Quality Draft and Draft-Cross Horses for Driving and Riding

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Our Horses

Discover a bit about the horses that are part of our family.

Charlie

The star of the farm is our young Shire-cross stallion, Charlie. For information on him, please see his At Stud page.

Isabelle

Isabelle is our "schoolmaster" driving horse. She is a Clydesdale cross who stands 15.2 hands and weighs 1400 pounds. We refer to her as a "handy-sized" Clydesdale. She is 16 years old this spring (2010). She has been trained and shown in Dressage (under saddle), Pleasure Driving, and Combined Driving. She is also ridden quite often for pleasure on trails and has been known to safely take very green riders along with our gang!

Due to her outstanding temperament and friendliness, we plan to breed Isabelle to our stallion Charlie. Isabelle has had one previous foal by an Irish Draught stallion. That get, Shamus, turned out to be an excellent fox hunter (see below).

Isabelle was supposedly "retired" from showing in late 2009, until Tanya decided to drive her in a tandem hitch with Charlie in the spring of 2010. She's also been shown quite a bit recently by our driving student. It was a short retirement, sweetheart!

Megan

Megan is our pure draft horse, a huge Belgian mare. At 17.3 hands and over 1800 pounds, Megan is an imposing horse, but you can't get much more gentle or well behaved than her. Megan has been trained for Pleasure Driving and English riding. She is often used as a trail horse. She has been used to extricate our truck from several feet of snow, and pulls large square bales off the back of the truck and through the pastures. She enjoys any activity involving FOOD.

In 2008, we took Megan to the Devon Pleasure Marathon. She placed in third behind two professional drivers in the single horse class. We consider that pretty good, as it was her second show and she was only 3 years old.

Megan was bred as an Amish field horse and purchased at New Holland auction as a yearling. She is proof that wonderful driving and riding horses don't have to cost a lot of money.

Sarah

Sarah is a very pretty 14 year old registered Arab mare who was rescued via the Pennsylvania SPCA in Philadelphia. Arriving in fairly poor condition in the spring of 2010, Sarah is undergoing rehabilitation at our farm. Despite her past neglect, she is gentle and friendly with a very sweet disposition.

Thanks to Scott's continued efforts rehabbing her feet, Sarah is now reasonably sound and comfortable for normal life.

Eliron Exquisite

Added to our farm in August 2011, Eliron Exquisite is a 17 year old Arab mare bred to 'classic' Arabian standards. She has foaled twice in the past. Despite a lack of much recent handling, she is generally quiet and well behaved and figures out what's expected of her quickly. She and Sarah seem happy to have 'light horse' company on the farm.

We acquired EE from a herd reduction at a long-time Arab breeder in New Jersey. Numerous other horses from the farm are looking for good homes soon; visit Arabian Rescue Mission if interested.

She has a beautiful floaty trot, so we'll be trying to post a video clip here soon.

We will get Quizzit into proper weight and condition and then expect to train her to drive. In 2012 she may have a 'date' with Charlie to create another Shire/Arab cross foal geared towards Combined Driving.

Matilda

Matilda is a diminutive mini donkey who become part of our farm in June 2010. When we acquired Matilda, she was neglected and very untrusting of people. Now she is in better physical condition, is accepting of most people, and has learned a lot of new skills and how to better cope with scary situations. Originally we weren't sure we were going to keep her, but now that's she's been promoted to editor of our News page, she's probably not going anywhere unless she leaks our diplomatic cables to the media.

Standing a whopping 8.1 hands tall, Matilda is so small she wears a dog blanket when she is cold. Her big ears must provide room for extra smarts, because she learns very quickly. With a tiny cart and harness borrowed from Amish neighbors, she has learned the basics of driving.

In November 2010, Matilda got a fancy new betathane harness from Yonie's Harness Shop! Doesn't she look excited?

Matilda's small size does limit the distance she can be driven. We can't quite do our normal 8-10 miles with her. So we are thinking maybe an arena sport would suit her better, like show jumping...

If that doesn't work out, we could give her a bath and send her off to the circus...

But more likely, we will just feed her carrots and give her hugs!

Shamus [SOLD]

Shamus is a handsome 17.2 hand gelding out of our mare Isabelle and Irish Draught stallion Mountain Pearl (now returned to Ireland). Shamus was bred as a pleasure riding horse for our farm. Due to his tremendous athleticism and boldness, we decided that he deserved a home that would give him more challenges. Our friends at Second Nature Farm therefore started him fox hunting in early 2010. After a brief demonstration in Aiken, SC, Shamus was sold to new owners at Fair Hill, MD, who are foxhunting him in the area.

While we miss good-natured Shamus, we believe horses should be given the life they deserve and can handle. So look out foxes, Shamus is on the hunt.

Our appreciation to Second Nature Farms for the videos of Shamus. Check out their other videos, too.