This message is from: Beverly Weston <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Hi All, My name is Beth Gerst from Milford, CT. and I am fairly new to the list. I have been reading it for months but have never taken the time to figure out (until now) how to respond to the list..Not even sure I am doing it correctly now!! Let's hope for the best!! I own one gelding as of right now Kervan Farm Elexson, a 4 yr old Gelding out of the imported stallion Felix by an imported mare named Nagia. Unfortunatley due to high costs of boarding horses in my area and lack of space I can only afford one right now!!
First I want to say that I had a wonderful time at the Ontario show. Cheryl and her crew did a great job at keeping this show going. With the amount of help she had I give her many Kudo's for pulling it off as nicely as she did. I brought along my "clan" of six people...one of which was my non-horsey mother-in-law....let me clue everyone in...DON'T EVER MAKE THIS MISTAKE!!! She invited herself along with us for the trip...I can tell you for a fact SHE will never do that again!!! :-) The Ontario show was wonderful. I was the lucky one who had the pleasure of showing the wonderful 2yr old filly Kervan Farm Felixia to Overall Champion Halter horse. Felixia is out of the imported stallion Felix and the imported mare named Nagia...This little filly has a special place in my heart b/c she is my gelding Elexson's full younger sister. It was a thrill that her owner trusted me enough to take this little filly off the farm for the first time ever and show her for her. Thank goodness she was special enough to show herself and not need much help from me!! Needless to say her owner Marg Kerr was and I am sure still is thrilled with her win. She also received a Gold Medal from Bob Van Bon. I can't tell you what wonderful and very fair judges Bob and Joke were and what a great time we all had with them...they were just terrific. I could go on but all I can say is I won Overall Champion Halter horse with Felixia and her older brother (my guy) tied with his own half-brother Uvaer and Nathan Valliere for the Green Horse Driven Reserve Champion.....Besides us winning the Green Horse Cross Country....I can't say as I had too bad of a weekend!! I was thrilled with the entire weekend......Even when one of our brake lines blew out on the truck and kept us on Marg's farm an extra day (such a pitty!!) it broke our hearts to have to stay another day!! but it was fixed and we made it home safely a day late and definitley a few dollars shorter. As for some of the breeding comments going around. I have not been in the fjord world that long (the horse world itself for about 25 years) so I can only comment on what I have dealt with and seen this past year at the Fjord shows and of course my own experiences with my guy. I do believe Carol Rivoire is right Breeding does Count I also agree that there are some wonderful stallions in North America..Homegrown (for lack of a better word). But am I wrong to say that no matter what the breeding, that the origin of all the fjords in North America have imported bloodlines in the gene pool at some point?? I don't seem to remember learning about how the Fjord horse roamed free over much of North America way back when. I just don't see where imported or not imported matters much....Fjords will always be fjords (I hope) and as long as we strive to breed the best to the best imported or not imported we will come up with greatness. Perfection will never happen b/c it is not reality we are always striving to come as close to perfect as possible in any breed that is one reason breeders continue to breed. Imported or Not, I think we should all be proud of the horses we breed, raise and train.....I can tell you I am. Enough for now Beth Gerst Milford, CT
