are some pics of Doc taken today. This is his 6th time under saddle with me this year. If this horse isn't awesome, I don't know what is! . Talk about trot, and he really is'nt trying. I can see this guy going National champion next year!

Ontario Dressage Show Dates 2007

Click on the title above to see the dressage show dates for Ontario.

Contact Information

Pictured is Gen Custer (Maverick) I will be showing him at Prix St. George and Intermediate 1 this year. His piaffe and passage are coming along very well.

HMMM: I guess I should make my e-mail address made a little more public. I'm sure it's on here somewhere in the archives, but here it is front and centre for a while:

elaine.ward@yahoo.com