Fina Vista Farm Paso Fino Horses

Mercenario wins National Wind Rider Challenge Championship at 2010 Can-Am Equine Emporium

You may have heard that my Paso Fino stallion, Mercenario ("Mercy") and I had an awesome time at Can-Am Equine Emporium this weekend. It was the Canadian finals of the Wind Rider Equestrian Challenge. There were 22 finalists, some of which (like us) had pre-qualified by winning a regional competition in 2009.

Mercenario was the only Paso Fino and the only gaited horse, the competition included Quarter Horses, thoroughbred, Morgan, ShireX, Gypsy Vanners, Appaloosas, Arab, Canadian Horse and more. The event took place over the 3 days of Can-Am, with the first stage being an obstacle course.

Mercenario was unbelievably hyper and super-charged for this part (he piaffed all the way through the Gate obstacle) but we held it together and still managed to receive High Score for this portion. The top 3 scores went forward to stage 2, which was a new timed obstacle course and then individual Musical Freestyles. I was thrilled to get to this stage as we had worked hard to prepare our freestyle. Our second obstacle course was a bit of a hot mess, and I felt we were doomed to 3rd, but our freestyle went really well and was a crowd and judge-pleaser so... we were thrilled and surprised to WIN!

Our prizes included a custom Ortho-Flex saddle, an Anivac, new clippers, $, and other cool stuff. So be proud all you Paso Fino owners and lovers... a Paso Fino is the 2010 National Wind Rider Challenge Champion! Now this means we are invited (and paid) to compete in a head-to-head competion for the North American Wind Rider Challenge Championship in Wisconsin (April 16-18th, 2010) at the huge Mid-West Fair in Madison.

Another great promo opportunity for our wonderful and versatile breed. :) Needless to say I am very happy with and grateful for my beautiful horse, Mercenario. I am also so very grateful for all the help and support I got from my great Fina Vista friends, especially Jennifer, Victoria, Leslie, Margaret, Donna, Janet and Marianne (they rocked!). Also a big thank you to Janet Konyer and the lovely folks at Lookout Farm for opening their doors to us and looking after Mercy while we practiced.
Gary shot (thanks Gary!) this YouTube of our Musical Freestyle:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVg3rb_6IWo

CHECK IT OUT:
Sharon Grose wrote this great article for the Regional Country News:
http://www.regionalcountrynews.com/news/article/87914

Mercenario does it again! North American Wind Rider Challenge Champion!

After Mercenario and Camilla won the National Wind Rider Challenge Finals at Can-Am in London, ON, in March, 2010 (see story above), they were informed that their way would be paid to represent Canada at the North American Showdown Wind Rider Challenge. The competition was held at the massive and wonderful MidWest Horse Fair in Madison, Wisconsin (a must do/see if you are ever in the area, attracting about 50,000 attendees). So with the help of MidWest Horse Fair and Can-Am, we were able to make the 16-hour trip to Madison... we being Mercy,me (Camilla), my 4yo son Nate, and Jennifer Tarrant. Jennifer was invaluable at helping us prepare for the both the Wind Rider Challenges, and a great assistant at the event, where she even takes the ultimate risk of handing me glassware, javelins and 13-foot garrocha poles in the ring as we gallop past, swinging said props wildly! LOL

The competition in Wisconsin was fierce, with some fantastic horse and rider combinations that left us suitably intimidated. The requirements were extra tough at this level, too. Once again there was a musical freestyle requirement (ours was a 5 minute choreographed piece combining fino, jumping, javelin, canters and lead changes, leg-yields and side-passes, garrocha and lots of speed to the fantastic piece of music, "Diablo Rojo", by Rodrigo y Gabriela). Before the freestyle, came the challenge course with 15 tough elements in a pattern we had to memorize that day, including: Halt to canter depart, canter circles with speed change, flying changes in a figure 8 and on the straight, a jump, leg yield across the arena, side-pass a pole box, a ring joust at a canter, turn on the fore-hand with front feet in a hula-hoop, picking up a coat and returning it, and tossing a javelin in a target at the canter. Yikes! talk about a challenge.

The competition was very tough, with another wide range of breeds, and Mercy once again being the only Paso Fino and the only gaited horse. I bet we'll see more of them in this sport soon, though. Once again, we made mistakes (ok... I made mistakes), but Mercy was fancy and fleet enough to win over the judges (and the very gracious audience) and when the dust had settled, we were named North American Wind Rider Challenge Champions!! Go Mercy... Go Paso Finos!!

MidWest put us up in a lovely new hotel with a pool and hot-tub... which Nate and I were in at 6am each day (he makes a great alarm clock!). We all had a blast and were so impressed with the MidWest Fair organizors and staff, Bob and Suzanne (Wind Rider organizors), the lovely judges, and the oh-so-fantastic sponsors, Ortho-Flex Saddleworks Inc. I have been loving riding in the beautiful saddle from Orth-Flex that was a Wind Rider prize... what a great saddle and what a lovely team of people behind them. We are thrilled that Ortho-Flex will be featuring us in their PFHW advertising in July!

See our profile on the MidWest Horse Fair site:
http://midwesthorsefair.com/index.php?page=home_detail&post_id=4780

See a video of our Musical Freestyle Performance shot by Megan Wos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOwcQnX2WFo

Mercenario Goes on Tour:

It looks like Mercenario's dance card is filling up for 2010. We have been invited to participate in some very exciting events, so please be sure to come and visit with us if you will be around...
Some more dates and details will be added as we learn them
Events where Mercenario and Camilla will be performing their Musical Freestyle and/or doing something...:

JUNE 12th - Toronto Horse Day, Exhibition Place, Toronto, Sponsored by the Ontario Equestrian Federation, CCPFHA will be there with an information booth about the Paso Fino and Mercenario will be in the ring demonstrating.
JUNE 19th - Enchanted Ground festival, Guelph, Ontario. Fina Vista Farm will have a couple Paso Finos there, including Mercy, doing some kind of riding demonstration.
JUNE 26th - CCPFHA Open House, as part of the Fergus Open Doors Tour, at Forest Gait Farm, Fergus Ontario. Mercy will be one of the horses there demonstrating the Paso Fino Breed.
AUGUST 7th - Latin Festival with music, food, dancing and Paso Finos, Brampton, ON. More details to come on this... but we will be there!
SEPTEMBER 19th-25th - PFHA Grand National Show, Perry, GA. Mercenario will be performing his musical freestyle as part of the evening entertainment. Likely on the Thursday and Friday evenings (to be confirmed).
SEPTEMBER 29th-OCTOBER 2nd - The Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games, Lexington, Kentucky!! Mercenario and Camilla will be a demonstration team for the Two-As-One Horsemanship clinicians, Bob Jeffreys and Suzanne Sheppard, who are also the organizors of the Wind Rider Equestrian Challenge. Mercy will have a cozy stall there... Camilla and Jennifer are looking for a place to stay...

Toronto Horse Day:

Saturday June 12th was the second annual Ontario Equestrian Federation Toronto Horse Day, held at the Royal Horse Palace at the CNE in Toronto. There was information booths for various breeds, including CCPFHA. There were riding demonstrations from various breeds, including very exciting combined driving demos with a Welsh X and a mini as well as a great reining demo with our friend, Loris Epis. I took Mercenario down with me and we did our Musical Freestyle piece to Rodrigo y Gabriela's Diablo Rojo.
Many thanks to Jennifer Tarrant for her help of a million colours and also to Jan Kay!
The photographer extraordinaire, Leslie Town, was there and got these great pics of us....

Enchanted Ground Festival:

On Saturday June 19th, Riverside Park in Guelph was all aflutter with faeries and knights, gnomes and goblins. After seeing our prancing Paso Finos in the Guelph Christmas Parade last year, the Enchanted Ground organizor, T. Shawn Johnson, asked us to come out and prance a bit at their festival of Fantasy. It was quite an experience with an amazing array of costumes and characters wondering about. A fantastic authentic joust was held, plays, readings, magic, archery, a maze, etc. Victoria Poe and I put together three horseback performances in knightly costumes accompanied by celtic music with garrocha, ribbons and chalices on Mercenario and Pianola from Fina Vista Farm.. Aside from the blazing heat... it was actually pretty fun!
Here are some pics of the kids in costume:

Mansfield Weekend RIde - June 4th to 6th (reporter: Janet Grant)

We had great weather for our 10th annual CCPFHA trail ride at the Mansfield Outdoor Center, in the Dufferin County Forest. The horses were mostly Paso Finos, but we also had a Rocky, a Canadian (seen in front on right, obliterating the Pasos), and a quarter horse.
Electric fencing was installed which involved pounding in T-bars and stringing electric rope to create individual paddocks. Thanks to our hardworking CCPFHA volunteers, everything was ready for the horses' arrival later that evening. We booked dinner at the local restaurant in Mansfield and had a great meal with good friends.

The Saturday ride started around 10:30 a.m. after the traditional photo of all the riders was taken in front of the Outdoor Centre. The ride was then divided into a slow and fast group that later met at a 'pit stop' around noon, for a brown bag lunch, provided by a crew of 'cook' volunteers. The horses had water from the barrels which were put in place earlier in the day. Fortunately, most of the ride took place in the shade of the forest, so the warm day wasn't really an issue. The sandy twisting trails provide excellent footing with lots of interesting hilly terrain and beautiful views.

We hadn't booked a speaker this year, but Simone Ross volunteered to give us an impromptu lecture on 'Clicker Training Horses'. She had spent many years teaching and working with dogs and has recently begun using her knowledge to train horses. Thanks Simone! You are an awesome speaker and the lecture was fascinating.

Fina Vista farm brought 3 trusty steeds to the weekend, Margaret on Pianola, Janet on Fleco and Camilla on Gypsy. Great times had by all!

You can see some of the weekend photos here >>

CCPFHA Paso Fino Open House - Doors Open Wellington County

On June 26th, Forest Gait Farm, in Fergus, Ontario, hosted the 2nd CCPFHA Open House as part of the Doors Open Wellington County tour.

Even with the rain, we had a great day. I know I had sooo much fun and I would love to see a regular Paso-Hockey Soccer game added to our monthly agenda!
I want to thank everyone who helped out on Saturday. We had loads of awesome volunteers that made the day such a success. I am afraid to name everybody because there were so many and I don't want to forget anyone... but you know who you all are and thank you! I will send a few special shout-outs to:
* Jeannie and Gord Harris for opening their farm to us, making it look so spectacular and for also hosting an awesome potluck party afterwards. Your place is just so gorgeous! Thank You for having us, I know it is a lot of work!!
* Linda Craig, who does not even have a Paso, (she boards her Arab at Jeannie's and rides pasos with us sometimes at Fina Vista) but worked tirelessly all day giving pony rides and promoting the breed. Thank you soooo much Linda!
* Thank you to Anne for preparing all the wonderful food that was offered to us all in the barn... what a spread!
* Thank you to Margaret Lauber for helping me sort out the 5 horses I brought and also managing to arrange test rides all day... and never even getting to ride yourself, thank you!
* Thank you to our ring stewards, including Marty, Bob, Callum and gang.
* Thank you to the hardest working nine-year-old in the world... Hilary! You go girl! what a trooper.
* Thanks to Kate Smith and her crew at the door and Jan Kay for
awesome announcing!
* Thanks to everyone that brought horses so folks would have
stuff to look at! Especially Jo Seggie (and MaryJane M.) for coming
all the way from Cobden with her horse and also all the mounted
games obstacles... what a hoot!
* Thank you, thank you everyone... :)

Here is the link to the fantastic pictures from the day,
taken by the uber-talented, Leslie Town: PICTURES