Forth Downs Yesterday and Today
Forth Downs began as a modest idea to move into San Diego's East County and have Sarah's horse live in the front yard. The plan was to, perhaps, buy a pony once kids came along, and possibly a trail horse for Jay. In the early eighties, Sarah and Jay saw a Norwegian Fjord Horse, for the first time, at the Calgary Stampede. Jay said right then that if he ever got his own horse it would be a Fjord.
After breeding some fine Dutch Warmblood dressage horses, we have now turned our attention to Fjords. We first bought a mare, Hviske, and we have raised and trained her to be a lesson horse for our boys (ages 12 and 16). Sarah has also competed with Hviske in dressage earning a 60% at 1st level. In 2005, after the breeding season, we acquired BDF Malcom Locke from Star Sky Farms. He is a proven sire and we intend to promote him on the West Coast.
Why did we want to change from Dutch Warmbloods to Fjords? As a young adult Sarah competed at high levels of dressage and eventing. Warmbloods can certainly excel at the higher levels of sport. They also can be just a bit high strung, especially those who are over half Thoroughbred! When we first got Hviske, Sarah was amazed at how quickly she learned and how un-flappable, and cheerful she was. New experiences that stressed out the warmbloods (clippers, trailer rides to strange places,trail rides with weird obstacles) she took in stride.
Now when someone we know is interested in a horse ride we don't have to explain why we have highly trained horses that we are afraid to put a stranger on. The whole family has ridden Hviske, now age 6, including Jay, Sarah, 2 sons,a daughter and 2 neices. But best of all, as Sarah continued with Hviske's training, she realized that even though she was safe and gentle for beginners, she could still be trained to be a real dressage horse. For some Fjord owners versatilty is defined as being able to show dressage and western, for some it is defined as riding and driving. For us versatility is defined as a horse who can give a satisfying ride to both a 10 year old kid and his mom who has riding for 40 years!