Woodfield Farm, Inc.

CONGRATULATIONS!

George Daher recently bought another horse. “Remonte” was found in Holland and imported in January 2006. Remonte is a Dutch Warmblood, 7 years old, bay gelding, 16 hands. Remonte is trained to the 4th level. Remonte joins “Marley MacKenzie” in training with Carol at Woodfield Farm. Look for them in the show arena this spring!

Horse Buying Trip To The Netherlands

Many of you know George Daher’s black half draft horse that Carol has been competing at fourth level. George decided that he wanted a second horse. A price range and horse wish list was decided on and the game was afoot. After several disapointments looking in the United States we were open to looking abroad. Henrietta "Jette" Borst-Eppenauer put us in touch with her friend in the Netherlands, Joke Bruggeman.

Joke (Yo Kah) kept an eye out for the “horse matching the description” for several months and came up with a likely suspect and several more nice prospects that might interest us. There was a flurry of airfare, passport and home arrangements and then we were on the seven hour flight to Amsterdam.

Cold, cold, cold and rain. Well, enough of the weather report. No one in Holland seems to mind or notice that there was only 15 minutes of sun each day so why should I complain? The people were warm and friendly and Joke couldn’t have been a better tour guide/ horse agent. Joke took care of the bed and breakfast, car rental and horse appointments with skill and good cheer.

I had 36 hours of little to no sleep and was less than four hours in Holland but I was trying out the first horse. No matter what other languages you speak, the language of horse is always to same. Remonte was everything we were looking for.

In the succeeding days I stood in my six layers of clothing, seeing many nice horses and riding the likely ones. We admired the quality of the horses, the riding and the training at all the farms Joke took us to.

Driving through Holland, we passed a succession of quaint and uniform farms with their ruthlessly organized gardens. The houses and the barns were under one roof. You walked out the mudroom into the barn proper and there were your horses! Horses, cattle, chickens and agricultural fields were side by side with non-horse people houses.

With the rain falling softly and the temperatures at 32^o Fahrenheit, natives rode their horses, walked their dogs, walked with long poles in each hand for exercise and pedaled bicycles with sedate purpose as if it were a sunny, warm day!

The barns we saw were neat and well organized. The horses neatly braided and clipped. Horses were brought out quickly and efficiently as soon as we arrived. Invitations of “drink some coffee with us” usually were offered after horse inspection. The coffee was superior and was usually offered in a warm room, I rarely turned that invitation down. Most everyone spoke enough English to be understood. There was an interesting diversity in footing components. Turnouts were mostly small for the show horses and two strands of the “hot tape” were commonly used to keep the horses in place.

We spent a couple hours one Sunday afternoon watching a small show at one indoor arena. The Z level tests were roughly equivalent to 4th level and were the “short versions” of about 5 minutes. The viewing room was warm, we had coffee and treats while the horses passed by on the other side of the windows, blowing steam from their noses and sometimes giving “a little look” at us on the other side of the window. The scoring was quite strict with only a few horses getting in the 60’s… and these were nice horses ridden well!

Five days in the Netherlands horse shopping was a terrific experience! Both George and I would do it again, but in the summer time!