It was face-meltingly hot and humid, a perfect late summer afternoon in eastern Canada. We had accepted an invitation to visit W. Charlot Farms in Stratford, Ontario, to meet their horses and had been sent to a vantage point up on the sun-baked hillside. Here we would see where the ‘raw diamonds’ were grown, all related to the 30 lovely young sale horses that had been presented to us either under saddle or jumping through a chute, expressing their natural talents. We had been shown three-year old beauties who dazzled us with their exquisite movement and form-perfect bascules through the jump chutes, to finished hunters and jumpers ready for the show ring.
We were horse shopping and for whatever reason had never made the trip to see what could be purchased directly from one of the leading breeders of sport horses right here in Canada. We made ourselves comfortable with flies buzzing, bird twittering, and an occasional splash from the sleepy river in the little valley below us. Standing high up on the hill and squinting into the sun, it was hard to see the horses far away on the opposite side of the river. Our feet felt the vibration which became a distinct rumble that in seconds magnified into the crescendo of thundering hoofbeats.
The sight of 20 horses moving in herd formation, emerging from the top of the hill and then cannoning down and along the far side of the little river, was breathtaking! A moving kaleidoscope of bay, black, chestnut and grey; mares, foals, yearlings and two-year-olds creating a force of power great enough to push the wild geese into departing off the water like a curtain.