Phil Henning, a shrewd businessman who established the respected sport horse sales, breeding and training facility Mill Creek Stables in Cambridge, ON, in the 1990s and supported Canadian show jumping through providing talented horses to top riders, died on Friday, April 18th after a courageous battle with cancer.
Henning had a keen eye for promising equine talent and sourced, owned and bred an impressive stable of show jumpers who bore the Mill Creek prefix, including Raphael, Rosalinde, Sweet Dream, Chardo, Sparky, Eli, Marco Taere, Kaiser de la Coeur, and Stevie Wonder. Notably, Mill Creek Raphael represented Canada at the 2002 World Equestrian Games in Jerez, Spain, and was ridden by Eric Lamaze to numerous grand prix victories including the Canadian Show Jumping Championship title; the horse was donated to Equine Canada in 2003. Mill Creek Rosalinde competed at the 2003 Pan American Games in Santo Domingo with Lamaze, while Mill Creek Sweet Dream was 12th at the 2004 World Cup Final in Milan, Italy, with Yann Candele riding.
Henning, who was involved with the Canadian Young Horse Jumper Development Series and was named Jump Canada Owner of the Year in 2003, would scour the globe looking for horses to develop. “It’s not so easy to find good horses. You’ve got to cover a lot of miles,” he told Horse Sport in a 2013 interview. In his 2003 JC acceptance speech, he stated, “Our goal is to provide quality, useful horses to suit most disciplines and budgets. We have the talent and we are realistic about our horses. Not every horse is going to be, or even needs to be, a Grand Prix horse. Most horses have a purpose and we are committed to our training program to benefit the horse and the future rider.” Mill Creek Stables also stood a number of licensed stallions.
Always a successful and versatile entrepreneur, Henning first built Mill Creek Transport into one of the first ISO-certified companies in the transportation industry before selling it in 1999. By 2019, Henning had wound down the horse business and was developing Mill Creek Growth, a small batch, high-grade craft cannabis operation situated on 140 acres in Cambridge. The company exports its product exclusively to Germany and Australia, and will continue to operate with his wife Brenda at the helm.
Phil leaves his wife Brenda and their daughter Hunter; another daughter, Tonya, and her husband Phillip Knüsting, reside in Germany and have a daughter, Liv. A Celebration of Life was held to honour Henning at the farm in Cambridge on April 24th.
