CONGRATULATIONS!

I, on behalf of Wolfstone Farms would like to congratulate the following people on their purchases of Wolfstone Farms horses over this past month.

Congratulations to Sian McKee of London, Ontario on her purchase of Valiant. We are very pleased for both Sian and Valiant, we know that they will have a wonderful partnership together.

Congratulations to Andrea Sochatsky on behalf of Oasis Farms in Sherwood Park, Alberta, on the purchase of Wintermarchen. We are looking forward to seeing Wintermarchen's future beautiful foals at her new home.

Thank-you to all who helped to make these sales the smooth success that they were.

Karen.

2007 OVERVIEW

This past year has been quite eventful around Wolfstone Farms. Two of the ten horses purchased from Drake's European trip have arrived safely, Quinty Z and Ulana Lady.

Unfortunately, as can be the case, business and personal relations often do not work together. Do to extenuating personal reasons, I served Drake with divorce papers back in April.

Although not everything has been settled yet for the divorce, the fate of the farm and horses has been decided. I am now the sole owner of Wolfstone Farms.

For those of you who have visited this site before, you may notice a few changes. My view for Wolfstone Farms is very different from Drake's; I am more interested in quality verses quantity, a more realistic goal. Not only must the broodmares be top quality and have proved themselves through sport or quality of offspring and have top bloodlines, but the stallions I will select will be the best from Europe. For any mares that are difficult to breed, Wolfstone does have our own KWPN approved stallion, Lemmod, to breed to. The first two offspring of Lemmod's, Corazana and Caspar, were born this past year, and we at Wolfstone Farms are very excited with them. For any colt to be considered a stallion prospect, it must be quality enough to send back to Europe for inspection, otherwise it will be gelded for sport.

As a result of how time consuming the divorce proceedings were, I did not have the opportunity to show much over the summer. I did get Lemmod out. Of 11 times Lemmod and I entered the ring, we placed 8 times in classes up to 1.35m. I am looking forward to the spring with Lemmod and the other excellent horses of Wolfstone Farms, but unfortunately I am not able to travel south to compete this winter because of the unfinished divorce proceedings. With Lemmod's help, I plan on making it back into the big ring after my break. Between starting a family and then the divorce, it has been 4 years since I have been in the big ring. I feel that I am a little rusty but with such a great horse like Lemmod, I am confident that things will go smoothly.

Wolfstone Farms is looking forward to the expected birth of the two embryo transfer foals out of Ulana Lady by Orame. Unfortunately, we did not have any luck getting any of our other brood mares pregnant. Our luck came when two embryos, from one flush, both were successfully implanted into their own recipient mare. Lemmod did not cover any mares this past year, but he was successfully collected this past November by Dr. Pedro Jou. These frozen straws are available for purchase. Fresh semen is available, but we can not guaranty its availability due to the competition schedule.

I, on behalf of everyone at Wolfstone Farms, would like to extend our best wishes for the coming year!

Karen Billes.

APRIL 2007 ~ WOLFSTONE FARMS' 2007 EUROPEAN MISSION

After viewing on DVD, the 2006 Stallion show at the VDL Stud in Bears, Friesband in the Netherlands, I made it my mission to purchase one particular colt by Chin Chin, dam by Indorado.

This conscious decision led me on an adventure commencing with the second and third round of the KWPN Stallion Approvals in Den Bosch.

We, in North America, in the horse world, should attend at least one of these events in Europe, to fully appreciate what the noble horse means to the masses and not only to the most elite of society. The average knowledge level of the spectator in Europe is akin to the most knowledgeable of professionals here in North America (this is a personal opinion based on experience and careful scrutiny). The energy in the stadium when the finest of stallions are presented is without parallel. The air is charged with electricity that sent shivers up my spine.

Being a guest of the VDL Stud, allowed us a vantage point without comparison. We were at their VIP table, so close to the ring that at times the rambunctious stallions, showing their exuberance, let loose their hind legs causing us at the tables to quickly pull back to a safe distance.

The event culminated with the elite stallion auction in which the champion dressage stallion selected for the 70 day stallion riding test was purchased by the Blue Hors stud for a staggering 430 thousand euros.

The VDL Stud produced 7 stallions that were selected for the 70 day stallion riding test, the highest number of stallions of any stud farm in the KWPN organization. Their Chin Chin/Nimmerdor colt was the reserve champion jumper stallion, second to a grey Eurocommerce Berlin son named Zurich.

After the KWPN stallion approvals, off to the VDL stud I went to negotiate for the colt that I set my mind on and for some fillies with top bloodlines for our breeding program and for sport. While I planned on purchasing two young fillies, I was so impressed with the quality of the yearlings and two year olds shown to me that after the free jumping tests, we ended up purchasing 4 yearling fillies and one 2 year old filly. They all showed an extraordinary instinct for technique in jumping and an uncanny aptitude for finding the jump.

We looked at a few 3 year old stallions and decided on one Tenerife/Indoctro 3 year old to add to our stallion roster and a 3 year old Quite Easy/Little Rock gelding with an unusual aptitude for the jumping sport.

Now, to return to the reason for my trip, the Chin Chin/Indorado colt. After much negotiation & persistence, the Van de Lageweg family agreed to sell me that colt. We all agreed to better the sport and quality of horses here in North America. It is imperative that the Europeans let go of some of their top stallions to like minded stud farms in the rest of the world.

It is with great thanks and much respect to the Van de Lageweg family in particular; my friend & business associate Janko Van de Lageweg for giving Wolfstone Farms the attention necessary to further our mission of becoming a well respected and top producing stud farm of the future, here in North America and one day in the International community.

The culmination of my adventures in the Netherlands came to pass with the purchase of a 6 year old mare, whose dam has 2 approved KWPN stallion sons and another 3 year old stallion son selected for the 70 day riding test for approval status. This would make her the only dam in the KWPN with 3 approved sons. We are very excited to welcome Ulana Lady, daughter of Joyful Lady to Wolfstone Farms. We are looking forward to her career in sport and to her future offspring by embryo transplant.

The next leg of my trip was to Hasselt, Belgium where I met up with one of my good friends, Patrick Berden, who is a rider and friend to many with top quality horses and impeccable reputations.

I asked Patrick to take me around to meet some people that would be future contacts for both sport & breeding stock. I met many wonderful & well known breeders and trainers like, Guido Bruninx (former owner of Michel Hecart’s stallion “Kannen” and Princess Haya’s stallion “The President”). Guido’s yard was in the middle of a very quaint town, with a fresh Belgian snowfall where an inch of snow had accumulated on the branches of all the trees with bare ground beneath. The stable and home was picture perfect with a small river running through the property and a stone bridge leading from one compound to the breeding stable and gave us the feeling of walking in a magical winter wonderland.

We made quite a few new friends that we look forward to dealing with in the future. One particular encounter that I had was with the breeder of world famous Olympic jumping stallion “Animo” Peter Simons. We spent no less than 3 hours in conversation with this energetic gentleman who knew his breeding trivia better then the back of his hand. It was an enlightening experience with an equine visionary. I was shown some fillies in his stable. They were free jumped over one fence. They were all talented but one filly caught my eye. She was a Quintessance Z daughter, granddaughter of Quidam de Revel. She was 2 weeks away from her second birthday, extremely tall and had a hind end that reminded me of my gelding Ronin (you may recall him as Olympic jumper “Play It Again”) that bodes well no matter how you look at it. We set up a crossrail for her to jump, as she was out in a field and hadn’t been brought out for viewing prior to this. As she approached the shute, I saw her assess the obstacle, find a perfect distance and unload a jump with text book perfection of technique. I told Peter that was enough for me for that mare, let’s proceed to the next mare. Both Peter & Patrick were a little perplexed at my request but my fear was that either the price of this mare would increase or Peter would decide not to sell this filly if we proceeded to jump her further.

When the 3 of us sat down to coffee, which I may add we did a lot of over in Europe, I simply stated that there was one mare that I wanted and I wasn’t leaving without her. While Peter was reluctant to sell her, as were there for a show and tell type of morning, Patrick and I persuaded the well respected breeder to part with this filly and his binder full of information on her lineage.

With the purchase of this, the tenth and final horse of this trip, Wolfstone Farms’ 2007 European mission came to a conclusion and so begins the logistical effort to import our new acquisitions to Caledon, Ontario, Canada.

Much thanks to the VDL staff of the Netherlands and Patrick Berden of Belgium for their time, patience, integrity and companionship.

~ Drake Thorens