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Get to know Morning Star Farms Quality Warmbloods and Sporthorses LLC... What began as an experiment four years ago has grown into a fledgling Dutch Warmblood and Sporthorse breeding operation. Our venture has been an ad-venture for us. With little previous experience in ranching and farming, we have been taking a crash course in animal husbandry, livestock breeding, foal handling, grass farming, and the list goes on. It has been loads of work, tons of fun and a great experience for the entire family. The biggest benefit is evident when we watch the children, who ride almost daily, interact closely with all of the animals. Our only regret is that we didn't get started sooner! Holly takes great pleasure in handling the equine segment of Morning Star Farms. She is involved in every aspect of riding, training, marketing and sales. Meanwhile, Rick heads up farm operations, including hay production and livestock management. We grow our own alfalfa and have several large grazing pastures in order to provide the best nutrition for all of our animals. In addition to the horses, we raise registered Black Angus cattle and Barbado sheep. Stephen Leach joined the team a year ago as our farm manager
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and trainer. He came to us with many accomplishments under his belt, a wealth of instruction and a desire to help build a world class program. You will likely see Stephen from time to time at upcoming shows as our young horses become ready to enter the dressage world. Our introduction to breeding and raising horses started when we purchased an Anglo-Arab mare from Glenda Toll. Star was in foal to Juventus, a top United States Dutch dressage stallion and a leading producer of dressage prospects. The resulting foal, Star's Gayla Affair, is now an incredible two year old who showcases the best traits of both her sire and dam. After foaling and raising Gayla, we knew we wanted to purchase first class Dutch mares with foundation lines and breed them to the best stallions that the world has to offer. Since that time, we have acquired several NA/WPN Ster and studbook Dutch mares and one Premium Verband Oldenburg mare. Our mares are backed by some great bloodlines including G Ramiro Z, Volkmar, Wendepunkt, Gepard, Gottard, Rolls Royce, Amadeus, Juventus, Consul, and Sebastian. This year our Rolls Royce Daughter delivered a gorgeous jet black filly sired by Olympic Ferro. As you can
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tell by her name, Unforgettable Beauty, we think she is quite spectacular and we hope the judges will agree on September 12th at the NA/WPN keuring here in Tucson. Our other mares are bred to Olympic Ferro, Juventus and Fiener Stern and we are eagerly awaiting their foals in the Spring of 2002! We have a few select horses for sale and you can check them out under "Future's Best" on our website. We always enjoy visitors and extend an invitation to come join us in Willcox. Now is a great time to come to the farm, as you can combine the trip with the U-pick produce season which is in full swing. The farm is conveniently located just six miles from I-10 and is very easy to find. Just give us a call or drop us an email to schedule your tour of the farm. You can reach us at 520-384-1174, via email at AzWarmbloods@aol.com or through the website at www.morningstarfarms.net. We look forward to having you come experience the joy that these great horses have given us. While living our own dream, we can't help wanting to share it with all of you!
Sincerely,
Rick And Holly Small
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Greetings, Tucson horse-lovers! It's practically Fall already--can you believe it? The way I can tell it's Fall is that students Rachel High and Brett Cadden, along with UofA professors Sheila Pitta and Pia Cuneo, have all gone back to school. Of course, they are still hanging out at the barn, but on different schedules. In fact, Sheila's pretty much on a different schedule altogether--just ask her Monday, make that Tuesday, first-year art class!
Fall means cooler weather, longer trail rides, later lessons, and the start of the new show season. I think it must also mean rattlesnake season, because Noah and I have encountered two of those nasty vipers just in the last week. Please keep your eyes open when you and your horse are out on the trail.
Aim High welcomes Alfonso back from paternity leave. We congratulate him on the birth of his son. A big "Welcome" also to Ann Dearson-Wegner and her gorgeous quarterhorse, Solo. The pair are under the excellent tutelage of Michelle Manshardt. Not that Ann would, but Michelle has advised her: "Never Sell This Horse." Solo has displayed tremendous courage in the line of fire on our frontline battlefield construction war-zone. What a trooper!
Another new face at the barn is sporting side-burns. Josh "Elvis" Coleman has started working with Tess Johnson's Appy mare, Lily. Apparently, Lily objected to wearing the "Dressage Cowboy's" western saddle because promptly as Josh settled into the seat, Lily folded her pretty legs and plopped down in the dirt.
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Fortunately, Josh has some long, lanky legs that could straddle that silly Lily. If that's not amazing enough, the naughty mare did it not once, but three times total! I must add that due to Josh's excellent training corrections, she has not repeated her stop, drop, and roll trick since!
One of Josh's students, Nicky Olson, has been riding little Jimmy Joe, the pony, for us (thanks, Nicky!) and is hoping to have her own horse soon at Aim High.
As it happens in the circle of life, "Baby" has been pushed out of the nest by mother Sheila and on to a new career. We know he will excel for his new owner because Sheila brought her "Baby" up right, even though he probably was born in a barn!
At Aim High we have developed a new twist to the sport of dressage. We call it the "Pas de Duel." It all came about one Friday when Jennifer Parker let Anna Calek and I ride our lessons together. We started out like dutiful and respectful students during the warm-up, but it all too rapidly went downhill from there!
First, we played Follow-the-Leader with Anna in the front. Then Noah thought it would be great fun to round-up Kai and head him off at the pass. This was a tad on the wild side, but when we escalated to Bumper Ponies, we were really stretching Jennifer's safety first motto. By the time our exasperated instructor got us back under semicontrol, we had an audience to egg us on to further naughtiness. Jen tried to get us to focus on using our dressage skills to ride as a pair.
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"All right, you two," she called out, "Prepare for a halt on the count of three."
"Hey, Jen--would that be on three or after you say three?"
"On three, please."
"Look! Her horse took a walk step. She should go back to the starting line!"
"Yeah, well, your horse cut me off!"
"No way! I was inside the cones just like I was supposed to be!"
Our canter work in pairs was pretty much a mad gallop careening around the 20X40m arena (at least we had our helmets on!). Finally, Jen was relieved from her misery by the arrival of a greener horse and the lesson came to an end without incident.
We are now waiting to hear from the Hollywood Stunt Riders' Association in regards to a script I submitted entitled, "Death by Dressage." Whoever said that dressage was boring simply does not know how much fun you can have on well-trained, responsive horses!
'Nuff Said,
Beth
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