Canterbury Court
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| Our Facilities and Training |
We use two main facilities for our
operations. Our new training facilities are
located in Sanger, California, on old river
bottom land. We are located directly on
the beautiful Fresno Blossom Trail The
trail is a nearly 70 mile long self-guided
tour of the flowering orchards of eastern
Fresno County, California. The is an
optional Orange Blossom and Wildflower
Trail located off the main Blossom Trail as
well. In addition to our fabulous views, we
have a Barnmaster 12 stall barn with
indoor wash racks and saddling areas.
The stalls are matted with SoftStall to
protect the horses' legs and feet. We have
SoftStep on all aisles and racks. SoftStep
provides excellent traction and
cushioning for both horse and humans.
Our natural sand arena is the same
material that most others have to import
into their arenas. We also have three large
mixed forage pastures where we keep our
brood mares and rotate our young horses
in the fall and winter.
Our second facility is in the Sierra Nevada
foothills and is operated by Season's
Stables. There are a pair of steep hills, a
small lake, and a valley. Here we keep our
young horses there so that they can learn
to be sure footed, travelling over streams,
rocks, and dead fall. The pastures are
large enough to allow development on
sound bones, joints, and tendons. We
have found that alternating our young
stock between the rough hills and green
pastures as well as carefully monitoring
their diet has resulted in nearly 100% of
our horses being OCD free.
Training
We periodically bring our young horses to
busy stables through their first three
years. There they learn that guinea hens,
dogs, cats and humans are not there to
eat them. They learn to live in stalls, tie
quietly, come when called, and accept the
leadership of human beings. They are
introduced to the concepts of saddle and
bridle very gently. We want our horses
trained not broken. When they show
sufficient balance of body and mind, they
are started under saddle. This usually
occurs sometime during their three year
old year though we have mounted horses
as young as 2 1/2 and as old as 4 1/2
depending on their individual needs. As
warmbloods often continue to grow
through their seventh year we observe our
young horses for changes in balance
during their training. We will often return
them to pasture either to finish a growth
phase, because they need a mental break,
or to give them a well deserved vacation.
As their training progresses they are
tested to find their particular talents. We
firmly believe that all dressage horses
should be able to jump as it increases
their ability to come under themselves
and push off effectively. We also believe
that all jumping horses should know
dressage to allow them to be more
responsive to collecting and extending
between jumps. Dressage also allows for
the systematic building of strength and
suppleness in any horse. Young horses
will often let us know where their talents
and passions lie. One of our best jumpers
was bred to be a dressage horse.
However when she began jumping out of a
4 1/2 foot arena at three months, we were
sure that she had another career in mind.
| New - Foal Raising services. Click here for more information. |
