Tuesday we arrived at Bromont and the weather was lovely. Tori, Anne Marie & I unloaded into the main barn and then took the horses for a quick walk and some grass before heading to the vets for “in barns”. After that I took Zephyr on a hack around the track where you can see […]

And now it’s the day before everyone leaves for Bromont, and I do mean everyone.  There is a mass exodus this year and people are going to be fairly scarce at Balsam Hall this week.  As a result, it’s time for Benny and Rummy to have a break, not that I feel they need a […]

Bromont is sneaking up on us and we only have one gallop left before shipping, we are going to do it Saturday. Normally we would be galloping Friday and Tuesday but as we are shipping on the Tuesday, that is enough stress and the two one star horses will miss that gallop, Woody will go […]

So here we are, going flat out for the summer and loving every minute of it.  This past week has been outrageous, with all the horses working 6-7 days a week.  Last Saturday Kate Sykes and Watson’s Whistler went to a dressage schooling show at Steven’s Creek.  Kate was second level champion at her first […]

Yesterday was yet another gallop day. The days go by relentlessly and Bromont draws every closer. Today is a ‘day 8’ which means they all get a day off. By the looks of Woody when we trotted him up this morning, he doesn’t need a day off. I spend endless hours being the official barn […]

Selena is in Vermont giving a clinic this weekend. We have great group of friends there and Selena gives regular clinics throughout the year. It’s a lovely place to go and not too far from here. It’s difficult to find weekends that do not already have horse shows assigned to them and even if there […]

  Life goes on here at Balsam Hall, one thing when you work with horses, there are no days when you can slack. It doesn’t really matter if you are feeling great or not, the show must go on. Horses need fed, loved, turned out, groomed and mucked out no matter what. The only part […]

I tried to think what I was going to say but in the end I have sat down at my computer without a thought to work from and I am typing from the heart. I was all set Saturday with the blog written when the unbelievable news was released that Philippa Humphreys had died from […]

I have given up trying to think of anything to tell you about Mondays except that we do as little as possible. Selena rode Woody since that doesn’t count as work, one horse had to gallop and another had to be ridden because it wasn’t ridden on Sunday. We work pretty much everything in the […]

Well this weekend was very full of Badminton Horse Trials. We were excited to watch the North American contingent. The Apprentice just didn’t seem to have his head in the game from the start of cross country. Buck did everything he could to energize him but it wasn’t happening. Poor Boyd took a cropper at […]