Other posts

Sept 19, 2011 No horse shows for the past two weekends! Wow! It isn't that we haven't been busy. We did not attend the AHR National Haflinger Show this year, as we had a dear friend who was getting married the same weekend. The same weekend, the family decided to throw Dean and Jewel a surprise 50th wedding anniversary party! To say we were busy is an understatement! Dean drove Cole and Beth (Porteus) Mullen to their reception in the family restored antique surrey, reserved and used only for family. He drove our haflingers, Mandolyn RVRW and Marquis MJW.

(Dean Woodward driving our pair, Mandolyn RVRW, Marquis MJW with Cole and Beth Mullen) Maid of Honor, Amy Porteus showing off her boots under her bridesmaid dress, along with Jacque Woodward who was wearing boots while getting the horses ready!

Dean and Jewel Woodward, along with Mike and Jacque, JD, and Ty Woodward. Congratulations on 50 years!

After the wedding on Sept 10th, the kids threw a surprise 50th wedding celebration for Dean and Jewel. Over 200 guests attended the surprise event. THANK YOU THANK YOU to everyone who took time from their busy weekend to celebrate with us!

The next weekend, Mike and Jacque celebrated their own 10 year wedding anniversary by going away for the weekend to Niagara falls! However, when we got home, we found the addition of three Haflinger weanlings in for training and sale prep, and a beautiful three year old Friesian Stallion! Back to work!~

August 24, 2011 This past weekend was spent at the Coshocton Canal Days Festival Parade. We drove several people from Roscoe Village in the parade with our haflinger horse pair, Mandolyn RVRW and Marquis MJW. The girls were perfect and everyone had a great time! Johnathan also participated in the Friends of the Animal Shelter Pet Parade with his miniature, Tucker. They dressed up and were named Grand Prize Winner of the parade, and along with a cash prize, led the animal pet parade!

Johnathan with Tucker dressed up as an Alligator and alligator wrestler, and his friend, Caleb

August 9, 2011 Back home from 2 shows. The Buckeye Summer Classic was held on Aug 6th. Congratulations to Next Level GHJ owned by Golden Gait Haflinger Farm for being named the Haflinger Best of Show, and to Mandolyn RVRW for being named Reserve Best of Show. We took a total of 5 horses to the show with lots of wins to celebrate.

July 25, 2011 Surprise! On Sunday, July 24, my friend Liz Armstrong officially became Liz Fetzer. She asked Johnathan to be her ring bearer, and we had discussed her using one of the horses for the wedding. When she asked JD to be in the wedding I told her we would not be able to make the horse idea work because there would be to much to do. Well, surprise! While Liz took some late shifts at her job, her fiancé', Josh, came out and took driving lessons with Mike. We surprised her on her wedding day by waiting for her with the carriage and Mandolyn RVRW to take her to the reception. Liz got in the carriage, and then Josh climbed in beside her and took the lines. To say that Liz was surprised and excited was an understatement! We wish them all the happiness in the world, and congratulations to Mr. and Mrs. Joshua and Elizabeth Fetzer!

July 22, 2011 Great weather last week, this week the heat wave is here! Ohio is simply not use to 105+ degree heat, and then throw in the humidity, it is almost unbearable. Even getting up earlier than normal to work horses, it is still just to miserable. The fans are on overload in the barn, and everyone is just waiting for the weather to break. We have cancelled all shows for this weekend in the best interest of the horses and ourselves.

July 15, 2011 Lots going on! We are working on getting pictures of haflingers for sale and videos out to interested clients, and also working on getting the hay in the barn! Second cutting alfalfa is beautiful, we are so blessed with great weather!

Don't forget about the Buckeye Summer Classic hosted by both the Buckeye Miniature Horse Club and the Ohio Haflinger Association on Aug 6, 2011, at Coshocton County Fairgrounds, in Coshocton, Ohio. There are a ton of classes offered for miniatures, ponies, and Haflingers. No registration papers are required, a great fun learning environment, get new or young horses out, or new people who want to have fun and enjoy their ponies/minis/haflingers! Visit www.ohiohaflinger.com to see all the classes offered and you can even enter online!

July 5, 2011 Long weekend, we showed again! Great time, took some new horses to show 5 total, got some great pictures, and yet I proceeded to somehow delete them all while taking pictures of some of our two year olds tonight. Talk about upsetting. We will have more pictures of sale horses soon. Authentic Rock MJW has some photos of him taken right out of the field, a nice two year old gelding, quiet, 57 1/2 inches tall currently. We will have sale photos of Linde Star MJW, and also Next Level GHJ, a six year old gelding, who we showed last year to some reserve and top five high point championships, and also a 9 year old gelding who is for sale, a Neiman Marcus TOF son. We showed Neiman Marcus TOF to several Championship titles as well as a Best of Show Draft at the Nationals a few years back. Look for these sale horses soon!

As far as the show this weekend, Mandolyn RVRW stood first again in her open pleasure driving class, and second in the open halter, Marquis MJW stood 3rd in the same driving class. JD Woodward and Tucker held their own standing 3rd in small fry showmanship out of 9 entries, and also 3rd in open miniature driving out of 6, once again beating dad! :) Jacque and Belle stood 2nd in a great miniature driving class over 34 inches out of a class of 7.

June 26, 2011 We are home from the All Breed Carriage Driving two day event! What a fun time! Our three year old mare Marquis MJW made her debut in the driving ring. Mandolyn RVRW, Tucker, Belle, and friends Houdini and Misty all attended the show as well. Please click here for photos and placings!

June 6, 2011 More pictures from on our Shows 2011 page from this past weekend show!

May 29, 2011, We are back from the American Haflinger Registry Spring Auction. We didn't come home with any new horses, but it is always fun to see old friends and meet new ones who all have a common love of Haflingers. No shows this weekend for us, enjoying our family. Please remember our service men and women who are keeping us free and are not with their families at this time.

We have a mare we will be advertising for sale this coming week. A lovely, silver classified (top 10% in the world) unique bloodlines, and a 2010 AHR National Champion in ridden Dressage with a youth rider! IF you are looking for a Haflinger who can stand in a stall all week, go on a trail ride on Saturday, and then load up and hit a dressage show on Sunday, this is your gal! More information to come, and pictures! We have been giving riding lessons on her, and she is just a really nice horse who is ready to find a new home. She will be on our show string until sold.

May 15, 2011 Two shows in two days! Please click under shows 2011 to see our results!

Rain didn't stop the kids from being all smiles after the egg and spoon in hand contest!

May 3, 2011 We had our first fun show this past weekend! We took only the miniature horses for Johnathan to show. We had a great time, even though it was rainy. JD showed Tucker in halter, 8 and under showmanship, leadline, and the $100 costume class. Our friend, Erin, showed Misty in halter! Here are some pictures of JD and Tucker winning the costume class! JD loves Alligators, and so he had to be an alligator hunter!

May 3, 2011 continued... We are still working on updating the website. It takes a while to add all the photos and pictures, especially in the middle of breeding season, and with show season starting! We welcome back Mystical Jewel MJW from the Durouse family. She is a yearling filly sired by A Rock and out of Mandolyn RVRW. She will be with us for a couple of months and may be attending some shows! We also welcome 'Marshell' a three year old miniature horse! He is here for driving training. Also, 'Fancey' a Haflinger mare who is back for training with her owner, Liz, they will be showing in 4-H shows this year in walk/trot. As if that isn't enough, we welcome Famosa Lou SFF, a five year old Haflinger mare sired by A Knock of Limerick SFF, an imported, Silver classified horse from England. A Knock had only a few foals before he was gelded, and this mare is from my favorite dam, Flamingo MBM. Famosa Lou SFF is a Silver inspected mare who is a National Champion in ridden dressage. She will continue her training here with us, and she is for sale!

On top of that, we have added an additional six horse stalls to the barn! This spring is really getting busy!

April 23, 2011 We are in the process of redoing the website. Lots of new changes are happening in all aspects of our farm so please keep checking back for more updates! Show season will be starting full force in May.

April 3, 2011 We are home from delivering Awesome Gold MMH to his new home in North Carolina! What a lovely facility! We thank you to Gold's new owners and wish them all the best in the American Driving Society Shows and Combined Driving Events in the next few years! We also continued down to Florida for a much needed vacation with the family! With no foals coming this year, it was the perfect time to spend some time without the horses and enjoy the family. Thank you to Chelsie for taking care of the horses and farm while we were gone! We had a great time, and now it is time to get back to work. The 2011 show horses are coming in this week to start conditioning and training. And over the next several weeks the sale horses will be coming in for refresher training and getting back in the ring, and trail riding. Look for new photos soon! Breeding season is here, we are busy breeding mares to our stallion A Rock!

March 16,2011 So much going on! We have training horses in, and our own young horses to start, and our lovely three year old stallion, Awesome Gold MMH is going to a new home! While it is always so hard to say goodbye to our horses, we remember this is our business and that they will be enjoyed and loved elsewhere. Gold will continue his driving training in North Carolina and will be shown. Other news is that Izzie's mule colt passed away unexpectedly. First he was fine, and then the next morning we found him in the barn, without a mark on him. Laney HFB has been palpated and determined that she is NOT bred to the jack and so she will be shown this year and bred to A Rock in April!

Feb 27, 2011 More new horses! Who would have thought! We have acquired two new Haflinger mares. Mike's father, Dean Woodward who has been heavily involved in the Haflinger Horse world for close to 40 years, has stopped breeding and has given the last of his broodmares to his grandchildren. Johnathan and Ty have been given the Silver Classified mares, Laney HFB and Izzie HFB. We are honored to have the last of the HFB bloodlines in our herd and for our children to enjoy and carry on the Woodward Haflinger breeding legacy. In the last few years, Dean, always one to try something new, bred many of his mares to a Jack, and so not only do we have new mares, we will also be welcoming two haflinger/mule crosses this year. The first one arrived Feb 25, 2011 from Izzie. While cute, they will both be finding new homes once they are weaned so anyone interested in a Haflinger/Mule cross, please contact us! Both mares will be bred to our Haflinger stallion, A Rock for 2012 foals. Please click on our Haflinger page and click Izzie and Laney to see pictures and learn more about them! We have also acquired O'Mai LMP and Colrosa Lou SFF back to the farm!

Feb 1, 2011 Hello! We hope everyone is staying warm this winter! We are busy as usual, Mike was elected Ohio Haflinger Association President for 2011, and he will be busy building this great organization for the promotion of the Haflinger breed. Visit www.ohiohaflinger.com to see more about this group!

Johnathan won the 8 and under high point award with his miniature horse, Tucker and was given a lovely embroidered sheet! We continue working with our young horses, and are offering several horses for sale, most are young stock, please contact us if interested! We have a busy 2011 show schedule planned, mainly in the driving area for 2011.

December 19, 2010 Merry Christmas to everyone! We hope your holiday is special and filled with love, kindness, joy, hope and peace. Our family is well, Ty is growing more and more each day! Johnathan is enjoying shorties basketball. The horses are fuzzy and enjoying the time off. Awesome Gold MMH is continuing his training along with Marquis MJW. Some adorable shetland ponies have come to our farm for some training and we enjoy working with this breed as well.

November 27, 2010 So much has happened and we have been so busy! First and foremost, we welcomed our second son, Ty Michael Woodward on Sept 27, 2010. 7lbs 7 oz 21 inches long! We certainly are blessed! We had a great, but short show season, however it was a great show season! We had Chelsie Hicks as an intern from Ohio State University ATI work with us and she did an excellent job with the horses! She earned a Reserve High Point Award in Walk/Trot English Division and a Top Five High Point Award in Walk/Jog Western Division from the Haflinger Championship Challenge with the stallion Next Level GHJ owned by Dr. Kevin Edwards, Golden Gait Haflinger Farm! Johnathan also enjoyed the summer, showing his miniature horse, Tucker, earning his first, first place driving award! He also enjoyed participating in parades with his Buckeye Miniature Horse Club. Mike drove a nice two year old mare for the Christenson family and we showed her in halter and in hand trail. Jacque was still able to work some horses in halter while pregnant and even showed the two year old stallion Awesome Gold MMH to a Haflinger Championship Challenge High Point Champion Award in Halter. He also won firsts in In-Hand Trail at both the Central Ohio Haflinger Show and the Buckeye Haflinger Show. Mike also started Gold driving and got him out to a few shows. We will be working on updating the website, there is a lot going on at the farm, so please check back! Check out www.haflingerchallenge.com for the newest website for Haflingers shows in 2011 and a great program!

Johnathan, Jacque, and Tucker winning the best costumed award at the West Lafayette Parade, and Johnathan accepting a Jacket for Awesome Gold MMH as he was Champion in the Haflinger Champion Challenge in junior Stallion/gelding Halter!

Chelsie Hicks (second from right) accepting her Reserve Champion Walk/trot English Division jacket, and (far right) jacket for top 5 in Western Walk/Jog with Stallion Next Level GHJ!

May 4, 2010 So many new things are going on here at the farm! Most exciting is that Mike and I are expecting our second child the end of September! We are very thankful and excited and Johnathan is excited to have a new baby as he will be five in August. With our new arrival, obviously there will be some slowing down of our show schedule for the 2010 season as I am not able to ride. As of now, we are still training the young horses and driving. We will not be showing in the CDE's this year nor obviously the hunter paces. However, we do have an intern coming in June from Ohio State University who will be with us through the summer, showing our client horses and working with us while learning about the Haflinger industry. We have joined a miniature horse club locally for Johnathan to start enjoying showing his mini's and will be attending some of those shows as well as additional driving shows. Mike has been asked to ring man at several horse shows this year as well and so of course we will be staying busy. I will start taking client horses for riding training again in October and I have already accepted a beautiful Friesian Stallion to start showing late this fall and we are excited to work with this nice breed.

Other news is that Mandy's filly has been sold and she will be leaving once she is weaned!

April 7, 2010. New pictures of Mandy's filly out in the arena, and also Lilly's stud colt! Both are doing great!

April 6, 2010 Mandy finally foaled! A filly! Check out our new foals 2010 page!

March 28, 2010 Lilly's new foal is doing great, he spent his first day out in the arena yesterday, and even visited with the minis. Mom and baby continue to do well and new pictures are posted under foals 2010! While this page is an update for everyone interested in our farm, it is usually kept for information about the horses. However, I was informed yesterday by two men and a little boy that this information is quite important and I must pass it along, so here goes. :) There is a new tractor at the Haflinger Fohlen Bauer. Not just any tractor, but a 'Super C' tractor. This is something that Dean has always wanted. This desire in turn, has been passed on to his son, Mike. And so yesterday they headed to Michigan to purchase this tractor that they have been searching for. Johnathan has informed us that he does not like this tractor, as it does not have a cab, and nowhere for him to sit and is the 'wrong' color' as he is a John Deere boy, however we assured him in a few years he will come to appreciate it as much as his grandfather and father do! Dean plans to put the tractor in parades, and antique tractor shows, along with some fairs. Below is a picture of the new tractor and three (very proud) generations of Woodwards.

March 26, 2010 Our first foal has arrived of 2010! Lilly Langtree HFB foaled at 1:10 am, a healthy stud colt! Lilly was waxed over for four days, keeping us at home, and quite tired, but this guy arrived with no issues, quickly, and text book birth, which was great. Check out our new foals 2010 link to see pictures!

March 7, 2010 We are finally starting to thaw out. This of course leads to my all time favorite things...mud. Ok, perhaps not, but at this point I think we will take the mud everywhere to be done with the snow. Another milestone, winter is (hopefully) close to over! Signs are starting to pop up everywhere, namely, hair! The horses have started to finally let go of their winter coats. And this month both of our mares are due. Mandy is due March 18, and Lilly is due March 28. Odd that a year ago we had 6 foals to wait for and now we are down to 2.

The horse industry has of course been hit by many things, mainly, the closing of the PMU mare lines as well as the closing of the slaughter plants in the US has lead to an over surplus of unwanted horses. The market has been flooded by horses people can not seem to get rid of, or find homes for. The horse rescues are full, and unfortunately with many horses young, old, or not trained properly, the whole industry has almost been put at a standstill until something can be figured out. One thing remains certain, a well trained horse is still in demand. Not a young, 'green' or 'started' horse, but a horse who has the time, effort and miles put on them to make them a solid citizen. This of course takes a lot of time, dedication, and money. There will always be breeders out there who breed 'just because' and you will find their product at the local auctions, or standing out in fields. We remain committed to the registered Haflinger Horse, and the quality set by the World Haflinger Federation Standards. We have significantly cut our herd down to accommodate the foals that we will be producing, to be able to raise them, train them, and show them before finding them new suitable homes or staying here with us.

While some breeders are put in a dark light right now that they should not be producing with this surplus of unwanted horses, we are firm believers that the quality of the Haflinger will remain only by dedicated breeders or else our breed will suffer in conformation, temperament, size and color that we have all come to love and adore. If there are not breeders out there who will continue to weather the storm, when this does pass, there will be few quality Haflingers left. There are some Haflinger breeders who are trying to follow the 'trends' and have started crossing their Haflingers with other breeds for a new, trendy type 'breed'. With any new 'breed' comes the idea of 'unique' which equals money to many. We love and respect the hundreds of years of dedication to the lines and breeding of the Haflinger horse that has made it the breed we love and we will continue to raise and train registered, full blood Haflinger horses. Of course, if you like the qualities of the registered Haflinger horse, we encourage you to seek them out. A 'grade' Haflinger or 'part blood' is nothing more than a color and perhaps size that someone is claiming to be as a pure Haflinger and will not have the conformation, personality, or trainability that the registered Haflingers have and are known for. We have so many calls from people with 'problem Haflingers' who are mean and nasty, rude, and pushy, and when we press further, we find that most of these Haflingers either aren't even registered, pure Haflingers, but they were purchased 'green' or from an auction with little known history. This gives a terrible name to the Haflinger Horse in general. When you throw a different breed into the mix, you never know what you will get, with a registered, pureblood Haflinger from dedicated breeders, you know from hundreds of years of breeding, training, and keeping the best qualities that made this breed a great all around family horse. Don't settle for less.

February 19, 2010 Snow, snow and more snow! Over 24 inches of snow fell in the past two weeks, pretty much shutting our county down. The children did not have school for 10 days, and most of us were not allowed out on the roads. While snow is of course not new to Ohio, this much in such a short amount of time is unusual. On a farm, of course, this provides us with unique challenges. The doors to the barn had snow well above them, the horses could not get in and out from the barn to the pastures, and the poor mini's, well they would have disappeared if they had been outside! So, for several days everyone had to stay in, making more chores for us, until the tractor could make a path to the pasture, and we could put the fence back up to get them out. Isn't it funny how the same fence can be up, and the moment the horses know it is down, or they can get over it, they do? I had 9 Haflingers out on the road one morning, heading who knows where.

We also had two very special Haflingers leave our farm. Luna Gold MMH, our head herd mare, and a weanling filly, Amy left to become official pasture pets at a new home. We are thrilled with their new owners and wish them all the best, love and care as they both deserve it. It was hard to watch them both leave as we figured they would be here forever, but god tells us sometimes when they can have a better life, and this was one of those times and we were happy to give them away to a new forever home where unlimited amounts of pats, hugs, and carrots await them both.

As I write this, we should be heading to our next ADT event in Sullivan. However, with all of the snow, there was no way to even get the horses out of the barn, let alone try to work them and drive. I guess that is what we get for trying to show in Ohio in Feb! So this show we skipped on, hopefully the March event we can get back to. With the weather, we have made some changes yet again. The horses are now being bedded in straw, so when they come in from the pasture they can lay down in warmth. The shavings while easier to clean, just froze with the weather, and it was quite uncomfortable for the horses, and we found the babies especially were not laying down at night. Of course being Haflingers they love to eat some of the straw, but we also ended up grading our hay to almost 100% alfalfa when in the barn, and regular timothy/orchard grass round bales when outside.

Below are a few pictures of Michigan Mohawk on the left, our Combined Driving gelding, and two year old stallion Awesome Gold MMH, enjoying some time out in the snow!

January 31, 2010 Very quiet here at the farm. For the first time in ten years, we are down to enough horses that we are able to bring everyone in the barn at night! Considering five years ago we had 34 Haflingers, to be down to 15, including the minis, makes it all very quiet. Thank you to everyone who purchased our Haflingers to get our numbers down for the upcoming year! The two year olds are currently being schooled in their advanced ground work, side passing, and working through obstacles. The yearlings are growing and figuring out what this cold and ice is all about. They quickly get agile on our large hills, and I force myself not to watch them all galloping and playing as if it were summer without a care in the world! Cocoa Chanel, our four year old mare sustained a kick to the jaw and we are still treating it, which appears it is going to be quite a long journey and she is not being worked at this time. Michigan Mohawk, Mike's ADT and CDE prospect continues to be retrained from a draft hitch horse, to learning the dressage fundamentals. It is quite a unique challenge for me and I am enjoying it a lot. Bitting up, bending, flexing, and lots of ground work for collection, thinking, and listening are keys right now to helping him become the best CDE candidate. Mandolyn RVRW continues to enjoy her time off, and her continuous amount of hay supplied to her. Always the barn Queen, Mandy is showered with much of the attention as we wait for her foal due in March. Lilly Langtree is also due in March, and our older mare, Luna Gold enjoys being the herd master, quiet and calm, but everyone knows she still rules the herd. She was not rebred although you would never know it by the hay belly! Newsline, our veteran gelding, moved over the in-laws this fall as he was getting rough at the time with some of our new mares, and even the younger colts. He is now with the other hitch geldings in their own field. A Rock, well, he is as spoiled as ever. The only one to have his blanket on 24/7, he will walk away from his grain to have it put on! He can now bow, and step up on a stool, and is starting to gain interest in the mares again, as he knows the breeding season is vast approaching. He enjoys all the attention, thinks he should be the only one to have the attention, and one day he wants to be turned out all day long, and then the next he won't head out at all. I don't blame him, I'm the same way! :) The mini's keep us all entertained, and don't have to do to much except eat and accept the carrots, pats, and rubs from Johnathan this time of year. Life is certainly quiet right now, and we are all enjoying it!

January 23, 2010 First horseshow of 2010! Please click on New Shows 2010 to see results and story!

January 16, 2010 In Memory of Nikko TH, out of our foundation mare, Farrah Lou SFF, multiple champion stallion. May he always be remembered. Our condolences to Bunker Hill Farm on the loss of this young stallion. May his first, and only foal crop arriving soon be just as amazing as he was.

January 09, 2010 Happy New Year! It has been quite a while since the website has been updated, but that doesn't mean that there hasn't been anything new going on here at the farm, so let's get started!

The month of December was spent with us going on Holiday for three weeks to Longboat Key, FL. Sand, surf, sun and FUN! It was wonderful to do nothing! Johnathan enjoyed his first ever deep sea fishing trip, along with playing in the Gulf and building sandcastles. Jacque enjoyed the sun, reading books and getting a great tan, while poor Mike, well, Mike stayed back in Ohio and took care of the horses, and put in three new water hydrants for the barn, paddocks and new wash area! Well, really, Mike works for the Army Corps Engineers, and wasn't able to take the vacation as he is on call. However, we did come back in time for Christmas, and no matter how warm and sunny it is in Florida, it just isn't Christmas unless you have snow, beautiful snow covering everything, and we flew home to a picture perfect snow covered Ohio and spent a wonderful holiday with our families.

The horses are all doing well and are fat, sassy, and hairy. They like the fact that they come in the barn at night for the winter months. Mike has a new Combined Driving horse that we hope will work out. We are getting ready for the Arena Drive Trials starting in January which go through March. We will have three competitors in this new event. Mike with Cocoa Chanel in the horse division, our son, Johnathan will debut in his first ever driving division at four years old with his trusty Miniature Horse, Tucker, and Jacque's mom, Gwen will also be driving Tucker in the Green as grass division. Jacque is sitting this series out and will be the head groom and clothes organizer! :)

Additional Shows for the 2010 season will include Mike pursing the Combined Driving Events, while Jacque will go in the Hunter Paces and possibly Mini Trials with her stallion A Rock, while Johnathan will be showing Tucker in Small Fry Showmanship, Lead line, and Driving classes at the local open shows. Marquis MJW and Awesome Gold MMH will be going in the sport pony halter ring while we wait the arrival of just two foals for this year. Mandolyn RVRW and Lilly Langtree HFB are both due in March.

The winter newsletter is almost finished, and should be up on our site in a few days. We look forward to January being our down time at the farm, and let the horses be horses, run on the hills, getting dirty and manes flying wildly and they love every minute. We hope you and your horse family enjoy the 2010 year!

Nov 24, 2009 We LOVE hearing from our the owners of our sold Haflingers! This here is some of the latest about one of our Haflingers, 'Chief' (now called Akello) Thank you to Terri for keeping us updated! Chief/Akello was sold well over a year ago, we knew he was something special, and Terri and Akello are a great pair, congratulations! Please read her note and picture below.

We have also added our special riding/driving holiday packages and rates under our Services offered link. Please click on it for more information! I have been busy the past two weeks showing horses to clients, it seems more people are interested right now, which is great! Our training horses have left for the holiday season, and so I have been playing with the yearlings, refreshing their skills as they have been out playing most of the summer and fall and everyone is getting their fuzzy winter coats. Both the weanlings and yearlings are coming in from the pasture every evening and so the barn is full!

Mandolyn continues to improve, today she had her two week checkup and blood work done again, revealing a slightly low red blood cell count, which we have addressed but otherwise she is back on track. Today was also teeth check day, revealing only one horse, our two year old gelding 'Sly' not only needed his teeth floated, but he had wolf teeth that needed to come out! Poor Sly, but he will feel much better now!

I wanted to touch base and let you know that Akello (Chief) and I are doing great down in Ft. Myers, Florida. Everyone loves him at the barn because "he's so cute." (All Haflingers are). I entered him in a walk/trot dressage ride-a-test where we had a bigwig judge (Kay Meredith). She was so complimentary of Akello it wasn't funny--she gave us mostly 9s on collective marks and a score of 85%!!! Definitely the highest in the whole day, which included a Grand Prix ride. She said that everyone should look at us for a perfect combination. He and I do get along very, very well. We've also started little jumping and he's being very good at that, too.

I am so proud of him whenever I take him anywhere. We were doing an extension out in a big field the other day and a woman watching me ride him said, "You're going to end up with a very fancy pony one day." He's not a pony (15.1 by the stick). But the big guy can move! I love this guy and love the breed.

Nov 16, 2009 Before we leave on holiday, we have decided to offer many of our Haflinger horses at well below our normal prices. This will help us to cut down on our numbers for winter to better help us concentrate on the upcoming breeding season for client mares, and make room for client training horses. Until Dec 1, 2009 take advantage of our lowest prices EVER offered on our Haflingers!

Nov 11, 2009 We are so happy to report that as of yesterday, Mandolyn RVRW has finally come home. OSU was wonderful in helping Mandy through her ordeal and 12 days after she went in, she was able to come home. We are monitoring her closely and everything appears to be well. The foal is fine as well. Special thanks to everyone at OSU who helped Mandy to recover, Brian, Dr. Smith, and Dr. Williams especially!

We are excited to announce a new feature of our website, a newsletter! This fall edition is my first attempt at doing a newsletter to give everyone an idea of happenings here at the farm. We look forward to any and all feedback, and anything that you would like to see in future issues!

Nov 5, 2009 As with wonderful news about our newest addition to our herd, comes the sad news of one of our wonderful mares, Mandolyn RVRW. On Friday, Oct 30, Mandy was showing some subtle signs of a possible colic. After calling our Vet, he determined that Mandy needed to head to a Equine Hospital, and so we quickly loaded her up and headed to the Ohio State University Large Animal Hospital in Columbus, Ohio. It was there that it was determined that Mandy has Anterior Enteritis. http://www.petplace.com/horses/proximal-enteritis-proximal-duodenitis-jejunitis-anterior-enteritis/page1.aspx To date she is still at OSU. Things have been up and down the past six days, making trips to Columbus every other day to see our beloved mare, and twice daily phone calls from the Vets have made this ordeal much easier to cope with. Mandy is doing much better, she is refluxing just 2 liters, which was the goal, down from the original 8-10 liters. She is well hydrated, her heart rate, respiration etc is all in normal limits. Her foal, due in March 2010, is still doing well, however this has limited a bit as to being able to ultrasound the intestines, what drugs can be given etc. We are thankful that Mandy and the foal are still alive and thank Ohio State University, the surgery Vets who were in charge of Mandy through Monday of this week, and now the internal medicine specialist as well as the neonatal specialist, and of course, Mandy's main caretakers. We keep everyone posted on Mandy's progress, and thank everyone for the kind emails, phone calls and prayers for our lovely girl.

Oct 29, 2009 There is so much to announce! First and foremost, we are excited to say that we have a new addition to our Haflinger herd. Awesome Gold MMH has come to live with us! This amazing young stallion first caught our eye last year as a weanling out in the pasture with his mother. Owned and bred by Mini Mountain Haflingers, Ray Miller of Dundee, Ohio, son Joel Miller owned Awesome. I kept watching this young horse, and commenting on him to my husband. After the Buckeye Haflinger Show in July, (after this colt won his halter class, and the $100 halter class) my husband secretly began talking with Ray and Joel about the possibility of purchasing Awesome without my knowing. It turns out that throughout the year this horse just kept getting better and better. I was a bit discouraged at the fact that Ray and Joel would not even price him to me, but I knew that they were also excited about this young prospect. By the time the Futurity rolled around last weekend, Mike announced to me that he had purchased Awesome for us! To say I was thrilled would be an understatement! Awesome Gold MMH is by our stallion, A Rock, and out of Lacey Gold MMH (dam to Ray's 2008 Best of Show horse Wild Gold MMH, who also was 08 and 09 National Grand Champion Gelding) this mare has repeatedly produced winners.

'Gold' as he will be called at the farm, will first blow you away with his eye catching beauty. You simply can't miss him! Besides his correct conformation, pretty head, and long neck, Gold has a wonderful shoulder, and forearm. His back and loins ties in nicely to his hindquarters, his 'engine' which is so important to our performance horses. All four of his legs are correct and straight, and he stands well on nice hoofs. He keeps the Haflinger standard look and type, without going extreme to light or to draft style. The most amazing thing about Gold, however, is his movement. He floats! It is effortless, as if he moves on springs. It was hard when looking at the pictures to display, which ones to choose because all the shots were so amazing! Gold's temperament is sweet and kind. Very smart and playful, but respectful too.

We do not know what the future holds for this bright son of A Rock. While I am most excited to have him here as the prospect to be my next all around performance gelding, at this time he is simply to nice to geld. A good stallion makes a great gelding, is the saying we breeders live by, but every once you step back and look to see if perhaps, just perhaps, you have another stallion contender on your hands. This is the case with Gold for the moment. Who knows what the spring will bring, and changes around the corner, but for now, he will remain a stallion. We say that A Rock foals are slow to mature, and they don't really look great until their three year old year. If this yearling year is Gold's 'off' year, we can't wait to see what he will look like his three year old year! (photo credit to Frawgbyte Photography)

Oct 8, 2009 Today is the last day of the Coshocton County Fair. It has been probably 5 or 6 years since we have had horses at the fair. Nationals sometimes seemed to get in the way, or just life. This year, however we decided that we needed to keep horses at the fair. Our four year old son, Johnathan took his pony Tucker, along with Misty for his friend Erin to show. They all did wonderfully! It was such a delight to watch them showing. Our Haflingers did well also on their show day, however those pictures will come later! :)

Johnathan and Tucker and Erin with Misty during the 4-H show in small fry showmanship, everyone came out a winner!

Erin Wilson with Misty and Johnathan Woodward with Tucker in the small fry showmanship class during the Open Horse and Pony show on Tuesday.

Johnathan in his leadline class. This was a competitive class, with 16 entries, and JD and Tucker WON the big first place trophy!

Erin and Katina Wilson with Mandolyn RVRW. Erin came out with 3rd place out of 16 entries!!!

Sept 29, 2009 Hard to believe that tonight the barn is closed up and all the horses have their winter blankets on and it is only the end of September! This past weekend was the first weekend in two months that we have had nothing to do as far as the shows! It was quite nice to have a small break. Saturday evening we were invited to friends of ours, Mahlon and Mary Miller of Weaver Ridge Haflingers for dinner with some other Haflinger owners. We had a lovely time. Next we went to see our weanlings and yearling who will be competing at the 2009 AHR Futurity the end of October. Ray Miller of Mini Mountain Haflingers is prepping our babies for us for the Futurity this year. It is our first time ever sending our horses off our farm to be prepped for any event. We simply did not have the room to keep our futurity horses in along with our training and show horses, and so we contacted Ray and asked him to prep them for us. There is no one in the Haflinger business who can prep halter/show horses better than Ray Miller in our opinion. Ray has over 20 years experience in prepping strictly halter horses, and more specifically younger horses. Our biggest concern when sending our babies out was that they were not overworked as we want them as future performance horses, not just one hit halter wonders. There are several instances where you see champion foals, yearlings and even two year olds as halter horses, and then they are never seen in the performance ring and we don't want that to happen with our foals.

We ended up taking Alexandrite MJW, (A Rock X Farrah Lou SFF) who will show in draft weanling stallion. Authentic Rock MJW (A Rock X Anja SFF) in pleasure weanling stallion, Linde Star MJW (A Rock X Luna Gold MMH) weanling pleasure filly and Marquis MJW, (A Rock, X Mandolyn RVRW) pleasure yearling filly to be prepped. The most interesting question is the 'to body clip or not?' That was a hard decision as Ray had a weanling stallion there who was already body clipped, and he looked great without his longer winter hair starting to come in. However, we have always said that we would not body clip our babies as we don't feel they get the proper hair coat when clipped at a younger age. If the horses are body clipped they have to be blanketed all winter and that certainly takes away from our thoughts of them growing up in the pasture and learning in a herd setting. So, our babies will have shiny, longer hair coats rather than short, body clipped coats, but I think they will be thanking us come January!

Sept 20, 2009 Home from Nationals (please see our shows 2009 link to see how we did), this weekend was the Fall Frolic in Granville, Ohio, a marathon course on Saturday and cones class and then on Sunday was an ADT (Arena Driving Trial) This consists of Driven Dressage, Cones, and then Hazards set up like what you would see on a marathon course, only in an arena, and you are timed in and out of them. We took Mandolyn RVRW, Farrah Lou SFF, and Johnathan's mini, Tucker. Farrah went because my mom wanted to start driving again, and so we took Farrah out of the pasture, hooked her up on Monday after four years of being a broodmare, and started driving her. This girl is so great! Our plan was to take her to our county fair in Oct, for mom to drive, and then to a big drive, so mom could use her. However, some nice people saw Farrah at the event and fell in love with her, and took her home with them! So our lovely girl Farrah has a new home, she was quite an important part of our breeding program, but to stay competitive you have to update your herd, and Farrah is going to a wonderful new home. I still competed with Farrah and we won the Marathon portion of the event on Saturday, took a 3rd in cones, and then for the ADT we ended up 4th overall! Mike and Mandy did much better and ended up winning the pony division of the ADT today! Johnathan had a blast driving Tucker, and again our million dollar pony proved himself by doing as he was told, with Johnathan at the lines! Kate, our wonderful girl who has helped us all summer long, was navigator for the first time, and said it was 'awesome!' and we are so glad she enjoyed the fun weekend!

Tucker, JD, and Jacque, JD is four years old, driving his first marathon hazard!

Farrah, myself, and Mike, headed downhill into the ODOT Hazard. My first time driving a marathon course, we won, and had a blast!

Sept 6, 2009 So we start the month of September with, guess what, another horse show! :) This was a local, all breed open show. There were two main reasons for going to this show, first was so that our four year old son, Johnathan could show his miniature horse, Tucker. We are so excited as this is the first year that JD has been interested in showing the horses. We have tried very hard not to push JD into showing because since this is our business and our life, it is sometimes easy to just push a child into doing this when it isn't really what they want to do, and since we really want him to be interested in the horses, we have tried to patiently wait. This year has been very exciting that this is the year.

JD and Tucker entered their first halter class and placed 2nd out of 5 entries! We also had a friend named Erin, who showed JD's other pony, Misty who took a third place. JD also showed Tucker in Lead Line with his daddy and got a trophy and a free hot dog and slush! He was more excited about the food than the trophy!

We also took Libby Gold MMH to get more ring experience and she placed 3rd out of 14 entries in Open Walk/Trot with no restrictions, and friend Katina Wilson showed for the first time under saddle with Mandolyn RVRW and they did great also! Mandolyn also drove with Mike and they won the pleasure driving class!

August 30, 2009 Wow have we been busy this month! So much is going on! On Saturday, the 29th, we loaded 6 Haflingers, a Quarter horse (not ours :) and our miniature horse and went trail riding. The 'girl group' as I call them spent three days on the horses, trail riding all over the place. They took Atom SFF, Colrosa Lou SFF, A Boulder Le La, Cocoa Chanel, Neutron SFF, and Citrus HFB. I headed up and decided to take some footage of the horses on the trail, on the tie lines etc etc. Johnathan and Mike came down later, and Johnathan and I then headed out on the trail by ourselves. That is probably the most fun of all, having our four year old little boy FINALLY interested in the horses and wanting to ride! We had the horses all over those trails, and until this summer I didn't really understand what it took to be a seriously good trail horse and what they need to endure and put up with. We have some pretty nice horses who have more trail miles on them than most could imagine. It helps when you have people who like to ride and that way we get more than one worked! It is interesting also the training that goes into the horses, how we send them in the water by themselves, send them ahead of the group, keep them behind, and out of sight of the group, allow them to canter in a group, and by themselves, and get up and down the hills and muddy spots. The pack equipment that we put on the horses, water bottles, snacks, rain coats etc, also goes into the training aspect. Also, since we have a variety of riders from youth, to complete beginners to intermediate, it is a great way to evaluate the horses and how they handle the variety of riders and their mistakes! :) We take the horses out by themselves on the trail, tie them together and by themselves because our clients have a variety of needs that we are trying to meet.

Left to right, JD and Tucker on the trail, (I am sitting backwards, on Cocoa Chanel, walking, and trying to take a picture!) Kim, a new rider on Colrosa Lou SFF, and Tucker and Atom SFF on the Tie line together!

On Sunday we then headed to an Open Schooling Show near Columbus and took a client horse, Libby Gold MMH. As we were leaving at 6:30 am, I put JD in his carseat, still in his jammies, and he opened his eyes and said 'where is Tucker? (his mini) I told him that Tucker wasn't going, we were just taking Libby. He looked at me and said 'but I have to practice...' So, what do you say? You load the darn pony up and take him to the dressage show! Libby handled everything quite well, and we took a 3rd place out of 6 in Adult Intro Test A, and then for Test B I finally calmed myself down and we ended up getting 1st place again with 6 entries! Yeah! It didn't feel like a winning ride, but I will take it, and it was much better than test A. Now we have ideas of what to work on for Nationals, in just a week! Yikes!

August 22, 2009 Right before we left for New York, we were called by Roscoe Village, a Canal Era town that is close to us. They were looking for a horse drawn unit to be in the Canal Days Parade and wondered if we would be willing to be a part of the parade and represent Roscoe Village. Mike and his dad, Dean, use to do parades quite often, and they even did carriage rides in Roscoe every weekend they weren't showing for several years. Let's just be polite and say that Mike does NOT like parades! :) Well, this year I am trying to do more in the community with the horses, and so I said we would. We arrived the two hours early, as we had to be officially 'judged'. We took Alonizio CCF, mostly because he was still clean and clipped from New York, and we only had to give him a bath and load! Johnathan decided he wanted to ride in the parade, but since we were representing Roscoe, we didn't know if he could or not. We waited and waited at our spot for the people from Roscoe to show up. Finally, we put Johnathan in the seat beside Mike when the judges came by. He hammed it up, waving and smiling at the judges. In the end, they were awarded the top prize for horse drawn unit! About five minutes before the parade actually started, the people arrived, the sign was put on and a girl named Emily got on the carriage as well. The parade went fine, but at the end, JD did not want to give the trophy to the people from Roscoe, he thought it was his! It took a bit of talking, but he finally let go of it!

August 20, 2009 We returned home from the New York Gold Classic, a four day horse show held in Horseheads, New York. We took a total of five horses, Alonizio CCF, Libby Gold MMH, Marquis MJW, Awesome Gold MJW, and of course, A Rock. We did quite well, Alonizio being the star of the weekend in our barn with five double judged first place ribbons in driving! Libby Gold held her own in the Dressage ring for her first ever under saddle performance, bringing home 3-5th places, Awesome Gold MMH ended the Tri State Challenge circuit undefeated in his age group, and our lovely filly Marquis MJW brought home two 2nd place ribbons under both judges in quite a large halter class. A Rock proved that he can handle the pressure in the show ring, (even if his rider freezes up a bit :) and took a 4 and 5th place in 2 foot hunter over fences class. The weather was horribly hot, however this is an amazing show in which we enjoy everything and everyone very much. We had our helper, Kaitlyn Preston with us, who surpassed our expectations in helping to get everything ready and keeping us organized over the 4 day event. We had wonderful food ready for us by our wonderful friend, Bonnie VanWinkle, and enjoyed the wine and cheese party Friday evening hosted by John and Donna White. The World Haflinger Federation members were in attendance and it was quite nice to see old friends, and meet new friends from overseas and showcase our wonderful breed to them. We are still busy with our sale horses, getting them out on the trails, and keeping the show string fit and ready to go for Nationals in less than a month. Our son, Johnathan, is excited about attending our local county fair in October, and has decided that his minature, Tucker should go this year. We are thrilled that he has finally showed an interest in showing, and he is enjoying riding Tucker on trail rides this summer with me, even though he feels he doesn't need a lead line anymore, mom has different ideas and I am sure it is only a matter of time before he is galloping past me!

July 30, 2009 Mike and Alonizio CCF (Buddy) owned by Frog Hollow Farm, Max and Patti Montoya, attended their first Combined Driving Event (CDE) this past weekend. The team did quite well, considering that Buddy stands at 15.1 hands tall, which put him into the horse division. They received a 3rd place in dressage, 5th in Cones, and WON the marathon in Single Horse Training Level! Pictures will be coming soon! It was a nice time, and we really enjoyed ourselves. The CDE competition may be a new avenue we will continue to pursue for the 2010 show season.

Mandy has had her foot fixed, and is back to full time training. She will be on our show string the rest of the season.

Our sale horse, Colosa Lou SFF, is now being worked daily out on the trails, and is doing quite well. She will be ready to head to a new home soon, pictures to follow...

July 22, 2009 Well, when computers work, everything is great, but when they don't, life isn't the greatest. That is how it has been the last month. And, so much has happened here at the farm! We have been here working new horses, the show string, with several new additions have been added, and we even had the time to head down to Florida, for our first family vacation ever, and even finished up the Buckeye Haflinger Show the 4th of July weekend! 115 Haflingers attended the Buckeye Show this year, and it was again a wonderful time for all. It took a lot more time and preparation than previous years, and we had the help of our family, lots of friends, and exhibitors throughout the entire 4 day show! So, this is what has been going on!

We had our first family trail ride with the Ohio Haflinger Association. We had a great time with our friends and family, I rode Atom SFF, a five year old gelding, a friend, Terina, rode Dunja, our imported Amadeus mare, a friend, 14 year old Lauren, rode Cocoa Chanel, a three year old mare, and Johnathan had his minature horse, Tucker out for the weekend as well! We rode 12 miles on Saturday, and then 6 on Sunday. It was interesting having the horses on the tie lines all weekend, because our show horses aren't use to that, but we didn't need to worry, the horses were fine, and weren't worried in the least.

We have several Haflingers who either are posted or will be posted for sale soon. Atom SFF, a five year old A Rock son, excellent trail riding horse, working on arena work, and attended his first show with us at the Western PA Haflinger Show in July. Corosoa Lou SFF, a five year old mare sired by Neumeister TOF, and out of our lovely Amadeus mare, Cindarella, is doing well in her saddle training, and attended her first four hour trail ride this afternoon! A Rock's Rocky (Sly, after Sylvester Stalone), a three year old gelding, also sired by A Rock, is beginning his under saddle training, and will be for sale later this fall. We also finally have some updated pictures of our yearling fillies for sale, Opal MJW, and Jade MJW.

Our show string has changed a bit for some different shows. Mandolyn RVRW decided to pull a shoe, and we thought she was finished for the year, and so Alonizio CCF, an A Rock son, and mulitple National Champion came back onto our show string from Frog Hollow Farm, in Hebron Kentucky, to be Mike's driving horse. However, our wonderful farrier, Ray Miller, was able to fix her foot, and so we will see what will happen with Mandy for the rest of the show season. Since Alonizio CCF came back to us, Atom SFF, went off the show string. Also, Cocoa Chanel went off the show string when she somehow got a small puncture wound above her knee. She is still in full time training, and was Johnathan's leadline horse, and will continue to be shown at some local schooling shows this summer. We were asked to put Libby Gold MMH, a four year old, 80 point mare owned by Ray Miller of Mini Mountain Haflingers, Dundee, Ohio, on our string. We readily agreed after she was named Best of Show at the 2009 Buckeye Haflinger Show! So, Libby is now in full under saddle training with us, and we hope to have her out later this year.

We also have some very sad news. Our first 'child' our shetland sheepdog, Josey died at nine years of age just a few weeks ago. We had Josey with us since she was 8 weeks old and to say it was devastating for us has been an understatement. Josey went everywhere with us, and had her own chair she sat in during the shows, and was the official welcoming committee for all. With a terrible void in our hearts and home, I decided I needed a new dog, and we went on the search to find one. We looked at several different breeds, and rescue organizations, before we decided that we had to have another sheltie. I came across a wonderful breeder in Lexington, Kentucky, who had a beatiful, show quality bi blue shetland sheepdog female. I was instantly smitten with this girl, and talked to her breeder, Karen, and decided we would get her a week later. Our good friends Max and Patti Montoya brought her up to Ohio for us. Her name is Heidi, and she has quickly become a member of our family as well!

In Loving Memory of Jacque's Blue Opossum Josey (Josey)

June 2009 So far, June has been fun of 'first's' for the Woodward Family. Sunday, June 7th, Jacque and her stallion A Rock, competed in their first ever Hunter Pace. This was one of my 2009 goals was to try a Hunter Pace. We headed out to Pace at the Park, in Granville, Ohio, a beautiful place. I met my instructor and good friend, Lisa Schott of TLC Haflingers there. Lisa is such a wonderful person, and a good sport too! I didn't want to go by myself, and since it would be my first time jumping obstacles in a cross country setting, I really wanted Lisa to be there to guide us. Lisa brought her Haflinger, Will, who is a reining Haflinger, to go with us!!! Poor Will, he had never been in a trial setting before, never crossed water, AND had his reining, 'sliding' shoes on! But he was a trooper, crossed the water, and trotted and cantered with us for 1 1/2 hours! There were 110 riders total, we saw a total of 5 Haflingers, which was great! I LOVED every minute of the Hunter Pace. We jumped everything from little logs, to 3 ft roll tops and coops! I learned so much and Lisa and I had quite the time trying to get pictures, as she was on Will, and I would jump, and then we would have to do it again and again sometimes! We were laughing so hard at the idea of trying to take pictures that it is a wonder we completed the course! The intent was only to make it through the course, not place, but we found out that actually with all our picture taking and talking about how to take the jumps etc, we were only 17 minutes over the idea pace for our division! With Lisa's help, I plan to do more Hunter Paces and look into Horse Trials with A Rock. I very much enjoy our time together, and Rock was a super guy and made me even more proud to have him as my partner as a 12 year old active breeding stallion, just coming out of breeding season, and I heard nothing but great comments about him from everyone!

Mike insisted that A Rock doesn't want to be dressed like a girl, however I think he loves the pampering! :)

Left to Right, My friend and instructor, Lisa Schott with her reining gelding, Will. Middle Picture, A Rock and I jumping a barrel jump, heading down hill, which was great as I had never done anything like that before. Right picture. A Rock and I jumping a log. To jump a log was a goal of mine. This, obviously, is quite a small log, not what I had in mind, but Lisa and I were laughing so hard that I would be able to reach my 'goal' with this log, that we thought we had to have a picture. So I ended up jumping this darn thing I think four times, before Lisa could get the shot. By the fourth time, Rock was tired of this darn little log, and he just kept jumping higher and higher! I love his form on this picture, he is so amazing, I hope that I can help him become as good as his ability.

This month we are in show mode full speed ahead. Most importantly for us is the 2009 Buckeye Haflinger Show in which Mike and co-started with Brandy Wagner back in 2006. The show started out with the intent to have an two day all pleasure Haflinger show for youth and people who were new to showing Haflingers get their feet wet. Now, it is a four day event and is the largest all pleasure Haflinger show in North America! This month is the month in which I pull my hair out getting all the entries entered into the computer, stall assignments, letters mailed, and wait for the trophies, ribbons and everything else to arrive! This show takes a lot of work and I am thankful to my family who help in the office, and are in the show ring and at the gates for the four day event. We said that as long as we had the financial backing from our sponsors, we would continue to host the show. The only sad thing is that because this event is so large and we run it, our farm is not able to participate, however, the good this show does the breed, and the friends that are able to come together over these four days to have fun, excitement, and compete against the best of the best is something that are proud to be able to help be a part of. Please visit www.buckeyehaflingershow.com for all the information, and please come, participate, help, or just watch this amazing breed!

For our own farm, we will be getting ready for our show season, although our show string is quite small for 09 with just 5 horses, we are a bit lost as to what we should be doing! We are use to getting 10++ horses ready. In fact, the year Mike and I got engaged, we had 18 Haflingers to get ready for inspection and to show! :) So, it is nice to have a smaller number of horses. Johnathan will be showing in lead line this year, something we are very excited about and he has his miniature horse, Tucker, that he will be trail riding.

We will be going to our first hunter pace with A Rock this month, and will hit the second part in the Delaware Hunter/Jumper series. Mandolyn RVRW will be getting ready for her first CDE the end of July, and Coco Chanel will continue her training as my 09 Western Pleasure prospect. Marquis MJW has gone into her halter conditioning, and while we miss her not being at the farm, we know she is in fabulous hands!

A Look at May 2009 We have certainly had another busy month! May just flew by for us. We sold three horses in May, Jolly Rancher DJR, Cindarella II SFF, and Ariel HFB will be leaving for her new home in July. We also purchased two new Haflingers, a five year old mare sired by Neumiester TOF X Cindarella II SFF. And also five year old gelding, sired by A Rock! We are excited to start working with these horses to see where they will fit in our showing program or as trail horses and they will both probably be entering our sale listings the end of June depending on how their training goes.

Of course the Spring AHR Haflinger Sale was held in May, a huge gathering for Haflinger folks to meet and see each other. Being a member of the National Show Committee, there was a fun auction to benefit the 2009 Show, and I am also on the Judges Committee, in which we put together a power point presentation on Friday evening, and then informally judges three sale horses. It was a long, but fun weekend!

Breeding season for our own horses is finished for the year. Our foals are growing and shedding and have officially hit the 'ugly stage' and are in that in between awkward stage, growing, and getting rid of that baby fuzz, they are very curious, and love playing on the hills, and getting into anything and everything!

A Rock attended his first Hunter/Jumper show of the year the end of May. It is called the Showtime Hunter/Jumper Series in Delaware, Ohio. We did the 2'3 division and I was a bit nervous as our first show and our division for the year is 2'3 and the middle of breeding season, but Rock was a champ, and even though I blew the first class by going off pattern (I have NO idea what I was thinking, except that I wasn't!) A Rock proved that Haflingers can indeed jump with big horses, nailing his takeoff spots, and landing his correct leads. Now, it really is all on me, as A Rock has the talent go further, I just have to keep up with my lessons!

Mike and I also did a driving clinic for the Jefferson County 4-H Horse Camp this month. We had a fabulous time helping the 6 4-Her's and their family learn about driving. We started the clinic out with each youth 'driving' their adult helper, so that they could understand the idea of driving, and then we had them switch so that the youth was the 'horse' and how communication is so important as well as hand and whip position, and using your voice. Then all the children brought their horse's/ponies into the ring, and harnessed, and we went through and looked over each horse, talking about fit, and harness style, and when everyone was ready, the horses were hooked up, and we worked on reinsmanship, the idea of the three trots, proper passing, when to pass, and how, along with reverse, and why the final lineup is so important. I touched on attire (my favorite part! :) and how to make your own lap robes etc and then we finished the day by passing out some three ring binders to each participant that had information about different types of harness, the parts of draft and pleasure type harness, along with how to measure your vehicles to fit your horse, show prepping, and catalogs from some carriage and harness shops. We received this lovely letter from Amie and Rachael Cline

'Mike and Jacque, Thank you for coming to our 4-H camp to teach us about driving. You provided us with invaluable lessons and gave us the confidence we needed to continue. The folders you provided the kids went above and beyond. You put a lot of thought into teaching kids and I hope you keep doing it. Happy Trails, Amie and Rachel Cline.'

Also, Jacque was asked to write an article about the Haflinger and it was published in the May 2009 Edition of the Equine Journal!

May 15, 2009 The barn is again full with our client training horses, our personal show horses, and some horses we have for sale! We have updated some pictures of both Jolly Rancher DJR, a mare we are offering for sale, as well as Cocoa Chanel, another mare please go to our for sale page to view photos. We have enjoyed trail riding and ring work this past week, and A Rock is getting ready for his first hunter/jumper show of the year next week!

May 4, 2009 We had a terrible loss last week with the death of one of our foals. Ascender MJW, foal to Cinderella II SFF passed away. This was very hard on our family as our horses are such a part of our lives. He fell while running on the hills, and then got up and fell again. After bringing him into the barn, we did all we could, and thought that he was getting better, however a week later, he had very shallow breathing. We are deeply saddened by our loss and appreciate all of the calls and emails from friends, loved ones, and strangers who have expressed such emotion over our loss. Thank you to everyone.

On a more business note, we have determined what horses we will be offering for sale and will start advertising them publicly once the foals are weaned. Since this is a completely family run operation, we at this time need to concentrate on our yearlings and foals as these will be our future performance horses and breeding animals. Most of our mares will be for sale. Please contact us for pricing and details.

April 9, 2009 Our sixth and final foal for 2009 has arrived! Anja SFF delivered tonight at 9:20 pm a healthy, long legged stud foal. We are delighted and happy that we have six strong, healthy foals, and mom's who are all well. We are indeed blessed. Now comes the time to determine names for everyone, and also to decide who we will breed back for 2010. This is always a hard decision, but even harder this year as we have young stock who will eventually enter our broodmare herd. The decisions on who to sell are very to determine because each and every mare in our herd has been hand selected by us, for specific reasons, to cross directly with A Rock. We are very proud of the broodmare herd we have come to own. Now, we have gotten our offspring, and we have to get even more specific as to who we breed for our desired traits that we need in both our performance/show string as well as future broodmare prospects.

April 4, 2009 Busy, busy! Spring is in the air, flowers are blooming, the grass has started to turn green, and the new foals are all out and running and playing on the hills. It is indeed a beautiful time here at Woodward Performance Haflingers. We are in our busiest time of our breeding season, with the weather and temperature changes, the mares cycles have been a bit hard to follow and determine, however A Rock certainly is a happy boy! We were able to artificially inseminate five mares tonight, which was wonderful that we could get everything done in one evening. We have yet to determine how many of our own mares we will be breeding back. We are extremely happy with our five foals this far, and at this point are not offering any for sale as we hope they will fit well into our breeding and performance program. We are looking hard at what mares we will be keeping, and what mares we will offer for sale. It is always a hard decision when selling broodmares who have been with us, some of them bred and raised by us. When we have performance and show horses in, we know that they will be sold, however the broodmares always have a special place with us. Mike and I have yet to agree on who will stay and who we will offer for sale, and we will quickly need to decide. That said, we would like to welcome a new mare into our herd! Dunja, an imported mare sired by the World Champion Amadeus has come to live with us. Special thank you to Kevin Edwards of Golden Gait Haflinger Farm for allowing us to have this mare. We look forward to seeing her foals!

Soon we will be getting ready for our show season to start. We are looking forward to having a limited number of Haflingers on our show string for the 09 season and we will concentrate on our own young horses, and I will continue to show A Rock in the hunter/jumper ring. We look forward to starting that back up again.

March 23, 2009 Who knew! Less than 24 hours after I wrote the 'what's new' posting, we now announce we have our first 2009 Stud foal! Yeah! He was a bit of a surprise to us as there were little signs that Farrah was about to foal, however we are very excited he is here! Please visit our new foals page for the info and pictures!

March 22, 2009 Still waiting! Our mares are making us wait! Still no new babies! We are officially out of our 'down time' here at the farm. Spring has sprung and along with the new foals, the outside mares are arriving and have filled the barn. A Rock is a happy boy! The young horses are getting lots of time out on the trails to help them acclimate to the different training situations as that is an important part in our training program, and A Rock continues to be hacked almost daily to stay in shape for our 2009 jumping shows. The yearlings are enjoying their daily work sessions, and like being out in the day and in at night routine. The barn is full of shedding horses and we are busy cleaning, grooming, and clipping to get those show coats ready, as show season will be here before we know it!

March 10, 2009 We have another filly! Her name is Amethyst MJW! Please visit the New Foals Page!

March 8, 2009 What a busy weekend! Saturday we sold Myles, our yearling stud colt to a new home in South Carolina. Katie, along with her two children and her sister made the long trip to see Myles and took him home. We wish them the best of luck! I also brought in our three year old mare, Holly to ride a bit. She was just like an old pro, riding in the ring, walking and trotting and giving to the bit, as if we had just done it yesterday. She is a special filly indeed. I continue to play with Linde, today was the first day for the halter and lead as we walked out to the pasture field with mama, and we are still waiting for Ariel to foal, although at least now she looks as though she is getting closer! Farrah will be brought into the barn as her due date is the 14th of March and we will start monitoring her. It seems from other breeders I am talking with that many mares are going late this year.

March 5, 2009 We are still waiting for Ariel to foal! This is amazing for a maiden mare to take this long in foaling from our own personal records. We will keep you updated on any progress, and thank you to the many who are calling and emailing about her! Ariel will be in foal 1 year on March 10th! And I thought 9 months was agony! :) Instead, please enjoy some additional pictures of Luna Gold's filly, who we have decided to name Linde Star MJW (a type of sapphire) She is doing wonderful, and today was the first day she was turned out in the 'big' pasture with the other mares. Luna being an alpha mare of the herd made sure Linde was safe and sound and with our 60 degree day today, they enjoyed themselves! These pictures are when she was three days old.

Feb 21, 2009 Our first 2009 foal has arrived! Luna Gold MMH foaled a lovely, long legged filly! Name is still unknown at this time, please check our 'new foals' page to see more pictures and the story of this adorable little girl!

Feb 19, 2009, We are STILL waiting for our first foal to arrive! Luna is currently at 352 da

Feb 13, 2009. We are still awaiting our first 2009 foal here at the farm. Don't panic, we are receiving several phone calls a day about Luna being ready to foal, and as soon as she decides it is time (we hope soon after our many sleepless nights! :) we will post pictures and details. We are hoping this coming weekend. Ariel HFB is also overdue, however she is a maiden mare, and so we aren't surprised. Probably the end of this month as she is still pretty firm! Please check back!

Feb 7. 2009. Good news and sad news in the same day. Mike just went over to Dean and Jewels and said that my favorite mare, Lesta, died. She was 25. She is the last of the Haflinger Fohlen Bauer foundation mare herd. We have one daughter of Lesta, Lilly Langtree, who is due to foal in March....

Good news is that the first 2009 A Rock foal arrived last night at the Winkler house. A very nice stud colt out of Lizana TOF. This mare also produced the 80 point stallion Alert RWF! We look forward to seeing pictures of this new arrival!

We are anxiously awaiting the birth of our first 2009 foal! This month has been full of weather changes! We have had a large amount of snow and just when we start to get things cleaned up and back to normal, more snow! We then had -20 degree days, without windchill and then over a 1/2 inch of ice, which shut our entire county down! While our horses are use to the outside, with the below freezing temperatures, combined with ice, the broodmares and yearlings came into the barn. All is well otherwise, so please check back to see pictures of our new foals!

2009 Breeding Season is almost here! Book now to A Rock! Please look at our 2009 breeding contract, and contact us for any information. A Rock offspring are unique, have very kind dispositions, are extremely smart and that being the case do very well in all around performance events which is our goal at Woodward Performance Haflingers. Since these offspring are so straightforward to train, they are very willing to learn. His offspring also tend to be 'late bloomers' and mature when they are around five years old, so not great for futurity babies when judges like a more filled out 'mature' looking foal, (although filly Marquis MJW taking 2nd place in 2008 is hardly anything to be upset about for a three month old!) however once they hit the ring as three year olds the true potential shines through! Please contact us for more information on booking to A Rock. Our 2009 breeding season runs from Feb10-June 10 2009.

We do not overbook A Rock. We are looking for people who are dedicated in bettering their Haflinger herd and the Haflinger breed in general. We are not looking to breed mares 'just because'

We look forward to working with you and helping you with your goal! 740-829-2735 Coshocton, Ohio haflingerhorse@hotmail.com

Happy New Year! 2009 will bring about some changes here at Woodward Performance Haflingers

First of all, we are excited to be getting ready for six foals who should start arriving in February.

Because of our great 2008 foals, we have decided that we will be keeping two of the fillies, and so some of the other broodmares will be getting new homes. Every year is hard to decide what horses will be culled from our broodmare herd and show string. This year will be especially tough because every mare we have currently is specifically here because of their great qualities to cross with A Rock. If we are to continue our goal of having all around performance Haflingers, we have to be very specific in what we keep for our program. We are getting down to the 'nitty gritty' with our horses, and have been evaluating not only conformation, movement, temperament, trainability, and inspection scores, but leg bone size, girth, and the ability to pass on the qualities we need for our program to continue to succeed. The mares we decide to sell are sure to continue to produce, promote, and excel as amazing Haflinger breed ambassadors and we will miss them. More information to follow once our final decisions have been reached after breeding season.

We will also limit our training horses for the 2009 season. We would like to concentrate on our own horses for this coming year. Jacque will continue to show A Rock in the Hunter/Jumper show ring and has picked out a new Western Pleasure prospect, , and Mike will be starting in the Combined Driving disciplines. Johnathan will begin his first year of leadline and possibly small fry showmanship. We currently have a Haflinger picked out from our herd for him to show, however he will start with his faithful miniature horse, Tucker.

Mike is still serving as the Vice President of the Ohio Haflinger Association and is looking forward to another productive year.

Jacque has stepped down from the OHA reporter position, and will continue to run the Buckeye Haflinger Show, and will serve on the American Haflinger Registry National Show Committee

We look forward to another great year filled with Haflingers, Friends, and Family!

The Holidays are upon us! We would like to wish all of our friends, loved ones, clients, and horses a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! The Christmas cards are ready to be mailed out, the cookies have been baked, the tree has been cut and decorated and more presents are appearing under the tree each day. We have had a wonderful 2008 and are fully enjoying the last month of this year.

We just came home from the Equine Affaire in Springfield, MA the second week in Nov. We went with the Ohio Haflinger Association Driven Drill Team as part of the Pfizer Fantasia. The 14 hour trip was quite long (especially for Johnathan!) but the almost week long stay was very enjoyable and we were able to meet wonderful people from the Northeast Haflinger Association, see great world known clinicians, and do some great holiday shopping, as well as spend time with our wonderful Haflingers!

We are looking forward to our 'down time' in November. Most of our show horses are turned out on the 80 acres to enjoy their time off for the winter. I will continue to jump A Rock, and I will be focused on the training horses that are here. I have a winter project horse in training that is a nice guy and when the time comes he will find a new home. I also am looking forward to working my Western Pleasure prospect for the 09 show season. The weanlings continue to impress me and are growing more every day and the broodmares are fat and content in the pasture, their bellies growing more each day. Johnathan and I are enjoying story time at the Library during the week and I like having the extra time to spend with him that show season does not afford me. We are limited in our sale horses because of hay prices and the fact that we need to slow down a bit. We will always have some nice quality geldings for sale, but we will not have 20+ geldings in the pasture for sale anymore. Our goal is to raise our A Rock foals up, train them, show them, and then find them suitable homes. We are specifically interested in colts/geldings sired by A Rock.

After taking 9 horses to the National Show in Danville, IN, Mike and I wearily headed home for some much needed rest. I decided we needed a vacation. Of course, our ideas of vacation are sometimes different. I had the idea of heading to a beach, reading a quiet book, soaking up some sun and swimming. Mike wanted to head to the National Drive. Since we had never been to the drive, I agreed it would be fun, so that became our vacation. We ended up having a great time! The people were very kind and nice and there was a variety of activities that kept everyone interested. We took our mare, Mandolyn RVRW, or Mandy and Mike, myself, and Johnathan went Friday through Sunday evening. The horse park is beautiful anytime, but in the middle of October it is just perfect. We were able to go out on the cross country course and drive through the park, there was always something to see and do. We met our friends Max and Patti Montoya, and Paul and Christina Norden and had a great time catching up without the pressure of showing. We highly recommend this event and thank everyone who helps to put on the drive, we intend to go back next year!

Wow, could we get any busier? I thought we were busy for the Buckeye Show planning, but September was brutal! I don't know why we decided we needed to take 10 horses to the National show. But for whatever reason, we did. Right before we decided this, we full filled Mike's dream of owning a Semi Tractor/Trailer. I have to admit I wasn't a fan of this at first, way to big in my opinion, but Mike assured me I would love it when it was done. So here we are, six weeks before Nationals, I am getting 10 horses ready, 4 of which are just weaned foals who need to be halter broke, and taught all the basics, and the others are client horses or our show string. Mike on the other hand, is building the living quarters portion of the trailer, and putting in the interior for the horses, as well as the carriage, and saddles. We were literally up until midnight every night. We made it though, and I admit, I LOVE the end result! Special thanks to my mom and step dad for helping with the trailer, Johnathan and just the general farm work for the year. We could not of done it without you guys!

Two weeks before Nationals, my lovely future show star, MT Aztec Gold MMS was sold to a new home. While this is our business, I really enjoyed working with Chief and he will be missed. His new owner plans on showing him in Dressage which he is perfect for. We wish them all the luck! So now we were down to 9 horses for Nationals! We had a nice time at Nationals, brought home a few more titles, and are glad the show season is over. Several of our client horses did very well, including Alonizio CCF again bringing home the All-Around Performance Pleasure High Point Award. Some of our horses we raised and sold also did well, including Nikko TH (Neumeister TOF X Farrah Lou SFF) was Grand Champion Pleasure Gelding! This nice horse also scored 78 points at inspection, making him the highest inspected stallion at the Ohio site.

After Nationals, we attended a Arena Driving Trial called the Fall Frolic to get our feet wet in Combined Driving. We took Mandolyn RVRW, 'Mandy' and had a great weekend. Mike had a private lesson with Andy M and they got along great for the lesson. We enjoyed the Marathon portion and Mike really liked the hazzards, although I had no idea where the letters were, and was completely lost, I wasn't a very good navigator, and I was glad Mike was driving! The Combined Driving Events looks like it could be a lot of fun, and something the whole family could be involved with as even the mini's (VSE, Very Small Equines) are able to be used! We will see where this takes us, but are looking forward to attending some events in 2009! Special thanks to Heather Raw for helping us at the Fall Frolic with everything, Marathon, Hazzards, and course set up! It ended up that Mike won the Marathon portion, and was second in Hazzards! Not bad for first time out, practicing! Mandy loved the whole weekend, and we look forward to using her for this type of event.