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Volume XVIII, Issue 4 May/ June 2008 Focus On Our Breeders ~ Oak Creek Ranch “Quality and performance, just in a smaller package!” Kathy Jefferson of Oak Creek Ranch in California has been a member of the American Sportpony Registry since 2006. She spent much of her time with horses, but had a love and fascination for ponies as well. Her association with ponies began when she acquired ponies for her five children. Fate intervened when Kathy’s father found a 2-year-old stallion named Majestic Dakota for sale. At the time, Kathy was not ready to keep a stallion. Fortunately Majestic Dakota’s previous owners agreed to keep him until she was able to bring him home. When she was finally able to pick him up, seeing him for the first time left her speechless. She hoped the young stallion she was looking at in the round pen was indeed Majestic Dakota. He was magnificent - standing about 14 hands. Kathy watched him move and was assured he would help her meet her pony breeding goals. Next she evaluated his temperament for suitability to sire mounts for children and was impressed the young stallion exhibited a puppy dog disposition. He would follow Kathy, rest his head on her shoulder while she cleaned his stall, always ASPR Stallion Majestic Dakota looking for a rub or a pat. The first week Majestic Dakota was home, he wrapped himself in a fallen hotwire. Instead of panicking and hurting himself, he patiently waited while Kathy crawled around to untangle him, never even moving. When breeding, he is by nature a gentleman being easy to handle and creating no problems. When a mare comes to visit and she is not ready for breeding Majestic Dakota has even been known to open his own gate and return to his stall. The stallion has turned out to be the perfect combination of charm and willing attitude in addition to being incredibly handsome. Majestic Dakota is not just talented and smart, but is proving to be a great sire of American Sportponies. Dakota passes along his many Majestic Dakota fine qualities to his offspring, from his gorgeous head to his generous disposition. His foals are leggy and have big floating movement with irresistible personalities. Majestic Dakota always improves on the mares. These ponies are not average! Dakota’s offspring are proving to be versatile with movement, trainability, and disposition to make it happen. In hunter classes, they love to jump, never refuse, are very willing, and jump beautifully. They are very forward moving, well balanced and exhibit a willing and happy attitude. All of Majestic Dakota’s American Sportpony registered hunter offspring have scored either First Premium or First Premium Premiere scoring as high as 9 for movement. Last year First Premium Premiere filly Paris Rendezvou was the Overall US National Champion in the $2,000 ASPR Foal Futurity! ASPR First Premium Premiere Paris Rendezvou is a winner. and 2007 Site Champion Paris Rendezvou Majestic Dakota and two of his daughters, Tivio’s Montana and Jazzy Jasmine, are being shown in Hunter and Eventing. All three stand out among the competition and are always in the ribbons, including several championships and reserve championships. They are competing head to head against top trainers and are consistently impressing the judges with their good looks and athletic ability. Kathy is anticipating the future show seasons with excitement. Majestic Dakota is the stuff dreams are made of. Majestic Dakota’s second filly ASPR First Premium OAK CREEK RANCH Majestic Dakota’s first filly Jazzy Jasmine Kathy Jefferson ASPR First Premium Tivio’s Montana 1140 Spruce Grove Road ASPR First Premium Lower Lake, CA 95457 and 2007 Reserve Site Champion 707-995-3907 Impressive Rose www.oakcreekranch.net Warmblood News 1 We are in the process of changing our name! The American Sportpony Registry will soon become the North American Sportpony Registry. Please bear with us while we facilitate this change, which we hope will reflect our commitment to our Sportpony breeders residing in Canada, the United States and Mexico. AMERICAN WARMBLOOD STALLION BLUE EYED DREAM Blue Eyed Dream at Black Prong (I DO WISH HE WOULD STOP WINNING SO I CAN CONSOLIDATE AN ARTICLE FOR THE AWR!) (by Navigator Extraordinaire - Denis Thornton) “Our American Warmblood stallion, BLUE EYED DREAM, qualified for the Southeast regionals at dressage, won the prestigious Black Prong HDT at intermediate level and aced the Live Oak Marathon phase! We had not planned on doing that at the start of the winter driving season down here in beautiful Florida in that Blue Eyed Dream’s time had been taken up with his dressage training by our assistant trainer, Charity Messer; a worthwhile cause in their quest for the ultimate Grand Prix qualification! Indeed, they did get some excellent scores in the very high 60’s that qualified them very quickly for the USDF Region 3 Championships at both First Level Open and Freestyle. Once they were qualified, we were able to extract him from his dressage concentrations to take him out for some high energy driving competition; however we were not prepared for the eighteen hour notice (!) to get to the Sunshine State HDT at the Florida Horse Park in Ocala resulting from a last minute scratch by another competitor. The fact that Blue Eyed Dream had not been put to the cart for over six weeks and that owner and AWR breeder, Jean Thornton, had not practiced driving for the same length of time was not evident during their dressage test first thing in the morning when they were awarded a number of 8’s and 9’s from twice World Champion (four-in- hand), Chester Webber and the second judge, Esther Wright. Indeed Jean and Dream’s outstanding performance earned them Dressage High Point Champion score of the day! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hdusDGq9ZA A very creditable sixth place out of twenty one entrants on our first time at Intermediate level at the Live Oak International CDE earlier in the year gave us a good level of confidence as we approached the two ‘biggies’ of the area – Black Prong and Live Oak 2008. Black Prong HDT start was advanced by one day to accommodate the large number of entries, and so Jean began her competi- tion on Friday with her dressage test. Scores from the three judges embraced many 8’s and a few 9’s, and Jean went into the cones in third place behind a significant Norwegian competitor and a very recent pony singles World Champion in first place. Her double clear in the cones course allowed her to ease into second place but still some four points behind the leader or the equivalent of about twenty seconds to catch up in the Marathon phase or Section E.; a very tall order at this level of competition! I’ve always said, “nothing ventured – nothing gained” so we decided to throw caution to the wind and go full blast for the best time. Thanks in no small part to Charity’s dressage training and dedicated conditioning, Blue Eyed Dream rose to the challenge and with only one very slight hesitation at the 2 ½ foot drop into the bowl of the first obstacle he put his ears forward and thundered through all seven obstacles with some blistering times! We were only eight tenths of a point behind the overall ‘fastest hazards’ time of the day. Dream’s total willingness and acceleration combined with Jean’s skillful driving brought us in some fifty six seconds faster than the leader to win the Intermediate single horse division. Our American Warmblood stallion, Blue Eyed Dream, performed brilliantly against a multitude of specialized European horses and we had high hopes going forward into the Live Oak CAI–I. We went to Live Oak one day earlier than our norm and that allowed us to study the hazards in greater detail and gave Jean an extra dressage practice. Unfortunately that was Blue Eyed Dream at Live Oak not enough to get them higher than sixth place after a couple of exuberant ‘bobbles’. The team was able to do some good ‘catch-up’ in the Marathon! We had some blistering times through most of the obstacles to finish up winning the overall marathon phase quite handsomely; indeed our time through the infamous ‘Gulch’ held the fastest of the whole day until the penultimate advanced level competitor beat it by a mere two seconds! We were now in second place overall and, despite a splendid effort in the cones, that is where we finished – but very pleased with the performance of our still very young American Warmblood stallion – Blue Eyed Dream. In keeping with his winning tradition, Charity just took him down to Wellington where he won all three of his first level classes against significant opposition!” Warmblood News 2 Summer www.whinnywarmers.com HOW MUCH DO YOU SPEND ON TOXIC FLY SPRAY THAT DOESN’T WORK? Summer Whinnys™ provide all equines with a non pesticide source of leg protection from biting ies! Our equine socks are made from a high-tech, durable yarn, are designed to stay in place for hours by using a safe level of elastic compression, in a cool compact knit that is nearly impossible for biting ies to penetrate! The bers of our yarn contain silver and copper ions that are naturally antimicrobial and continually inhibit the growth of many strains of bacteria, mold and fungi on the socks. The silver and copper ions will not wash or leach out and will last for the life of the socks ! Learn more about silver and copper ion technology and Summer Whinnys™ on our web site and take the “Cool Test”! Wear Summer Whinnys™ on your own legs.

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