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BIRTH ANNOUNCEMENT After the stress and distress of the past week it is a huge joy to announce the arrival of our newest foal - OK Hero. He was born at 5.35am today (May 17th) and all went well. His mother, Mary Artman has had three boys in a row! The new colt has very long legs and two white socks on his back feet. He is a playmate for OK Hercules. Meanwhile, Cameo is making a good recovery and is getting stronger every day. We will not breed her this year so she will have a full year to rest and relax.  May 15th 2012 Mother's Day and no foals! Three of our mares are "imminent" but so far have refused to deliver. Song Writer is over two weeks late, Mary Artman is overdue and Camaronni N Cheese who is due on Friday looks as if she will deliver first! They are all "ready" with every indication that the foal is on the way but they have failed to actually get these babies on the ground. ADDENDUM. The news above was posted at 6.00am this morning. An hour later Cameo went into labour. Tragically, the foal was stuck in the birth canal and we could not save her. Kelli Gilson, our vet, came to help us and we have done everything possible to save the mare. There is a possibility that she has internal damage so for the next 24 hours we will watch over her and make sure she is comfortable. If she lives till tomorrow she has a good chance of making it. We had planned to breed her in the coming month but she will have a year off to recuperate. May 9, 2012 CHEX TV in Peterborough visited the farm last week and interviewed both Caroline and Ken. The reason for the interview was to obtain the views of a breeding farm about the decision by the Ontario government to stop all financial support for the industry effective March 2013.This will be devastating on the breeders since we look at a time horizon of 3 years from breeding to selling a yearling. Click on the link below to see the interview. Read More... May 1st 2012 Obviously, the big news is that we now have three foals on the ground (OK Hercules, OK Heartbeat and OK Heavenly) Today a CHEX TV crew came to the farm and filmed our mares and foals and did a "blurb" about the farm. I was out riding so Ken did the first part and then when I came back we finished the session. BIRTH ANNOUNCEMENT Unlike the other mares, Double Creme elected to foal early. Her filly foal by Sportswriter was born at 3.40am on Saturday morning (April 28th) The new foal has been named OK Heavenly. She is long legged and very dark. This is Creme's fifth filly in a row! Now we should get a few nights of sleep before the next three foals arrrive. BIRTH ANNOUNCEMENT We had an unexpected delivery today. We were up last night watching Double Creme who failed to foal. This afternoon, Jewel was in the barn quietly at 4.15pm. She lay down at about 4.25pm and delivered her filly foal at 4.35pm! There was no-one with her, she just decided the time was right (12 days late.) Her foal is called OK Heartbeat and she has a lovely "star" on her face. It took the filly three hours to learn to drink but now she is going full blast! Pictures will follow shortly. We are sure (??!) Creme will foal tonight - Wednesday, April 25th. April 23rd 2012 Well, as usual, our mares are not adhering to the calendar. Jewel (due on April 13th) is ten days late and does not look as if she will foal this week. Double Creme (due May 6th) will probably foal in the next 48 hours! OK Hercules is doing well, he now has his picture on our web site (under Foals) OK Elektra was second in her race this week, she ran bravely and finished well. OK Eros is back to the track and we watched OK Firefly train at Mike Wade's stable. All eight of our two year olds (the "F babies") are expected to qualify in June. April 19th 2012 At long,long,long last the first foal of the year has arrived! Fanciful delivered a long legged strong colt at 8.40pm this evening. She had been restless and fidgety all day and we had hoped she would foal outside in the sunshine but she waited until after her evening meal. The new foal is called OK Hercules - after the God of strength!! He is a dark bay with one long white sock on his back left foot. April 9th 2012 This has been a weird week, both good news and bad news. It started badly - the colt who was injured in his qualifier (OK Excel) was so badly hurt he had to be euthanized. Then, OK Eros who was expected to race on Friday injured himself and will not race for a month or more. Our "slowest" racehorse, OK Elektra ran in her first race as a three year old and...won! Totally unexpected and she will run again this Saturday. Finally, OK Commander is back on the track and raced at Woodbine on Saturday night. He ran a great race against stiff competition and pulled into the lead in the last 100 yards to win in 1.50.3 No foals here yet but we are close! April 2nd 2012 Well the three qualifiers were good, fair and bad!! The good was OK Eros, he won his race. The fair was OK Elektra, she qualified but we are selling her because she is not fast enough. The bad is OK Excel who injured himself at the start and did not qualify. Meanwhile three of the mares at the farm are looking more ready to foal - Fanciful should be first - she is enormous and can hardly walk. Jewel is supposed to be three days after Fanciful but in fact Double Creme - due in five weeks - looks more ready than Jewel. As always, these mares have no comprehension of the term "Due date"!
March 26th 2012 This could be a big week for us! On Friday, three of our young horses are scheduled to qualify at Flamborough racetrack. OK Eros (trained by Ben Wallace) was injured last year and did not race so this will be his debut. OK Excel and OK Electra (trained by Dave Menary) raced lightly as two year olds and we are expecting much more of them this year. We have sold OK Diablo to Mark Lee so the new focus will be on the "F crop" coming to the track this June. March 19th 2012 Many readers of our news will know that the Ontario Government has elected to end the "Slots at racetracks" program which funds the prize money for races. This has a huge impact on the racing industry and on our business. It is hard to know just now how all this will evolve (no good news in sight) so we are trying to adjust to a new reality. We will change our breeding plans to book some of our mares to US sires - the racing in the States is less impacted than the racing in Ontario. Please contact your local MPP and do everything possible to have them see the light! March 12th 2012 The breeding business sometimes seems like one big guessing game! Two of our mares (Stacy and Jennie) came into season two weeks ago. We had planned to wait for their next cycle (21 days) and then breed them so they would be pregnant and ready to foal early next year. So...they both came into season a week early and since we had not ordered any semen we were unable to breed them. There is never a clear reason as to why their cycles go off course - too warm? too wet? but we now have to reschedule their breeding program and hope they will be more cooperative in the coming weeks. March 5th 2012 We have started our grooming program for the broodmares. Each mare is groomed once a week until two weeks before their due date. At that time we increase the grooming to twice a week. We usually do this after the mares have finished their evening meal and for some reason the foals seem especially active after the mums have eaten. It is a real thrill to feel the little guys kicking and moving, we are about five weeks away from the first due date. February 27th 2012 We are back! Some of you will know that we have been travelling in Patagonia (South America.) We travelled over 3,000km by road from the southern tip of Chile north to the mid-point of Chile and Argentina. As a child, Caroline read stories of the gauchos herding wild horses on the Pampas. On this trip she actually rode with a gaucho and galloped across the vast spaces with mountains as the backdrop. There were herds of wild horses roaming and also herds of guanacas (the local llama-like wildlife) and it was honestly a childhood dream come true! Many thanks to Pat, Marissa, Anne, John and Heather who took care of the farm while we were away. January 30th 2012 For those of you who read this and are not resident in Ontario, the news here is the weather! The winter is very weird, we have had some brutal days (minus 28 degrees) and some balmy days. The constant swings mean the ground starts to thaw during the day - sloppy snow and ice - and then freezes overnight. It is like walking onglass! When the snow comes (two big dumps this week) it sits on top of the ice and just makes the slippery surface more dangerous. We have had to keep all the horses inside for several days - not something they enjoy. The broodmares tend to stock up (their legs swell becuse they retain fluid) and they get very bored very fast standing inside all day. The farm looks beautiful blanketed in snow but managing the animals is a big challenge. January 23rd 2012 The farm is covered in ice and the horses are not enjoying it! This week Ken and Caroline attended the Standardbred Breeders of Ontario Association's AGM.Caroline was elected to the Board as a Director and will participate in Industry events to promote the role of breeders. This is an opportunity to make a difference in how breeders are perceived and she is looking forward to working with the members of the Board over the next three years. January 16th 2012 Typically our horses are all coming inside for the night in mid-December. This year, due to the mild weather they have stayed out an extra month but the recent bitter cold (minus 24 celcius here on Saturday night) has brought them all in. We went to see OK Eros train, his trainer - Ben Wallace is very pleased with him and describes him as "aggresive" - a good word for a racehorse! We also visited OK Feisty at her Training Centre with Dave Menary. She loooks good on the track and he is pleased with her progress and her attitude so far. The young horses will qualify in June so we are still a long way from racing days. January 9th 2012 This week we are on a training run. We plan to see three of our trainers - Mike Wade who has OK Diablo (third last week) and OK Firefly (two year old filly sister to OK Amelia and OK Carolion. Then we will see Ben Wallace who trains OK Canada (now five years old) and OK Eros. OK Eros was injured last year but is fully recovered and we expect great things of him as a three year old. Finally we will go and visit Dave Menary who has another two year old - OK Feisty. OK Feisty is the first foal out of Camaronni N Cheese (called Cameo at the farm!) so we are curious to see how she is doing. January 1st 2012 Happy New Year to all our readers. Good news this week - OK Diablo continues to amaze us. After 20 mediocre races he has suddenly come to life. In his last three starts he has been first, second and first again. He seems to understand he is supposed to be at the front of the field! Sadly we also learned this week that one of our mares has lost her foal - CC Stacy was pregnant with a Sportswriter foal but when we checked her this week there is no foal evident. She probably lost it months ago but only now does she show little sign of pregnancy. December 26th 2011 This will be the final posting for the year 2011. We would like to thank all our friends, family, staff and suppliers for all your support throughout the year. We wish you much success and joy in the coming year and look forward to sharing news of great Oak Knoll Stables racehorses! We are adding a broodmare to our band this week, her name is Song Writer and she is in foal to Sports Writer - an odd naming coincidence. The new crop of foals will be the "H babies" so we will have to think of an H song - maybe Hallelujah. December 19th 2011 Good news indeed. We have been patiently waiting for OK Diablo to earn his first victory. As a two year old he was immature and very big so we turned him out to let him play for a few months. As a three year old he started to race this summer and has raced 20 times. Of his 20 starts he has won money in 17 of them. Unfortunately he is nearly always 4th or 5th so he brings in very small cheques! Mike Wade (his trainer) promised us he would win a race before Dec 31st - and he did! He won at Georgian Downs in 1.55.2 - his best time by two seconds. We can finally add his win picture to our gallery of winners. December 12th 2011 It feels as if we are setting up a "holiday camp" for our race horses! First OK Elektra came home for a break. After 14 days in isolation (to ensure no virus is present) she is now turned out with the young fillies - OK Gemma and OK Godiva. Tomorrow OK Excel is coming back for a break and he will eventually join some of the colts. They left here over a year ago to start training and it is fun to have them back - they will be three year olds on January 1st 2012 and will return to training in February. December 5th 2011 We are beginning the complex process of selecting the stallions for the next crop of foals (to be born in 2013) We can choose to breed to Ontario sires (in which case the offspring race in Ontario and we get special breeders awards) or to US sires (the horses race in the States and are eligible for some very prestigious races)We can breed to proven sires (with winning progeny) or new sires coming to the market (more current bloodlines but more risk) We can breed to replicate an existing offspring - a full brother or sister to a foal we have raised or breed to a new cross to see if another sire adds more speed. Thus the long conversations...........Then we breed the mare in the Spring of 2012, have the foal in the Spring of 2013, sell the yearling in the Fall of 2014 and hope to see this animal racing in the summer of 2015! November 29th 2011 A day late this week (oops!!) We went this morning, in the pouring rain, to see Mike Wade and the four horses he has in training for us. The good news is that the youngest of them (OK Firefly) is jogging very well. She looks settled and confident on the track and is showing great promise. The rest..........not so much. OK Diablo (3) wins money every week but prefers fourth or fifth place over any other finish. OK Excel (2) has not yet performed adequately and OK Elektra (2)is coming home to the farm for a rest and a break from racing. All in all they are not nearly as effective as we would like! November 21st 2011 This is an odd time of year for us, the farm is quiet! OK Boromir raced on Saturday at Woodbine and he won his race - he has now passed the $500,000 mark in earnings. He is the most succcessful of all our foals to date. This week is "Power wash week" and the entire barn is going to be washed from top to bottom. Pat Woods, our Farm Manager is a perfectionist and he intends to have every stall gleaming! November 14th 2011 The trip to Harrisburg proved to be somewhat frustrating! On Friday we had planned to bid on seven or eight pregnant mares. The first one we selected we had hoped to get for $15-$20,000 and she sold for $80,000. The next one we liked went for $180,000 so we knew we were unlikely to get what we wanted. The same thing happened on Saturday with the race horses - lots of well healed buyers and very high prices. We still have some other avenues to buy horses so all is not lost. November 7th 2011 We have decided to travel to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania this week to look for new broodmares to add to our band. We will consider getting a broodmare in foal and/or a young racehorse we can breed next spring. This is the largest sale of Standardbred horses in the world and it is an exhausting process to check out all the choices that are available. Watch this space next week to see how we do! October 31st 2011 Happy Halloween! We have heard from two of the buyers of our yearlings. The owner of OK Fabulous tells us he believes the horse came from a "very good home"!! The trainer who is working with OK Fleet claims that she is jogging beautifully and works "like an old horse." Apparently, she didn't start out that way - she leapt into the air one day on the track and was so high off the ground, the handler on her left could see the handler on her right underneath her body! October 24th 2011 The farm seems to be dramatically quieter since the eight yearlings left! We have also sold two of our broodmares so we had 29 horses here a week ago and now we have 19. Tomorrow OK Fame will be shipped to the States where he will begin his life as a racehorse. He is traning with Mike Ford, one of the top trainers in North America. We still own 50% of him so we are looking forward to seeing him race next summer. October 17th 2011 Elation and exhaustion! We are over the moon with our results but so exhausted we can barely walk. At the end of the sale, the top consignor at the sale was Stonebridge Farms (good friends of ours) They averaged $35,941 per horse sold. We stood second!! Our average price ws $35,667. However, we sold one of our yearlings privately just before the sale so if we add in his price we are actually ahead of Stonebridge. What a thrill -our first time ever as consignors and we finish in the top three. We are incredibly grateful to the fabulous staff who worked with us - Jessica Schell our Yearling Manager, Marissa Tinney our Head Groom and Brandon Duchaine our Stable Groom. We had the best team on the floor and it paid off. Our horses have all been sold to great homes with great trainers so we look forward to great racing days ahead. October 10th 2011 Happy Thanksgiving Day to our Canadian readers. It is official - three out of three of our two year olds in training have now qualified! OK Excel and OK Electra both qualified at Kawartha Downs this week. Our focus now is entirely on the yearlings going to the Forest City Sale next weekend. The six horses leave here on Thursday, they have an "Inspection" day on Friday and then sell on Saturday (Hip #s 69, 79 and 104) and on Sunday (Hip #s 163,174, 178) In case you want to watch the results in real time the web site is www.forestcityyearlingsale.com The sale starts at noon each day. October 3rd 2011 Well, one out of three is a start! OK Elegant qualified in her race at Exhibition Park. Congratulations to Steve Downey and Stevie Mason who got her ready to race. The other two contenders, OK Excel and OK Elektra have both got colds and so are delayed in their debut. OK Ebury had a super race this week and finished a strong second, beaten by a nose! The yearlings have only ten days left here, they are really changing fast. They have blankets on to keep them warm -a surprisingly big deal for a young horse! Jess and Marissa continue to do amazing work with this crop - the Sale shoud be fun. September 26th 2011 A year after our yearlings entered the racing world it is finally time for three of them to come to the track! OK Elegant is training in New Brunswick with Steve Downey and will qualify later this week. In addition, both OK Excel and OK Elektra (trained by Mike Wade) are ready to qualify. This could be a fun time at the races! September 19th 2011 Another great week for us! We have hired our new Farm Manager. Patrick Woods comes to us from Tara Hills Stud Farm (one of the premier breeding operations in North America) Pat has experience with stallions, broodmares, foals, weanlings and yearlings. He is also very adept at facilities management and equipment maintenance and repair. In addition to all these skills he is a licensed farrier! Three sets of talent all in one individual - fantastic! Our yearling videos are now available on our web site (you need Flash software to run them) or you can go to the Forest City Sales site and view them from the catalogue listing. September 12th 2011 Great news here this week - we have hired a superb, very experienced, talented and enthusiastic Yearling Manager for the farm. This is a huge step up for us and we are very excited about the coming Sale in October. In addition, we have weaned six of our foals this week - a few noisy days but gradually they are learning to live away from their Mums. Tomorrow OK Excalibur will race at Georgian Downs and today we are going to watch OK Excel and OK Elektra in their first "baby races" at Kawartha Downs. August 29th 2011 Some of the readers of this news will know that Caroline used to run a company called NADUM - an acronym for Never A Dull Moment. It seems the farm is that way inclined..........we had a visit from a TV production company this week and they are considering Oak Knoll Stables as a site for an episode of a TV series! Nothing has been decided yet but it would be entertaining to have our horses as the backdrop to a television program. We sold OK Dynasty this week, she went through an auction and will move to Clinton,Ontario. August 22nd 2011 OK Commander ran at Tioga Downs in New York this week and scored another impressive victory. At the farm, we are working on grooming the yearlings in preparation for the October Sale in London, Ontario. The eight yearlings are groomed in the morning, turned out to play and run around the paddocks and then come inside for their evening meal. They stay inside overnight so that they will not grow a winter coat and get "shaggy" before the sale. Once they are quiet and well behaved for the grooming activities they move on to taking a bath! August 15th 2011 Exciting racing news for us this week. OK Commander is the fastest horse we have raised to date. Last year he raced in a blistering 1.47.4 and then came up lame. He has been off for a year but raced his first race as a four year old this week. He was in the 10 hole (way on the outside!) and began the race ninth of the ten horses in the race. He moved up gradually to sixth place and then in the final quarter he sprinted past the leaders and was the winner! What fun to see him back in action and racing so impressively. Congratulations to trainer Gregg Mcnair and to his son, Doug, who drove OK Commander beautifully. August 8th 2011 Usually we wean our foals at five months but we have had to accelerate the timeline for OK Geronimo. His mother, CC Stacy after six weeks inside with him has had enough! She is not eating well and is losing weight so she needs fresh air, fresh grass and a place to play. Rick built a "window" of plexiglass between adjacent stalls for the weekend. Geronimo could see his mother but could not touch her. He was on Valium for two days and this morning we turned the mare out. She is ecstatic! Sun, food, fresh air and complete freedom to move - perfect! He is doing really well, he is quiet and calm and seems quite content in his new space by himself. August 1st 2011 This week we moved all the mares and foals into one field. Eight Mums and babies are out together and the foals are so much fun to watch as they play and race around the field. Stacy and OK Geronimo are still inside but all the others are loving the summer sunshine. On the racing side, OK Ebury raced in his fifth race today. He has had five starts, three wins, one second and one third - truly an impressive start to his racing career. July 25th 2011 Mostly racing news this week. OK Ebury continues to be a star! He has had four races and won three of them (he was second in the other race) OK Diablo missed one week but will be back at Kawartha Downs on Saturday. Ok Dynasty raced well this week at Georgian Downs and finished second. OK Excalibur is moving from NY (trained by Mark Ford) to train in Ontario with Bob Young. July 18th 2011 Wow! What a thrill, OK Ebury raced today and won his race with ease. In his first race he was listed at 53-1. Today he was 1-4!! We sold OK Destiny two weeks ago and she ran for her new owners and won - yeah! Even though we have sold these horses they are still (in our hearts) ours and we watch them race with great joy and affection. Speaking of which, we are delighted to congratulate our vet, Kelli Gilson on her marriage this weekend. Kelli has been a big contributor to our business and we are delighted that she and Darrell are starting a new life together. We admire and respect both of them and wish them a life filled with love and laughter. July 11th 2011 Now that the foaling season is over and the breeding season is complete we turn our attention to our yearlings (The 8 "F babies.") We have decide to consign our own horses at the Sales this year. In the past we have hired an agent to take care of them and present them to prospective buyers but this year we are going to do all the work ourselves! In the next week or so all the young horses will come into the barn during the heat of the day - this is to protect their coats from the sun. Later in the process we reverse this activity and they stay outside during the day and come in at night to protect their coats from the cold. At the time of Sale they need to be sleek, polished and perfect! July 4th 2011 Happy Holidays to our American friends and partners! This week is more good news than bad, a welcome trend. We learned this morning that our final mare to be checked is pregnant. We bred a total of seven mares this year and all of them are in foal-yeah!! OK Ebury, one of our "babies in training" raced in his first race this week and WON! Amazing, he had the fastest time of any two year old at the track and in his very first start he made $12,000. Congratulations to the Loyer family who own him and train him. OK Excalibur was not so impressive - he broke at the gate and was left far behind the field. Maybe he can learn something from OK Ebury! June 27th 2011 The theme of "Good news, bad news" continues this week. On the Good news front, Mary Artman is confirmed to be in foal. She is the fifth mare to be declared pregnant and she is one of our most beautiful mothers. In addition, OK Ebury qualified this week so we have two 2 year olds ready to race. OK Diablo raced well at Kawartha Downs and finished a strong third. The Bad news............one of our foals, OK Geronimo has been lame and an X-ray this week shows he has a fractured coffin bone. He (and his mother) will have to be on stall rest for a minimum of four weeks, probably longer. June 20th 2011 This is a "Good news, Bad news" week. The Good news is that OK Excalibur qualified today, he is the first of our two year olds to make it to the track and we are delighted that Mark Ford (his trainer and co-owner) perservered with him and has him ready to race. On the Bad news front, Ben Wallace called this morning to tell us that the "star of his barn" (OK Eros) has cracked his coffin bone. This means the colt is off work for a minimum of three months and will, in all probability, not race as a two year old. We had seen him train recently and all of us had very high hopes for him. This is a big loss for us. June 13th 2011 This week we have good news on the racing front. Two of our "babies" are very close to qualifying - OK Excalibur ran a "Baby race" in the States and won his first outing. The race has no prize money but it is a nice effort that he led the field from start to finish. We went to visit OK Eros at Ben Wallace's barn on Saturday. OK Eros has grown and looks fabulous, he is expected to qualify in the next two or three weeks. OK Diablo is improving and has had four starts at Kawartha Downs, he finished fourth this week, inches away from the second and third placed horses! June 6th 2011 This has not been a great week! We checked three mares for pregnancy (Double Creme, Mary Artman and Erin Kay) and none of them are in foal. Typically we are finished all the breeeding work by June 1st but the late foals this year and the weird spring weather have conspired to delay everything. In addition, Caroline was badly kicked by one of the mares so now we have a lame owner on the property! On the good news front, OK Dynasty won her race in Buffalo on Sunday, ably driven by Scott Young. May 30th 2011 So we are busy breeding our mares but with mixed results. All the mares have been inseminated but we have to wait 16 days to know whether they are pregnant. So far we have checked four of them. Two are pregnant : Fanciful is in foal to Jeremes Jet and Whitesand Jewel is in foal to Mach Three. The others we will try again. Jennie is not being bred becuase she will retire this year and live a life of peace and quiet! May 23rd 2011 We are heavily into breeding activity here, seven of the mares are bred and now we are starting the preg checks to find out whether they are actually in foal! Seven of the current foals have moved outside overnight - a big reduction in barn work. The Mums and babies are out 24 hours a day which means we don't have to clean their boxes any more. OK Diablo raced in his second start and did well, he finished strongly and we are looking forward to a future victory. May 17th 2011 Once again the news is late..........However, yesterday was an especially hectic day at the farm. It was a weigh day for all our mares and foals. The biggest foal (OK Guiness) now weighs 265lbs! In addition we had a "Wedding destination" shoot with six models, six photographers, make-up artists, hair stylists, set decorators, florists and a horde of folk who were creating a blog for a major wedding site. The models were stunning and they loved the farm setting, the paddocks and the 150 year old barn where many of the sets were arranged. One model drove John Bailey in the cart wearing a wedding gown that filled the whole bench - it was truly amazing. Despite all the activity we still found time to inseminate CC Stacy so we have now bred 5 of the 7 mares we want to have pregnant. May 10th 2011 Now that there are no more birth announcements the news is late this week - sorry! One of the foals - OK Geronimo had to have minor surgery this week, he went to Caledon Equine "Horspital" and after 48 hours came home for two weeks of stall rest. It is hard on the mare and the baby to have to stay inside 24 hours a day but his incision needs to heal before he goes outside. We had a thrill at the track this week. OK Dynasty was a 15-1 outsider in her elimination race for the Princess series and even though it looked as if she was boxed in and had no room to move, Scott Young drove her to a thrilling victory. On Friday night (May 13th) she will race in the Finals for $80,000 prize money. BIRTH ANNOUNCEMENT We are done! Nine mares, nine deliveries and nine new foals! Bailey Bug (known as BB) delivered her colt at 11.10pm on May 1st - exactly one month after our first foal arrived. He is a brother to OK Eros and OK Ferrari - we have named him OK Galahad. So, we have seven colts and two fillies, a very uneven band. On paper we had expected five foals in March (none arrived) two foals in April (they arrived in reverse order) and two foals in May (the one due last delivered her foal in April and tonight's final foal is actually born in the correct month.) So much for calendars. BIRTH ANNOUNCEMENT After a whole series of late foals, Erin Kay chose to deliver her foal 12 days early! April 27th at 4.02am she produced a beautiful Mach Three colt we have named OK Gladiator. He is the fifth foal we have by that sire and every one of them is a boy. Her three year old filly, OK Dynasty won her race last Saturday so Erin Kay has had a stellar week! April 25th 2011 In addition to our influx of foals we have had a busy racing week. We haven't actually been to a track other than the local track for many months. On Saturday we went to Georgian Downs to see OK Dynasty and OK Destiny race. OK Dynasty ws beautifully driven by Scott Young and she finished the race in front! It was great fun to actually be at the track and be in a win picture with one of our own. OK Destiny finished fourth. Today OK Diablo ran another "practice race" and he may be ready to qualify next week. BIRTH ANNOUNCEMENT Another colt! At 2.12am CC Stacy delivered her Western Terror baby. (April 23rd) He arrived easily and was on his feet within an hour. This foal is eight days late but is healthy, active and attractive. He has a white star on his face (like his mum) and a long white sock on his right hind leg. He is called OK Geronimo (Thanks to Heather's Montreal group for contributing to his naming.) April 18th 2011 The weekend was brutally cold and all our new Mums and babies had to stay inside - they were not happy! We had hoped that CC Stacy would foal last night (her due date was April 15th) but apparently she, like most of the others, is planning a late arrival. We are going to Kawartha Downs today to see OK Diablo (3 year old) in a baby race. This is his first visit to the track and he will see the starting gate, the paddocks and the race world in a "practice" race before he has to go in a real race. BIRTH ANNOUNCEMENT At last, OK Gemma has a playmate! Double Creme delivered her filly foal by Well Said at 3.28am this morning - April 16th. The filly is very attractive and has no markings at all -another bay baby. This is her sixth foal and fourth filly. We have named the new arrival OK Godiva. She weighed 120lbs which is a perfect size. We hope she will prove to be as talented a racehorse as her two brothers - OK Boromir and OK Commander. BIRTH ANNOUNCEMENT April 11th - The last of the "March babies" has finally arrived! OK Granite was born at 12.40 am, a strong colt with a small white star on his face and two long white socks - one in front and one behind. Despite the fact he is 12 days late, he is an active healthy colt. OK Gallant continues to improve and is now out of "Intensive Care". He can stand on his own (after many hours of bottle feeding) and nurse on his own and walk on his own - all major achievements. So we now have four colts (boys) and one filly (girl) -OK Gemma is the darling of the barn and has been nicknamed "Diva!" April 5th, 6th, 7th...... BIRTH ANNOUNCEMENT. We are on a roll! After all the delays, we have had three foals in three days! Mary Artman delivered her colt at two minutes past midnight. She had a very easy time and the little guy is Gorgeous (by name and in looks.) He has a white mark on his face and a long white sock on his left hind leg. He was active and alert right away and will no doubt be tearing around the paddock in no time. OK Gorgeous joins OK Gemini and OK Gallant in the colts list. So far, OK Gemma is the only filly. Now for Cameo to foal......... BIRTH ANNOUNCEMENT The trend continues! Within a few hours of OK Gemini's arrival, Fanciful went into labour. Unfortunately her foal was upside down and we had to call on our talented vet - Dr. Kelli Gilson, to come and help us get him out. It was a herculean effort but he is here now - OK Gallant. He arrived at 3.30am and will need extra care and attention for the next 24 hours. Like OK Gemma he has no markings but he is a huge colt and the mare did well to carry him an extra two weeks. Now we only have two overdue mares! BIRTH ANNOUNCEMENT We have a trend! Jewel has shown the way and this evening (April 5th) Jennie delivered a big strong colt. We have named him OK Gemini. He has a small white star on his face and two small white socks on his back feet. He is the biggest foal she has delivered and she chose to remain standing while she delivered her boy. Ken took pictures which will be posted tomorrow. Heather was with us to assist in the effort - we needed strong hands. April 4th 2011 OK Gemma has been outside playing in the sunshine. Sadly, she has no playmates at the moment! Three of the mares (Fanciful, Mary Artman and Jennie) are HUGE and show every sign that they could foal at "any minute." Our vet was here this morning and cannot understand why they have not delivered - believe me we are more than baffled. Ben Wallace phoned today to say that OK Eros is training very well, we plan to go and see him train as soon as this batch of foals are here. At this rate, the April foals will come before the "March" babies. April 1st 2011 This is NOT an April Fool's joke! At long, long, long, long last Jewel has delivered her foal. OK Gemma (a filly foal by Bettors Delight) was born at 9.28pm. She is not very big but she is truly beautiful. She, like her mother, has no white markings. Jewel is calm and well behaved with the filly, it is a lovely sight to see the new foal and the new Mum together. Thanks to Heather and Susann for their help!
Just in case... For those of you who are wondering, we have no foals! Monday night, Tuesday night, Wednesday night - no success. It looks as if the five "March babies" are looking for an April birthday. March 28th 2011 These words are hard to write - we STILL have no foals! By this time last year, five of the mares had delivered and according to our calendar we should now have five foals on the ground. Whitesand Jewel is three weeks late, both Fanciful and Jennie are six days late, Mary Artman is two days late and Cameo is due today. Of the group, Fanciful looks "closest" but any or all of them could go at any time. There is no logical explanation for the delay and we are anxious to see one (or many) of these little creatures. March 21st 2011 It is hard to believe but we still have no foals on the ground! Our first foal of 2008 (OK Darling) was born on Feb 29th, the following year OK Eros was born on Feb 13th. Last year our first foal (OK Feisty) arrived on March 5th so this year is bizarre. We have four mares under camera and in theory we should have five foals in the next seven days! Unfortunately, none of the mares seem anxious to deliver and clearly they are operating on a schedule that has nothing to do with our expectations. March 14th 2011 This has been a very frustrating week! Despite Heather's careful Foal Watch, Whiteside Jewel has still not foaled. She seems "ready" but refuses to deliver her baby. Maybe tonight....... Meanwhile, OK Elegant has left our farm and is at Mike Wade's training facility to start her work as a racehorse. She was with us for six months to recover from a shoulder injury - she is fully healed and we look forward to seeing her on the track this Fall. March 7th 2011 This week OK Destiny raced at Kawartha Downs. We took Rick Kehoe, one of our staff to see her race. He had never been to the races and we were hoping for a win picture but she finished fourth. On the same day, OK Dynasty finished fifth at Woodbine. In her race the first five horses were all within a length of each other. We have five broodmares bagging up (getting milk) but no foals in sight yet! February 28th 2011 We had great fun on Saturday, watching OK Destiny qualify at Kawartha Downs. She will now resume her life as a racehorse and we look forward to many victories. Meanwhile, the broodmares..............we have five foals due in March: Whitesand Jewel (March 6th) Jennie (March 20th) Mary Artman (March 25th) Fanciful (March 26th) and Camaronni N Cheese (March 27th.)In fact, at the moment the one who looks most "ready" is Camaronni N Cheese followed by Fanciful, Mary Artman, Jewel and Jennie. So much for the calendar! We plan to post each foal's arrival on this page so please keep an eye on the news.
February 21st 2011 Today we met with Mike Wade to review the progress of the four horses he has in training for us - two three year olds (OK Diablo and OK Destiny) and two two year olds (OK Excel and OK Electra) OK Destiny is expected to qualify next week and then will race 2-3 times in Ontario before moving to the States to race in the Pennsylvania Sires Stakes. OK Diablo has been a long project but today Mike described him as a "Diamond in the rough" and we are hoping he will qualify May 1st. OK Excel has had an injury but will resume jogging next week. OK Elektra is a bit of a monkey but her spark and spooky behaviour may bode well for her as a racehorse. All being well, she will qualify in early July. February 14th 2011 Happy Valentine's Day to all our readers! We are tracking some of our graduates - OK Amelia raced in the States this week (at Dover) as did OK Braveheart (at the Meadowlands) and in Canada we watched OK Boromir (at Woodbine) and OK Carolion at Kawartha Downs. This was her final race for us because she was claimed by Brett Reilly. She has won money in 16 of her last 18 starts so we hope she continues to perform for her new owner/trainer. Today we weighed all the horses on the farm, the heaviest is Fanciful (1440lbs) She is due at the end of March with a Western Ideal foal. February 7th 2011 We are one month away from our first due date so we have started the grooming program for the mares. Each mare due in March is groomed twice a week, the others are groomed once a week. This enables us to spend more time with each "Mum" so they get used to having someone in their stall with them. In addition, we can monitor and observe any changes in the mare as they get closer to the delivery date. The foals are very active and some of them seem to like the sensation of the brushing action on their mother's body! January 31st 2011 On the weekend the O'Brien Awards were held - this is the equivalent of the Academy Awards for the Standardbred industry. Most of the awards go to horses (as in the "Champion" horse in each age group) but two awards are particularly special in my mind. One of them is the Cam Fella award, given for meritorious service to the industry. Typically, this award goes to someone who has made a significant contribtution to racing in Canada. This year the award went to a horse! His name is Admirals Express, he was a grey gelding who won over 2 million dollars. He was known as the "Grey Gladiator" because he raced week after week, year after year and became a huge crowd favourite and much loved representative of the sport. He died this year and the award was in recognition of his special place in the history of the sport. For us, the most important award of the night is the "Breeders Award." This was won by Bob McIntosh, a truly wonderful individual who has been breeding and raising standardbreds for over 20 years. One of our mares (Camaronni N Cheese) was raised by him and had her first foal here last spring (OK Feisty) It is wonderful to see Bob's work recognized, he is a very much admired contributor to both breeding and racing and we send him our heartfelt congratulations. January 24th 2011 We had a good racing week this week. On Thursday, our three year old filly, OK Dynasty qualified at Mohawk. She has been off for a few weeks and will run one more qualifier this week before returning to racing activity. On the same day, we went to Kawartha Downs to watch OK Carolion race in bitterly cold conditions. She started poorly but made up a lot of ground and finished a strong second. She wins money in 80% of her races so she is growing up to be like her sister - OK Amelia. January 17th 2011 For those of you who do not live in Ontario - it is brutally cold here - minus 28 Celcius last night. We had over a foot of snow on Saturday so this is truly a winter wonderland. We have sent in our breeding for five of the broodmares, four of them are going to Tara Hills stallions. Double Creme will be bred to Sportswriter (first crop of foals.) Both Mary Artman and Fanciful are going to Jeremes Jet and Whitesand Jewel will be bred to Mach Three. In addition, Camaronni N Cheese (whom we call Cameo!) will be bred to Badlands Hanover. January 10th 2011 Once again we are wrestling with breeding choices for the next batch of foals. We are going to breed all our mares to Ontario sires this year so that makes the choices a little easier. We are also planning to sell three of the broodmares and retire Jennies Girl. That will reduce our broodmare band from nine down to five. We have eight racehorses in training so we are shifting our focus to winning races! Good news from Bob Young, OK Dynasty (now a three year old) is training well and is expected to qualify at the end of this month. January 3rd 2011 On New Year's Eve, OK Carolion raced at Georgian Downs. Despite the pouring rain and a quagmire on the ground she ran very well and finished second. Our big news for 2011 is that Kelli Gilson is returning as our vet. Kelli was our mentor and advisor for the first five years of our business. She helped us design the lab (left-handed!) and has been a key partner in our adventure. We are delighted she is back with us and look forward to an action packed breeding season. December 27th 2010 This will be the final news item of 2010. It has not been quite the year we had hoped for - our racehorses were in many cases a disappointment and our Sales results were very discouraging. To add to the distress, one of our weanlings (OK Firefly) fractured her coffin bone (in her foot) and has to be on stall rest for a minimum of three months. Fortunately one of our staff, Sally Shearer, has a lovely barn where the filly can be alone and undisturbed during her confinement. It is really hard to see such a young animal cooped up but there is every chance she will recover if she is kept quiet until the fracture heals. Sally has classical music playing all the time so the filly will learn to love (?!) Vivaldi! We wish each reader a very Happy New Year. December 20th 2010 Today we held our Annual Christmas lunch for all the people who support us and help us at the farm. Rick Webb has been with us since February 2006 and is our superb Farm Manager. Sally Shearer joined us this year and has proven to be an amazing addition to our team. Anne Sheppard does the evening feeds and loves our horses as her own. Heather Shepherd is our Foal Watch Expert and allows Caroline to sleep during the foaling season. Elisha Dickinson is our vet and has been very helpful all year. Mike Wade is one of our trainers and currently has four of our horses in his barn (to be named OK Stables??!!) Doug Cathcart is our hay provider and has been part of our business since 2005. Roy Austin is a friend and neighbour and a Standardbred breeder who moves our horses whenever they need to travel. If you are reading this news, you are also part of our team. We wish you and all those connected to us a wonderful Christmas, a peaceful holiday and a prosperous New Year. December 13th 2010 OK Carolion had another good race on Friday, she finished second within a head of the winner. OK Destiny had a bad finish, she caught her foot and pulled off a shoe which led her to break. At the farm, all the broodmares are coming in and staying in overnight. It is wonderful to watch the foals kicking inside the mares. Our first foal (Whitesand Jewel is the mother) is due March 6th 2011. December 6th 2010 Victory! Our three year old filly, OK Carolion raced brilliantly on Friday night and won her race. She started from the 7 hole and rushed to get into the first three. Steve Byron moved her up quickly on the back stretch and she held on to win by inches. The photo finish showed the first three horses almost in a dead heat but OK Carolion's nose was just in front! OK Destiny also raced that night but she bumped into the wheel of the cart ahead of her and broke. We plan to go and see her race next Monday at Woodbine racetrack. November 29th 2010 This is our "calm" time of year! The yearlings are gone and the first foal is not due until March 6th 2011. We invited Claude Brault to meet with us, he is an Equine Advisor and is willing to work with us on selecting sires and selling broodmares over the next year or two. We plan to sell some of our mares and replenish the band with younger horses. Claude met our nine mares and inspected the eight weanlings - the first time he has seen our farm and our horses. OK Carolion raced at Georgian Downs and finished fourth, she keeps bringing in a cheque! November 22nd 2010 Two of our horses were racing this week, OK Carolion at Georgian Downs and OK Destiny at the same track. OK Carolion (three years old) raced well and finished fourth. She started from the eight hole so the draw was not in her favour but her driver was pleased with her performance. OK Destiny (two years old) raced very well and finished third, inches away from second! November 15th 2010 The Harrisburg Sale did not go as we would have wished! We sold OK Elite for the reserve price and she will train in Ontario (with a new name, her owners run Lyons stable and name their horses with that marker) OK Excalibur did not make his reserve so we have kept him and he is going to train with Mark Ford - an individual we admire and the trainer of Excalibur's mother, Whitesand Jewel. Today we split up the eight weanlings, the five colts are in one paddock and the three filles are in another. There was lots of calling and fussing for a while but slowly they are adapting to their new playgrounds. November 8th 2010 This is a very BIG DAY for us! OK Elite will be sold at auction in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. This is the largest Standardbred Sale in the world and over 1,000 yearlings will be sold this week. OK Excalibur will sell on Thursday and then we will undertake the long (at least eight hours) drive home. We have left our dog, Viva, with our friends Dick and Susann Chamberlain while we are gone. She will be a "condo dog" for a week and will probably disrupt their lives considerably! OK Carolion raced very well at Georgian Downs this week, she led the entire race and finished a very close second. November 1st 2010 We do not have any horses racing this week but we went to Mike Wade's barn on the weekend and watched three of our young horses at work. OK Diablo is back in harness after a summer break - he has grown quite a bit and looks much more confident than he used to. The two yearlings - OK Elektra and OK Excel are doing well and seem to like their new job. We have a major milestone coming up this week, on Friday our final two yearlings - OK Elite and OK Excalibur will be loaded onto a trailer and will leave here for Harrisburg, Pennsylvania where they will be sold at Auction. We have videos of these two in the Yearling section of this web site if you want to see them in action! October 27th 2010 For those of you who read this blog regularly, apologies for the lack of news recently. Caroline was away in Morocco (attending a traditional Moroccan wedding!) but she is home now and the weekly news will resume on Monday, November 1st. October 11th 2010 We have had a spectacular Thanksgiving weekend at the farm - glorious sunshine and the trees in perfect, magnificent colour every day. We had visitors from Florida (Craig and Shannon Chamberlain) and they had a cart ride with John Bailey to see the fall colours all around the farm. OK Destiny qualified this week at Mohawk, she finished second in her race and had the fastest last quarter. She will race for real money next week! Three of our young horses have started work in the jog cart - OK Eros (with Ben Wallace) OK Excel and OK Elektra (with Mike Wade) have all learned to accept the harness and go to work. October 4th 2010 We had expected to watch OK Destiny qualify tomorrow but she is now going to go on Friday at Mohawk. We will watch OK Carolion race at Kawartha Downs tomorrow night and all our other horses are either training in preparation for racing (OK Eros, OK Excel and OK Elektra) or on a break (OK Dynasty) We have sold OK Chivas, he is now racing in Charlottetown, PEI where he is doing very well for his new owners. September 27th 2010 Good news - OK Elegant is home! She has a soft tissue injury and needs four weeks of stall rest and some TLC before she can go back to training. We have a guest at the farm this week - Shane Burry who runs a superlative B&B (Serenity Ranch) near Ancaster. He has taken a couple of days off the business he runs to see how we run a breeding operation. He is in full swing at feeding all the mares and weanlings with the companionship of his Goldendoodle, Shelby. Yesterday we rode together in the Ganaraska Forest - my favourite activity!
September 20th 2010 Having horses seems to be an unending series of triumphs and tragedies! On the "not so good" note this week, two of our yearlings decided to jump out of their paddocks! They had been cooped up in the Sale barn for four days and then trucked to a new place so the combination of exhaustion, disorientation and new people led them to try an escape. OK Elegant banged her knee (not seriously) and OK Excel just scratched his legs. Oddly enough, OK Electra is usually more skittish than either of those two but she stayed in the correct place. September 13th 2010 The sale this weekend was both a blessing and a curse.! The good news is that OK Ebury has gone to a very good home and OK Eros is with Ben Wallace - a trainer we respect and whom we believe will take this talented colt to a great racing career. The other three yearlings came home with us - OK Elegant, OK Excel and OK Elektra did not reach the reserve prices we set and so they are now part of the Oak Knoll Stables racing group. September 6, 2010 We have uploaded the videos for the 5 yearlings that are selling in the Standardbred Canada Yearling Sale on September 11th and 12th. They can be seen if you access the on-line catalogue from the SC website. In addition they are also on our website however you will need Adobe Flash to see them. If you want to download this programme just go to http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/ August 30th 2010 We are getting several important visitors to our farm to inspect our yearlings. Among them, Mark Steacy came with Howard Pearce (of Landmark Stables) and Bob Young came on his way to Kawartha Downs. We took a very quick trip to New Brunswick to visit Steve and Patty Downey. We had a great tour of their mares, foals and yearlings but the highlight of the trip was a day at the races with them in St John. Caroline jogged their three year old - Dainty Down- with the aid of Steve Mason their trainer. What a thrill to be on the track with a stunning filly we have admired since she was a new foal! August 23, 2010 The most recent issue of our newsletter has been posted to our website. The newletter contains information about our 5 yearlings going to the Standardbred Canada Yearling Sale which will take place on September 11 and 12. Also included in the newsletter are some astonishing statistics about our graduates including the fact that they average $5,000 per race in winnings! To access the newsletter click on the word "newsletter" just to the left of this news item. August 16th 2010 We have recently updated the photos of the yearlings on our web site. The five horses going to the Standardbred Sale on September 11th and 12th have new pictures. Click on the head shot of each one to see a body shot. We will be making videos this week and they will be added to the web site once they are complete. This morning we watched OK Destiny in her first schooling race - she behaved very well and looked quite calm and collected in her first experience behind a gate. August 9th 2010 Another victory! OK Dynasty broke her maiden (won her first race) on Friday night at Saratoga. She raced in a NYSS race and finished strongly. We were delighted to have our first "D baby" winner. Today OK Destiny travelled to Kawartha Downs for two training trips with Rick Webb driving her. She settled into her new role and worked well is a new environment. We hope she will qualify in about a month. August 2nd 2010 It is a Civic holiday here in Ontario but the truth is holidays make no difference at the farm - we are here seven days a week and the horses need the same care 365 days a year! Tim Hallowell, our blacksmith, was here to trim the Yearlings and shoe the riding horses. Friends of ours from Toronto - John and Cheryl Trist - arrived with a feast for lunch so we took a break and celebrated the sun and the summer on our back deck. OK Destiny is expected to qualify in early September and this week she will go to Kawartha Downs for schooling races which are like practice runs for the young horses. She has to learn to travel to the track, stay in a strange place, go behind the starting gate and generally live the life of a racehorse. July 26,2010 A potpourri of information this week:
July 19th 2010 We had a chance this week to visit Mike Wade and watch OK Destiny (2 year old) and OK Carolion (3 year old) train. OK Destiny is growing well and moving beautifully on the track. She looks a lot like her mother - Color Me Beachy so we sincerely hope she will prove to be as fast and courageous as her mother was when she raced. OK Carolion has a big race coming up on Saturday - an OSS race(Ontario Sires Stakes at Kawartha Downs) and OK Dynasty has a big race on Friday (New York Sires Stakes in Buffalo) We plan to stay close to home and cheer on OK Carolion! July 12, 2010 WOW - 1:47.4 - OK Commander burned the track up at The Meadowlands on Saturday in his Meadlowlands Pace Elimination race in near world record time. He now joins the ranks of the five (5) fastest 3YO pacers on a mile track, beating Sportswriter in the process. He led wire to wire and now gets to choose his post position in the $1 million final next Saturday. His mother, Double Creme, immediately sent her son congratulations from his family still on the farm - 2 sisters OK Elite (Dragon Again) to be sold at Harrisburg and OK Fleet (No Pan Intended) a full sister to OK Boromir. July 5th 2010 This has been a milestone week for us - the first of our "D babies" has made it to the track! OK Dynasty qualified at Mohawk on Saturday (driven by Scott Young) We were there to see her perform and were delighted by her race. She is going to New York today to race in a series of NY Sires Stake races. Our 2005 foals are still racing and OK Amelia won her first start of the year. Our 2006 crop is led by OK Boromir who has won $415,000 to date. His brother, OK Commander is the best of the 2007 group with winnings of $270,000. Now the 2008 foals have to prove their ability. June 28th 2010 It was an exciting week watching the Pepsi North American Cup (won by Sportswriter) OK Commander raced in the Consolation race and led the entire race other than the last ten yards! He finished a very strong second in 1.48 We were part of the Northumberland Garden Tour this weekend in aid of Big Brothers and Big Sisters. This is the first time a farm has been associated with a garden on the tour and we had well over 500 people on the property yesterday! Our foals were much admired and the visitors asked hundreds and hundreds of questions. June 21st 2010 A great week at Oak Knoll Stables! First, all our mares are pregnant! Nine of nine in foal - yeah!! We seemed to have many setbacks along the way but now we are done. In addition our three year old, OK Carolion raced at Kawartha Downs on Saturday and broke her maiden. She led the field wire to wire and we have our first win picture with her. It is such a thrill to see a foal you have raised on the track and her last three starts she has been third, second and first so we are really proud of her. June 14th 2010 We had an improved racing week this week. OK Cognac won his race at Yonkers - his second consecutive victory. OK Commander finished fifth in his race and while that may not seem impressive he had the fastest closing quarter of all the horses in his race. He beat some of the most significant three year olds in North America. OK Carolion finished second in her race, beaten by a horse driven by Rick Webb! We cheered her into the finish and she was very close to the win picture. June 7, 2010 Breeding is nearly finished with 2 mares still to verify that they are in foal. The BIG news is that Double Creme is in foal to the newest and greatest stallion - Well Said! Double Creme has an amazing record of producing stakes winning racehorses and her Well Said foal will be one of the premier yearlings in 2012. On the racing front OK Dynasty continues to progress exactly on schedule. She is now down to 2:04 without any problems showing and will qualify by the end of June and then down to New York to race in the NYSS races. May 31st 2010 For those of you who read this news regularly, this has not been a great week! A mare we did a pregnancy check for (Bailey Bug) proved to be empty which means we have to start again with her and it is very late in the season. Another mare (Erin Kay) was given a drug called Estromate to induce her cycle so that we could breed her today. When we checked her she is "not ready" so we have to wait till Wednesday. In addition, OK Eros banged his hock playing in the field and he may need arthroscopic surgery to repair the damage! May 24th 2010 Long weekends are always interesting at the farm - the staff get the day off and the owners get the chores! it is a frustrating time of year, now that all our "F babies" are on the ground we are concentrating on getting the mares pregnant with the "G babies." Unfortunately, this is not going well. Double Creme has been bred several times and is due to be checked for pregnancy in two weeks. Bailey Bug was checked today and is not in foal so we have to start over again with her. CC Stacy will be checked on Wednesday and Erin Kay has yet to be bred. May 17th 2010 Sometimes our horses take strange paths to their role as racehorses! One of our "C babies" - OK Chivas, was sold to Ben Wallace as a yearling. Ben had trained his mother, Bailey Bug annd had high hopes for her offspring. OK Chivas did not race as a two year old and it seemed he wasn't very interested in racing. However to our great delight he has actually qualified and on Sunday he came second and has now won money!! OK Carolion will race this weekend and we are planning to go and watch OK Destiny train with Mike Wade. May 11th 2010 BIRTH ANNOUNCEMENT #8 Our final foal of the year has arrived! While Caroline was away collecting Whitesand Jewel from Blue Chip Farms, Erin Kay elected to deliver her foal (nine days early!) Fortunately Rick had agreed to be on site and he was with her to deliver the foal. The Lis Mara colt (a full brother to OK Excel) weighed 127lbs so he is a big, strong colt. This means that Heather's foal watch duties are complete for 2010 - lots more next year! May 10th 2010 Over the weekend three of our four year old racehorses were on the track. OK Braveheart (in the States) OK Boromir (at Woodbine) and OK Bravo (in Ottawa) and each of them stood in the winner's circle. We only had four foals in 2006 so it is pretty amazing that three of them would win on one weekend! In addition, we have learned that three more of our mares are confirmed pregnant. Whitesand Jewel is coming home from Blue Chip Farms where she was bred to Bettors Delight. Mary Artman is in foal to Rocknroll Hanover and Fanciful is in foal to Western Ideal. We have two more to check in the coming week so it is busy in the lab these days. May 3rd 2010 This is a great day - Jennie is pregnant! We have five preg checks this week but she is our first confirmed 2111 foal. Yeah!! On Saturday we went to Kawartha Downs to see OK Carolion in her first start as a three year old. Driven by Freddie Brethour she raced really well and finished fourth. On the same night OK Boromir raced the fastest time of his life - 1.49.3. He looked truly impressive and of course this bodes well for his full sister, OK Fleet, who is only three weeks old. April 26th 2010 This is a beautiful time of year - all our mares and foals (seven of them) are turned out all day and the little ones play and run for hours on end. Good news from the racing side - OK Carolion qualified on Saturday and will run in her first race as a three year old next Saturday at Kawartha Downs. In addition, Caroline's new riding horse (a Thoroughbred named Cheval) is proving to be a brilliant trail horse and this glorious weather leads to many hours of joy rinding in the Ganaraska Forest. April 19, 2010 This is the most exciting time of the year! We now have 7 of 8 foals on the ground, breeding of the broodmares for the 2011 foals in full swing, 3 horses in training with one, OK Carolion, due to qualify this Saturday. Bob Young, OK Dynasty’s trainer and part owner, reports that she is now training in 2:24 and is on schedule to qualify in June and race in New York State in July. We have just made plans to prep the yearlings starting July 15 in readiness for the Standardbred Canada Yearling Sale on September 11/12 and Harrisburg on November 8. Whew! Caroline and Rick are really busy! April 12th 2010 BIRTH ANNOUNCEMENT #7 Given that we try and post new news every Monday, it was good of Bailey Bug to deliver her foal at 2.00am this morning. She has a big, strong Mach Three colt we have named OK Ferrari. This is the fourth foal we have had by this sire and every one of them has been a boy! This colt has a big white star and lots of white on his feet - he will stand out in the paddock and on the racetrack. We have only one mare still due, Erin Kay will foal in mid-May so we can actually get some sleep for the next four weeks. April 5th 2010 We had thought there might be another birth announcement today but Bailey Bug is hanging on. She is due on April 19th but has been as early as 19 days before her due date in the past. She is HUGE and looks as if she could go at any minute! meanwhile we have started breeding for the next crop of foals - Whitesand Jewel was bred to Bettors Delight on Friday (at Blue Chip Farms in N.Y.) Mary Artman was bred to Rocknroll Hanover on Saturday and Camaronni N Cheese was bred to Mister Big today. We also had a chance to see our young racehorses this week - OK Carolion will qualify in April, OK Dynasty will qualify in June and OK Destiny is just starting out with Mike Wade. She took him on an interesting trip around the track - sometimes on course and sometimes in a direction she chose on her own! March 29th 2010 BIRTH ANNOUNCEMENT #6 Our premier broodmare, Double Creme has never carried her foal until her due date. True to form she delivered her new filly at 4.20 this morning, six days early. The latest foal - OK Fleet - is a full sister to OK Boromir who has won over $300,000. We hope the new addition will live up to her name and to the family reputation for speed! Most of the foals born here this year have white markings on their face or feet but OK Fleet is completely bay - no markings at all. She is a tall, strong filly amd looks like a racehorse. March 26th 2010 BIRTH ANNOUNCEMENT #5 At last, CC Stacy has delivered her foal. Just as she did last year, she was six days late. This is one of the few times we had a preference for the gender of the foal. Last year Stacy had a filly (OK Elegant) and 60% of the foals by Jereme's Jet (the sire of this foal) were females so we had hoped for a colt. And yes, this is a boy! He has a pretty star on his face and a small white stripe below it - quite dramatic. We have named the new arrival OK Fabulous. March 24th 2010 We have delayed posting our news this week on the premise that CC Stacy would allow us to post Birth Announcement # 5. Apparently, she is not interested! She is now five days late and has not shown any real desire to get this foal on the ground. This week Whitesand Jewel moved to Blue Chip Farms where she will be bred to Bettors Delight. It is a nine hour drive one way to get her to the farm so we hope this goes well. Thanks to Anne Vavra for undertaking the driving role, she made the trip easy for both horse and human. March 17th 2010 BIRTH ANNOUNCEMENT #3 In honour of St Patrick's Day, Jennie decided to deliver her foal (12 days late!) Her filly was born at 1.07am and is named OK Firefly. As always, Jennie delivered her foal very easily and very quickly. Mother and baby are both doing well. pictures will be posted in the Foals section of our web site within 24 hours. Special thanks to Heather for watching her through many long nights. BIRTH ANNOUNCEMENT #4 It never rains but it pours! We turned out the mares at 8.00 am today and luckily Rick was keeping an eye on them in the field. Fanciful started to lie down and then her water broke. We got her inside and she delivered a colt - her first foal - by Mach Three. He is big and strong and we are relieved to have OK Fantastic here. This is the first time ever that we have had two foals born on the same day - luck of the Irish. March 15th 2010 This is the "No birth announcement" week! Jennie is now ten days late and despite the fact she practices her "delivery dance" every night she has failed to actually produce a foal. Meanwhile Stacy is due on Friday and Fanciful is due on Sunday so this could be a very busy week. The first foal born, OK Feisty, is a very unusual colour - 90% of standardbreds are brown or bay but we think we may have to create a new colour just for her. We want to register her as "pewter." She is a lovely, dark, smokey grey and if she keeps this colour will be a very striking racehorse. March 5th 2010 BIRTH ANNOUNCEMENT # 2 It never rains but it pours. One day after we welcomed OK Feisty to our world Mary Artman delivers a lovely colt by The Panderosa. She went from "resting" to "delivering" in a very short timeframe. She was asleep at 8.30pm, her water broke at 8.45pm and OK Fame arrived at 8.55pm. There was an audience to see him arrive - Heather (Foal watch expert) Amelia (Offical farm photographer) Ken (who actually helped deliver this one) and Caroline who looked after the mare and foal. Rick Webb drove from his home to welcome the new arrival, give him his shots and make sure he was drinking well. This is actually the due date for Jennnies Girl so we hope to announce another addition very soon. March 4th 2010 BIRTH ANNOUNCEMENT! Yeah, finally after 11 nights of foal watch we have our first delivery of the year. Camaronni N Cheese (Cameo) went into labour out in the field. We brought her inside and she produced a beautiful filly foal. The foal is big and very alert with extra long ears! She was born at 11.00am, a very unusual time for a mare to foal. We think we may call her OK Fame but are waiting to see who else arrives in the next 24 hours before we make a final choice. Two other mares are very close so watch this space..........  March 1st 2010 Hard to believe but there are no foals here yet! We have spent the last seven nights watching Camaronni N Cheese (due last Friday) and Mary Artman (due today). Cameo and Merry as we call them have every indicator in place to show they are ready, they elect not to go into labour. Cameo is enormous and has trouble walking. Merry has milk dripping down her legs but they refuse to deliver their foals. There was a full moon last night - often considered a prime time for mares to deliver - but obviously these two don't know that particular omen. February 22nd 2010 We are in waiting and watching mode. This unseasonably mild weather seems to have confused the mares - they are all bagging up early. Technically, Camaronni N Cheese is the first mare due (on Friday) but it looks as if Mary Artman may go ahead of her. Heather Shepherd has resumed her role as "EFW" (Expert Foal Watch) monitor and she is glued to the television all night long! We will be posting the foals on this site as they arrive so please stay tuned for birth announcements. February 15, 2010 Oak Knoll Stables continues to receive great recognition in the industry! The January/10 issue of the Canadian Sportsman showed 2009 stakes earnings by jurisdiction - OK Braveheart was 2nd in earnings in New York state and OK Boromir was 4th in earnings in Ontario. In addition the February edition of Hoof Beats had the annual 3YO forecast by Stan Bergstein where he lists all the 3YO's who he believes will be outstanding performers in 2010. OK Commander is ranked number 23 (out of 3,000+ horses) primarily due to his astonishing mark of 1:51.4 as a 2YO in 2009 and his win in the American National. Stan's comment was " puts him on the national radar". February 8th 2010 This week the last of our "D babies" left the farm.Ok Destiny (The Panderosa-Color Me Beachy-Jennas Beach Boy) had surgery on her knee to remove a bone chip. She took a little longer to heal than we had expected so last week we had her X-rayed and she is ready to start work. She joins OK Diablo at Mike Wade's track and she will be in harness this week. We expect great things of this filly (her sister is Beachy Girl and her brothers are OK Braveheart and OK Canada) so keep your eyes open for her later in the summer. February 1st 2010 We spent the weekend at the O'Brien awards and were delighted when Fancy Filly won the two year old Pacer filly award. She was also named the top two year old pacing filly in the States. We have her half sister - Fanciful - who is due in early March with a Mach Three foal. We plan to breed her to Western Ideal after she foals and hopefully one of these babies will be as prolific as Fancy Filly who won over $800,000 this year! January 25th 2010 Currently we have no horses racing and the first foal is due in five weeks. So, the big news at the farm this week is.............the cat is getting fixed! Emmett joined us in July and was a free kitten from another barn. Little did we know that this free addition to our business would cost $150 to neuter. It seems vets don't differentiate between a Barn cat and a treasured family pet. However, Emmett is a superb mouser and he keeps the barn rodent free so we are willing to splurge on his procedure! January 18th 2010 You may find this interesting based on some research we have been doing:
*This was the only one retained out of 8 foals – all the others were sold at auction! On the surface it would appear that these horses came out of anywhere but a closer look shows the following: 50% of the horses were retained by the breeder or sold privately 75% of the horses which sold at auction were sold for over $50,000. 63% of the horses have heavy black type in their pedigree. Alternatively, 37% came out of nowhere! January 11th 2010 This week we welcomed a new staff member to our roster - Sally Shearer is working for us on the weekends and will take on Jessie's role when Jessie leaves to have her baby. Sally has experience with broodmares, yearlings and standardbred racers so we are delighted to have her with us. Meanwhile our mares are growing large and we can see active foals kicking and playing inside their mothers! January 4th 2010 It is with great pride and satisfaction that we announce all our breeding plans for 2010 are complete. Four years from now we will know if we have made the right choices! Of our nine mares, four will be bred to Ontario sires and five to US sires. We have chosen two new sires (Well Said and Mister Big) and seven established sires. In alphabetical order the choices are: Bailey Bug - Badlands Hanover Camaronn N Cheese - Mister Big CC Stacy - Western Terror Double Creme - Well Said Erin Kay - Mach Three Fanciful - Western Ideal Jennies Girl - Lis Mara Mary Artman - Rocknroll Hanover Whitesand Jewel - Bettors Delight December 28th 2009 This is the final news bulletin for the year. We would like to thank our staff, family and friends for all your support and encouragement during the year. Some highlights for us - having a horse we raised race in the North America Cup ($1,000,000 race) and another 2 year old race in the Metro Pace. Delivering seven foals from seven pregnancies - six healthy, one problem but he has fully recovered and is fine today.Visiting Twinbrook Farms to see "Star" with her little colt Twin B OK. Visiting Ben Wallace, Gregg McNair and Mike Wade to watch our horses train. Celebrating Christmas at the farm with friends from Chile, Spain, Morocco, Pakistan and (family) from Canada! December 21, 2009 We continue to debate the choices for breeding our mares in 2010. Big news today, we are able to book Mary Artman to RockNroll Hanover. Thanks to Claude Brault for his assistance with this application. For the other mares we are trying to balance US sires and Ontario sires, proven sires and new sires (we want to go to Mr. Big for sure!) and repeat breedings versus new combinations. It is a complex process and we need to find the best possible matches in order to get the finest foals in the year 2011. More news on this next week. December 14th 2009 We went to Mike Wade's this week to watch our young horses train. It was bitterly cold - tough weather to be out on the track. OK Carolion is training beautifully and is expected to qualify in April. OK Diablo, the baby of the group, is working well and seems happy in his new role. OK Chaos continues to keep everyone challenged. He is making progress but he seems to take longer than we would like to get his act together! December 8, 2009 We are just back from Qatar in the Middle East and had the opportunity to see how they trained their racing camels. Two interesting features of camel racing - 1) since the track is up to 5K in length you watch the race by driving your vehicle (usually a Land Cruiser) alongside the track when the race is running and 2) the camels have a robot jockey which the owner controls from his Land Cruiser as he drives alongside. He can activate a small whip and also a loud speaker to urge the camel on. (Mike Saftic watch out - you may be replaced!). BIG event over there with prices for female camels reaching $300,000! Who knows, maybe Oak Knoll Stables can operate internationally!  November 30th 2009 We have just achieved a major milestone! In 2007, our first crop of racehorses went to the track - OK Acrobat, OK Amazing and OK Amelia. The following year all our "B babies" won races - OK Brilliant, OK Bravo, OK Braveheart and OK Boromir. This year, OK Commander and OK Canada have joined them in the winner's circle. To date, these nine horses have earned over one million dollars. In addition, our racehorses finish 1st, 2nd or 3rd 53% of the time. This is exciting news for such a small breeding operation. We feel confident that quality of our horses is improving every year so the best is yet to come. November 23, 2009 It doesn't happen very often! November 16th 2009 This has been a wonderful week! First we went to see Mike Wade and watched three of our young horses train. OK Chaos (2 year old colt) is showing promise, OK Carolion (2 year old filly) is training well and OK Diablo (Yearling colt) is starting out beautifully. Then we got a call from Ben Wallace, trainer of OK Chivas with the news that this colt will move back to the main barn in December to resume training. We attended the OSS Gold Super Finals at Woodbine on Saturday night to watch OK Boromir. he looked well but finished 8th in his race. The really big victory came with OK Commander winning a huge race in Chicago on Saturday night - his first win boosted his earnings this year to $146,000. November 9th 2009 This is, at last, a calm time of year for us. Our yearlings are sold, our foals are weaned and our broodmares are large! The exciting news this week is that Jessie Henry, our longest term employee is pregnant. She and her partner, Dan, are expecting their first child in the spring. Jessie came to Oak Knoll Stables in the fall of 2005 and she has been a key member of our staff since then. We are delighted for them both and wish them great happiness as they start their family. November 2, 2009 We have now syndicated the 2 yearlings which were for sale - OK Dynasty and OK Diablo with OK Destiny remaining at the farm until next spring when she will go into training. We will have 5 in training next year so optimism is at its peak right now. October 26th 2009 We attended the Breeders Crown races at Woodbine on Saturday night. It was a fabulous night of racing with the chance to see Muscle Hill race (and win convincingly) in his final race. Our two year old colt, OK Commander (Art Major-Double Creme- Albert Albert) was the rank outsider in his race but he went to the front from the eight hole. He battled with the leader for the first half of the race and for a few strides he actually led! He tired quickly and finished out of the money but he certainly was fun to watch. The 2 year old filly pace Crown was won by Fancy Filly, a half sister to Fanciful one of the broodmares we have bred to MachThree. It is wonderful to have a sibling of our mares win over $800,000 as a 2 year old. October 11, 2009 The news this week is all racing.  We also saw OK Diablo in action. Very impressive after only 3 weeks in training. We have syndicated this colt - 3 owners plus Oak Knoll. A lot of excitement coming up this Saturday. OK Commander, Double Creme's colt, is running in the Breeders Crown for 2YO pacing colts! The purse is $720,000! The competition is incredible with Sportswriter ( 7 races, 7 firsts) the one for everyone to beat. OK Canada is in the Grassroots semi-finals on Friday going for a purse of $30,000. The top 4 finishers will go into the Finals with a purse of $100,000. October 12, 2009 Click on the icons on the left to see videos of our yearlings. We are off to see our racehorses tomorrow at Mike Wade's training centre. OK Chaos is back on the training track on an accelerated 6 week evaluation programme - so tomorrow we see the results of a 4 month layoff for this horse - who has grown to be a LARGE animal! Also we will see our Modern Art colt - OK Diablo who, according to Mike, has indicated he just may be a racehorse! He has taken to training like a duck to water. We have syndicated him with 3 other partners. The last yearling for sale is our Art Major filly - OK Dynasty who has attracted some interest but has not benn confirmed as sold. Our asking price is $50,000 which is comparable to the prices received by Art Major fillies in Lexington. We want to retain a financial interest in this outstanding filly. We are still open to offers if you are interested. October 5th 2009 Oh the joys of racehorses! Four weeks ago we sold our first home-bred racehorse - OK Amelia. She went to the US and started racing at Yonkers. In her first three races she was 3rd, 3rd and 1st. Last Friday she ran a brilliant race - she came from an outside position to grab the lead at the start and she led wire to wire. She finished in 1.52.1 - a superb time and a great race for her. She has now won just over $96,000 and was claimed for $43,000. This from a mare (Jennies Girl) who made a grand total of $2,700 lifetime and had a best time of 1.59.1. You just never know......... September 28, 2009 Click on the icons on the left to see videos of our 2 yearlings for sale. We have entered 2 broodmares - Stolen Magic and Erin Kay - in the SC Fall Mixed Sale on October October 24th as well as one of our racehorses - OK Bravo. Our policy is to sell 2 broodmares a year and acquire 2 younger ones. While OK Bravo has LTE of $63,150 she will be sold since we also have to keep our racing stock within reasonable limits. September 21st 2009 Visitors are coming to the farm to see our yearling filly - OK Dynasty (Art Major-Erin Kay-Jate Lobell) One of our visitors is Mike Saftic who has promised to give up smoking before Jan 1st 2010!! We have decided to send OK Diablo (Modern Art-Island Escape-Island Fantasy) to Mike Wade so that he can be harnessed and begin his jogging. Interested buyers can see him on the track. In addition, we have a new horse at the farm, a thoroughbred! She is a riding horse for Caroline, a 4 year old mare off the track whom we have named Cheval. September 14th 2009 On Saturday we went to the Canadian Yearling Sale at Flamboro Downs. We had a chance to catch up with some of our favourite people - Pierre Guillemette, Jack McNiven, Tammy and Rob McNiven (and Jenna) and David Reid of Preferred Equine. Meanwhile, OK Braveheart continues to race impressively in the NYSS. He won his sixth consecutive race on Saturday and always leads wire to wire. September 10, 2009 The September newsletter is now available for viewing. Click the link on the left. September 8, 2009 OK horses continue to do well at the track: On average, Oak Knoll Stables horses are in the top 3 finishers of all their races 50% of the time! August 31st 2009 We had lots of racing action this week but the most exciting prospect for us was OK Commander (half brother to OK Boromir) who raced in the eliminations for the Metro Pace - the premier event for 2 year old pacing colts. He raced well in his division and finished a strong fourth in a race that went in 1.52.1 and his time was 1.53.1 The next elimination went in 1.53.2 so in fact he was faster than the winner of the following race! Nevertheless, he is not in the top three finishers of an elimination race and is currently listed as an AE (Alternative Entry) So, we have to hope that one of the current contenders is sick on the day of the race! August 24, 2009 More racing news: • OK Commander ran his 4th race, competing in the Nassagaweya Stakes on Saturday and came 4th. The race went in an amazingingly fast 1:50.4 and Commander was timed in 1:52.3, a full 2 seconds faster than his last race! He is averaging $7,200 per race in winnings. • OK Amelia went wire to wire last night and won her race at Flamboro Downs adding $5,500 to her earnings. Her total lifetime earnings (LTE) are now $68,000! • OK Bravo was back at the track on Thursday and ran a personal best 1:53.3, good for 4th place. She will now go to Ottawa next Sunday to compete in the Trillium series for Ontario bred Mares. August 17th 2009 Over the past week we have been watching three years of our inventory racing! OK Amelia is now four and raced very well at Georgian Downs. OK Bravo (3 years old) raced sucessfully at Mohawk and OK Commander (2 years old) raced in his second start - he has one second place finish and was third this week. But the star of the show continues to be OK Boromir, he raced in an OSS Gold Final on Monday night and went like the wind. He led almost the entire race and was beaten in the final three strides of the mile. The race went in 1.49.0 - a new Canadian record for three year old colts in the OSS Gold series. OK Boromir finished in 1.49.1 - one fifth of a second behind the winner! August 10th 2009 We are starting our Yearling preparation. This entails transforming our somewhat scruffy young horses into sleek, elegant, well-mannered individuals. They need to learn how to have a bath (for some, a tough lesson) how to stand quietly while being groomed and vacuumed (for some, a fidgety process) and how to pick up their feet quietly for cleaning (for some, an opportunity to argue) In September and October potential buyers will come and inspect the yearlings - we need each one to be gorgeous and well behaved in order to impress their future owners. August 3rd 2009 This week we have experienced a terrible tragedy at the farm. One of our yearlings (OK Darling, the half sister of OK Boromir by Camluck) fell while having her feet trimmed. This is not uncommon and 99.9% of the time the horse is fine. Sadly, in her case she was injured. She suffered a trauma to her neck and despite excellent care, her condition deteriorated. On Thursday we took her to Guelph to the Ontario Veterinary College and within minutes the experts had concluded she could not be saved. She was euthanized at once. On our journey home we collected OK Destiny from Caledon Equine Hospital where she had had a bone chip removed from her knee. All in all not a good week. July 27th 2009 As you can see from the picture, visitors from around the world flock to Oak Knoll Stables to look at our horses! This individual is from Quatar. OK Destiny underwent arthroscopic surgery to remove a bone chip from her right knee. She is expected to make a full recovery and will, we hope, race as well as her sister (Beachy Girl, $384,486) and her brother OK Canada. OK Canada won his first start this week and is now entered in the Battle of Waterloo eliminations.  July 20, 2009 More exciting racing news: OK Amelia was brilliant in winning her race on Saturday at Georgian Downs, pushing her earnings close to $60,000 LTE. OK Braveheart won his NYSS race last week to push his LTE to $102,000. OK Boromir got nipped at the wire in a photo finish for one of the Breeders Crown elims. He now goes into the final next Saturday for a purse of $176,000. Boromir now has LTE of $289,000! OK Canada won his OSS Grassroots race on Saturday – his very first race! Also, if you are interested in our quarterly newsletter, just click on the link to the left and you will see a PDF version of our June newsletter. July 6th 2009 Well, our breeding season is officially over. We have nine of ten mares pregnant and that is a great result. We also had six OK horses at the track over the weekend - some we still own but all of them are of great interest to us. Their little brothers and sisters are playing in our paddocks. OK Amelia (our 4 year old) raced at Kawartha Downs, OK Brilliant raced in Charlottetown, OK Bravo (our 3 year old) raced at Mohawk, OK Braveheart raced at Pocono Downs, OK Boromir raced at Mohawk and OK Carolion (Great Owners 2 year old) made her racing debut at Kawartha Downs. We are off on a quick holiday so the next news update will be July 20th. June 29, 2009 It was both a rewarding and a disappointing weekend of racing. On a positive note, OK Carolion qualified at Kawartha Downs on Saturday with a sparkling 2:00 win. We are now looking for a race for her before the 2YO OSS racing starts. Also on Saturday, OK Boromir started in the #1 post in the $1,500,000 Pepsi North America Cup race at Mohawk. The facility was filled to capacity with hardly a spare seat and the show put on by the track was outstanding with great TV coverage of the event. Boromir went off as a 15 to 1 long shot and managed to keep up with 9 of the best 3YO pacers in North America - until the final stretch, finishing 8th. Boromir ended up with a personal best of 1:50.3 but was no match for the outstanding time of the winner – Well Said who tripped the timer at 1:48.1 – a Canadian record for 3YO’s. On the other hand, what a great story for Oak Knoll Stables. From only our 2nd crop we had a horse in the richest race in North America with the 10 top 3YO pacers in North America! We can hardly wait until the racing world sees our 3rd, 4th and 5th crops. June 22nd 2009 What a weekend! One of our colts - OK Boromir was in the elimination races for the North America Cup. 40 horses raced for the ten spots in the final and he made it!! This is the biggest horse race in North America - bigger than the Queen's Plate, bigger than the Kentucky Derby, bigger than anything! The purse is 1.5million dollars. We could never have imagined that one of our horses would be racing in this calibre of event. Next Saturday we are going to Kawartha Downs in the morning to see OK Carolion qualify and then we are going to Mohawk that night to see OK Boromir undertake the biggest race of his life (and ours!) June 15, 2009 In the last week our graduates have had some success in racing. OK Boromir was the most impressive winning his division of the Burlington Stakes at Mohawk and adding $50,000 to his pocketbook for a total LTE of $197,550. It looks like he may be in the North American Cup in2 weeks going for a purse totalling $1,500,000! No to be outdone, OK Braveheart came 2nd in his NYSS race, winning $9,110 for a total LTE of $52,681. OK Bravo continued on her successful 2009 campaign coming 2nd in her Mohawk race and winning $4,750 for a LTE of $39,140. Rounding out the week was OK Amelia who came 3rd at Georgian winning $1,080 and bring her LTE up to $52,681. OK Carolion was impressive in her 2nd schooling race today and will qualify on June 27th to start her racing career. June 8th 2009 One of the thrills of being a breeder is to see your "babies" at the track. This morning we went to Kawartha Downs to watch OK Carolion (Island Fantasy-Jennies Girl- Village Jiffy) in her first Schooling race. She had never seen a starting gate and for the first time, was racing with a group of 2 year olds and experiencing a "day at the track." Rick Webb drove her and she behaved beautifully, she made no mistakes and finished a nose behind the winner. We were delighted by her performance and look forward to her qualifying race in a couple of weeks. June 1, 2009 We had a frustrating AND a rewarding weekend of racing. OK Bravo finished 4th in her OSS Grassroots race at Hanover despite being the favourite. OK Amelia finished 6th at Georgian Downs as did Great Diva (the Great Owners Stable mare). The one bright light was OK Boromir who won his OSS Gold elimination at Rideau Carlton on Sunday. He is now in the Gold final next week racing for $130,000. While we sold him to Frank Baker as a yearling, we are the breeders of record and earn breeders awards every time he wins money in OSS competition. In addition we still own his dam and also have 2 half sisters at the farm. Go Boromir! We are still smarting from the fiasco last week where the scheduled driver of Boromir was taken off the horse for a rules infraction immediately prior to the Upper Canada Cup race. With a purse of $500,000 and every other horse being driven by an “A” driver, changing drivers at the last instant was a real handicap. The driver was apparently fined $100 - WOW– the owner/trainer lost a chance to win $250,000 and Oak Knoll Stables lost a chance to substantially increase the value of the dam and the 2 offspring. We are going to appeal his fine to the ORC and anyone else we can contact who is in a position of authority. What a travesty of justice! May 25th 2009 We were bitterly disappointed by the outcome of the Canada Cup race. OK Boromir's driver was replaced at the last minute so he was driven by a new driver and finished 6th. There is more to this story but the details have not been made public yet. Meanwhile, at the farm we are hoping that this is our final breeding week. Seven of our ten mares are confirmed pregnant, the other three will all be bred before Friday. May 18, 2008 BIG racing news! OK Amelia is back to her winning ways with a convincing 1st place finish at Georgian Downs on Saturday which brought her life time earnings to over $50,000. On the same evening at Georgian, Double Crème’s first foal, OK Boromir won his elimination race for the Upper Canada Cup, also in a convincing fashion and is now into the $500,000 final next Saturday. OK Bravo finished 2nd in her race at Mohawk on Thursday and has now won $30,000 in just 9 races, never worse than 3rd this year. She is in again this Thursday. May 11th 2009 We went to Mohawk on Thursday evening to see our three year old, OK Bravo race. She ran beautifully and in a photo finish, pulled off her first victory. Our friend Peter Berry joined us in the win picture and so did Mr. Saftic - Mike's dad. It turned out he and Ken had gone to High School together in Copper Cliff! This week has also been a surgical series. Erin Kay's colt (OK Excel) developed a scrotal hernia and needed emergency surgery. Dr. Lindsay Colwell operated at Millbrook and he is home and doing well. Stolen Magic's filly (OK Elektra) got kicked out in the field and needed 14 stitches to close the wound. The joys of babies! May 4, 2008 Racing Update Racing is gradually moving into full action with our 2006 crop of OK Bravo, OK Braveheart and OK Boromir racing regularly. So far in 2009, OK Bravo has two 2nds and two 3rds in four races and $12,900, OK Boromir a 2nd and $5,900 in his first race and OK Braveheart two 1sts, three 2nds,three 3rds and $38,790 with a third place finish in the R J Suslow stakes at the Meadowlands. The 2007 crop is training well with OK Canada (trainer Ben Wallace) down to 2:18, OK Carolion (Mike Wade) down to 2:22, OK Cognac down to 2:18 and OK Commander (Greg McNair) down to 2:18. All the horses appear sound and should be in great shape for the stakes season. OK Chaos and OK Chivas have been laid up to give them time to mature. April 27th 2009 Double birth announcement!! What a weekend , what a relief. All our foals are here. On Friday night Stolen Magic delivered a filly foal. Every year this mare has been a month overdue and suddenly she decided to go "on time" We were attending a family function, got home at 10.05pm her water broke at 10.10pm and the foal was here 15 minutes later. She is called OK Elektra (our first Jeremes Jet foal) On Sunday afternoon we had guests for lunch - they left at 3.45pm and Whitesand Jewel delivered her first foal at 4.20pm. The colt is strong and active and named OK Excalibur. Jewel actually delivered on her due date, the only mare of our seven "mums" to match her PFD (Predicted Foaling Date) Jewel's colt is by Western Terror - for those of you who follow breeding lines a 3 by 3 cross. Now, no more foal watch and all seven foals are on the ground. Yeah!! April 20th 2009 BIRTH ANNOUNCEMENT - We have another new "E baby." Erin Kay delivered a colt by Lis Mara just as we sat down to dinner on Moday, April 13th. The colt had a little bit of a rough start but he is doing well now - he is called OK Excel. In addition, we were at Georgian Downs on Saturday night to see Great Diva in her racing debut and OK Amelia continue her season. OK Braveheart raced at the Meadowlands and finished third. Our final two mares to foal (Stolen Magic and Whitesand Jewel) have moved into the foaling boxes so we are looking forward to our last two foals of the season. April 13th 2009 Some broodmares have no sense of calendars.............Erin Kay has been behaving as if she will deliver any minute for the last seven nights, she is still carrying her foal! She is actually due on April 25th but obviously that means nothing to her. Meanwhile two of our three year olds raced well this week. OK Bravo, driven by Mike Saftic finished in a thrilling dash to the wire with five horses side by side. A whisker separated first from second and second from third but she got her nose in and placed second. At the Meadowlands, OK Braveheart (whom we sold at Harrisburg) raced to an impressive second place finish, he is in the money in almost every race he has run. It is great fun to cheer on these animals we raised, we remember them as "babies" but now they are serious racehorses. Addendum: We just learned that two more of our mares are confirmed pregnant - Mary Artman to The Panderosa and Jennies Girl to Royal Mattjesty. April 6, 2009 BIRTH ANNOUNCEMENT Double Crème had her long awaited Dragon Again foal early Monday morning. As usual Crème did it with a minimum of fuss and effort – contractions at 1:30AM, foal at 1:45 and placenta passed at 2:12. We now have OK Elite - a large (116 pounds), well put together filly. Creme’s foals have always been extremely healthy and hopefully OK Elite will follow her half brother OK Boromir (2YO earnings of $100,000+) with another illustrious career March 30th 2009 Yesterday we attended the Winbak Open House and listened to experts talk about Hay Analysis, Managing mares weight during pregnancy and Improving pregnancy rates in Broodmare bands. By coincidence, Ken had to drive back to Winbak today to collect semen (Royal Mattjesty) for Jennies Girl. In the last week (while Rick was away on holiday!) we bred Camaronni N Cheese (to Modern Art) Fanciful (to Mach Three) Mary Artman (to The Panderosa) and Jennies Girl. In two weeks or so we will learn how many of them are actually pregnant! March 23, 2009 All racing news – OK Braveheart ran on Sunday as the favourite at the Meadowlands and came from the back to win in 1:54. OK Bravo ran her schooling race in 1:59 last Friday at Mohawk and is due to qualify this Friday. OK Amelia is back – racing at Kawartha on Tuesday afternoon so we plan to be there to cheer her on. At the farm, OK Eros continues to show great foal speed – today he ran around the paddock in 6 seconds flat! This is one great looking foal. March 16th 2009 It seems as if we are in "waiting mode".....Our racehorses are not quite at the track. OK Amelia has had a cold and is resting for a while. OK Bravo is due to qualify on April 4th and the "C two year-olds" are jogging and gaining strength for their debut in June or July. Rick went to see OK Chivas and OK Canada this week, he thinks OK Chivas has grown a foot since he left here! Meanwhile we had a weigh day at the farm today and OK Eros has gained over 100lbs in the last month - he is a very big, strong, confident colt but if he keeps growing at this rate he will be enormous. We cannot change his diet because his only nutrition is his mother's milk, we may have to wean him early. March 9, 2008 This is Ken reporting this week. I have been appointed to the Board of the Standardbred Horse Owners Panel (SHOP) and am attending my first Board meeting on Wednesday. I agreed to sit on the Board because I believe that owners need to become more active and involved in how and where this industry needs to go if it is to return to its previously prestigious position as a leading sport in North America. We need to rebuild our fan base and join the ranks of other professional sports such as the NBA, NFL, NHL and MLB. I welcome any and all thoughts you may have about what you think is wrong with what we are doing in this industry and more importantly please give me your thoughts about what we should be doing to fill our racetracks with fans and bettors. March 2nd 2009 A great week for us! Our two "delayed" foals are here and they are gorgeous. CC Stacy delivered her first foal at 1.15am on Friday morning. She is a very feminine filly by Dragon Again. We have named her OK Elegant and she truly reflects her name. On Saturday morning Jennies Girl decided to deliver her colt after we had left the barn. We had watched her all night and then she delivered in three minutes! The foal is completely black, not one white hair on his body. He is by Modern Art and has been named after a family member (a tradition for Jennie and her foals) he is OK Ebury - please go the foals section of the website to see the pictures of the foals taken by Amelia (www.flirtphotography.ca) Some of the OK Eros pictures will appear on our home page - he looks like a small bucking bronco! February 23rd 2009 It has been another week of triumph and disappointment! We were thrilled to watch OK Braveheart (the colt we sold at Harrisburg in November 2007) make his debut at The Meadowlands in New Jersey. He did not race as a two year old but came out with speed and style in his very first race as a three year old. He won in a time of 1.53.0 - a very impressive start to what we hope will be an illustrious career. Meanwhile, the two mares due on the weekend (Jennie was due Feb 20th and CC Stacey on Feb 21st) have both elected to wait a bit longer to deliver their foals, they seem to be in no hurry and so far there is no sign of an imminent delivery. February 16, 2009 We have a “character”! On Friday morning at 12:30AM Bailey Bug had the first Oak Knoll foal of 2009. OK Eros is a Mach Three colt, named because he was born only one day short of Valentine’s Day. OK Eros is a “character” with an inquisitive nature, a mind for exploration and independence and more friendly than nearly all our other foals. Not only that, he is blessed with long legs and a jagged white blaze on his head. In a sign of good things to come, OK Eros in his first trip outside paced around the paddock at full speed. In the next 2 weeks we have 2 more mares foaling – CC Stacy and Jennies Girl.  February 9th 2009 Bailey Bug is due on February 17th but it looks as if she is ready now - the foal watch begins! We are thrilled that OK Braveheart has qualified at the Meadowlands. he did not race as a two year old so he is the last of our "B babies" to make it to the races. OK Amelia starts a new series of races on Friday, she will be racing in the eliminations for the Ontario Girls at Woodbine. February 2, 2009 OK Amelia had her first race of 2009 last Thursday and despite finishing 9th after starting from the 10th hole we were satisfied with her first time effort after a 3 month layoff. She should go again this week with hopefully better results. Amelia is eligible for the Ontario Girls and the Damsel stakes in February and March so it should be a fun time. We also visited our other horses in training. Firstly at Ben Wallace’s – 2YO OK Chivas – who has the same breeding as Zooka! Too early to tell how he will do. We were also at Mohawk to see how Bob Young was doing with our 3YO OK Bravo. She looks great and is down to 2:23 on a schedule to be racing at the end of March. Bob continues to be high on her. Monday, January 26th 2009 We have just returned from a superb holiday in Costa Rica (thus no news posted last week) and we are back at the races! Our four year old home - bred mare, OK Amelia qualified last Friday and will be entered to race at Woodbine on Friday, January 30th. This will be great fun for us as we will be at dinner at the track with the Directors of Standardbred Canada and we can cheer on our horse among friends. On Saturday we are attending the O'Brien awards where, along with horse racing fans around the world, we will celebrate the (presumed) choice of Somebeachsomewhere as Horse of the Year in Canada. January 12, 2009 Well, we have finally done it – agreed on which stallions to breed to which mare. It has taken us 3 weeks to reach consensus (Rick, Caroline and Ken) and the results are (drumroll please): We spread the risk by breeding to 8 known stallions who have offspring at the races versus 2 newer stallions. Because of the lucrative Ontario Sires Stakes we concentrated on Ontario-breds this year with 9 Ontario and only 1 US. We avoided any of the brand new stallions since we could not see enough promise in their pedigree to convince us to gamble. Now the fun starts – foaling and breeding! January 5th 2009 Happy New Year to all our readers! On Saturday we went to visit Mike Wade and watched three of our horses in action. OK Amelia (now 4) is expected to qualify later this month, she looks well and is back to her racing speed. Her sister, OK Carolion (Island Fantasy- Jennies Girl - Village Jiffy) looks fabulous - she moves beautifully, is settled on the track and does everything asked of her. The other 2 yr old, OK Chaos, is a different story. The gelded son of Western Hanover is immature and has not made much progress in the last two months. We have decided to give him a break, he will come back to the farm for a lay-up and we will see how he looks in the spring. December 29, 2008 Our new mares are adjusting well to life at Oak Knoll Stables – they love the snow! That’s Mary Artman on the right in both pictures.   December 22, 2008 We have started our research and deliberations about which stallions to match with our broodmares. As a result of the poor experience we had in selling our yearlings this year our strategy has changed to breeding and racing rather than breeding to sell. We also want to concentrate on the Ontario market since there will be additional breeder awards money available to successful breeders. Considering the current economic forecast we also are of the belief that the Ontario purse market will stay strong since it is closely related to the slots revenue. As a result we will breed 75% Ontario sires and 25% US sires to our 10 broodmares. We also will have a mix of the tried and true (e.g Camluck) with brand new sires such as Santanna Blue Chip. One interesting situation is with Jennies Girl who has the poorest pedigree of all our mares but who throws great looking and great performing horses. We will be breeding her to one of the better Ontario sires in the hopes of another great racehorse – who knows, great families have to start someplace! December 15th 2008 We are still trying to get our Florida mare here, the paperwork and bureacracy is mind-boggling! Meanwhile, we have purchased another mare (based in Ontario) to join our Broodmare band. The Artsplace mare is 5yr old Mary Artman - we plan to call her Merry because she is coming at Christmas time. The Jenna's Beach Boy mare is also 5, her name is Fanciful so she is called Fancy. Rick is building special Isolation stalls with extra heaters because Merry is going to experience about a 50 degree drop in temperature when she gets here. This means we will have ten mares at the farm - a full house. December 8, 2008 At this time every year we search for young racehorses that fit our profile of a desirable broodmare. This year we found a 5YO Artsplace mare who has won over $100,000 and is now racing in Florida. We contacted the trainer and owner and successfully negotiated a price. The mare’s name is Mary Artman. Obtaining an Artsplace mare has been a long term goal of ours so we are thrilled. She is scheduled to leave Florida on Wednesday and arrive at the farm on Saturday of this week. December 1st 2008 We have now seen 5 of our 7 yearlings in their training facilities. OK Carolion is moving well and looks a lot like her sister (OK Amelia) The gelding, OK Chaos has started to go well on the track, he looks graceful when he jogs! Ok Canada and OK Chivas are with Ben Wallace and he is pleased with both of them. OK Chivas has had a chance to practise being a free-legged pacer - another Zooka in the making. OK Commander was totally disinterested in our visit, he was the only one who paid no attention and just kept eating.
November 24, 2008 This is a slow time of the year for farm activity. Most of our time is now spent doing planning for the next 15 months. The first thing we are doing is identifying young racehorses who meet our criteria for broodmares. We then contact the trainers and owners and see whether they are interested in selling them. While this approach means that we have to wait a year until there is a foal it is much preferable than trying to buy pregnant broodmares at auction – we end up with younger mares, we are not buying someone else’s problems, and we have complete control over who we breed to. If there are any 3 or 4YO racing mares that you know of that could be strong broodmares, just have the trainer or owner contact us. November 17th 2008 We now know where all our "C babies" have ended up and we are thrilled. The new owner of OK Champagne phoned to say she is in the hands of an excellent trainer who will treat her with care and he has promised to stay in touch with us as she prepares to race. Tomorrow we are going to Mike Wade's to watch OK Carolion and OK Chaos. In these early days, Mike believes OK Carolion is more talented than her sister (OK Amelia) who is our best home grown race horse to date. The following day we are going to Classy Lane to meet Ben Wallace and watch both OK Chivas and OK Canada jog. It is very satisfying to learn that all seven of our yearlings are already on the track. November 10, 2008 All the sales are over and Oak Knoll Stables results were somewhere between Poor and Fair! The 3 yearlings sold in Harrisburg last week with OK Commander selling for a nice $72,000 US – the highest price we received for any one of our yearlings. On average we sold our yearlings for $30,000 this year compared to $47,000 last year. The biggest surprise was the price that Color Me Beachy sold for - $35,000 US. For such a quality mare we had expected $60,000+. November 3rd 2008 Even though OK Chivas did not achieve the reserve at the Forest City Select Sale last month, we have sold him privately to trainer Ben Wallace. We are delighted he has ended up in such good hands and ironically he will be stabled with and train with OK Canada. Meanwhile the final three of our yearlings are at Harrisburg and will sell later today and tomorrow. The farm seems very quiet now that all the young horses are gone! October 27th 2008 We had the pleasure this past week of watching our "babies" jogging! Both OK Carolion and OK Chaos are behaving very nicely on the track. Mike Wade is delighted with the two young horses, they are calm and sensible and seem to like their new job.Meanwhile at the farm, the final three yearlings are only four days away from their journey to Harrisburg and the transition to a new home. We are also selling two of our broodmares - Color Me Beachy and Wiggle Your Class so life at Oak Knoll Stables will be much simpler once all these animals leave. October 20, 2008 One sale down — one more to go! We entered OK Chivas and OK Canada in the Forest City Sale which was held on Sunday October 19th. Prices made little sense with the trotters going for astronomical prices, Western Terror yearlings going for an average of $45,000 and Astreos yearlings for an average of $10,441 (stud fee $8,000!). We sold Canada for $35,000 and took back Chivas since he did not reach his reserve of $19,000. Chivas will now enter our 2008 racing stable under Mike Wade’s tutelage. It is very discouraging to see the low prices of yearlings in Ontario and it makes one wonder whether it is worthwhile to sell our yearlings at auction or keep them and race them. Our next auction is in Harrisburg on November 3 - 7 where we have 3 yearlings and 2 broodmares going under the hammer. October 13th 2008 On Saturday we went to Kawartha Downs to watch OK Boromir race in the 2 yr old Gold Final. The little colt we sold has grown very quickly in the past few months and now he is a big, strong animal. He raced really well and finished second, one fifth of a second behind the winner. He has won ovwer $100,000 this year - great news when we send his brother to Harrisburg in November. Meanwhile OK Chivas and OK Canada have "four more sleeps" here and then they are off to London for the Select Sale next Sunday. October 6,2008 Note: You can see the videos of the 5 yearling going to auction by going to the Yearling section.
Last Monday OK Amelia got nipped at the wire to finish 3rd in her race at Mohawk. She raced well and we were not totally disappointed considering that the race went in 1:53. She has a great chance on Tuesday racing at Kawartha with Rick in the cart. Finishing 1st or 2nd will get her in the semi- final on October 16 at Flamboro. Who knows, she may well make it into the final! September 29th 2008 This is a bittersweet moment. After 18 months of being born and growing up at Oak Knoll Stables, our yearlings are leaving. Yesterday OK Carolion and OK Chaos moved to Mike Wade's facility in Little Britain to begin their lives as racehorses. They loaded well, travelled quietly and disembarked without a problem - a great relief! Tonight, OK Amelia is racing at Mohawk, driven by Mike Saftic, in the number one position.................. September 22, 2008 Last week was a disappointing racing week – OK Amelia finished 5th in her Grassroots race and OK Bravo finished 7th in her 3rd lifetime start. However, OK Bravo has shown us that she can be a good racehorse for us - so much so that we have decided to lay her up for 2 months to let her rest and mature. She has a lot of talent and the plan is to have her back racing in mid March of 2009. OK Amelia needs a few adjustments but will be back racing this week or next. On the other hand we are starting a new year of racing – on Sunday 2 of our yearlings go to Mike Wade to start their training. OK Chaos and OK Carolion are owned by Great Owners Stable 2008 and Mike will be picking them up on Sunday after our Open House. Anyone interested in viewing our yearlings should come to the farm between 11:00 AM and 3:00 PM. September 15th As this news is recorded, we have a power outage because a tree has come down across the road and taken down the hydro lines. Fortunately, we installed a backup generator earlier this year so the barn is still functioning. We passed a major milestone this week, all our foals are weaned. This is hard on the mares, hard on the foals and hard on the people! Tonight OK Bravo (our 2 yr old filly by Astreos out of Bailey Bug) is racing at Mohawk - just her third lifetime start so anything can happen. September 8, 2008 Let’s talk about racing this week. OK Amelia raced in Sudbury in a Grassroots series on Saturday August 30 with our Farm Manager Rick Webb in the bike. She finished 3rd in a tough race which, while disappointing, wasn’t as a bad as it seems. She raced hard and came home in 29.0 – fast for a ½ mile track and now has $37,315 on her card. The excitement is around OK Bravo who was in her very first race of her life and finished 2nd at Mohawk on September 1/08 in a great time of 1:55.1! She added $4,000 to her card for this first time race. Both horses race this week at Mohawk - Bravo on Monday and Amelia on Thursday. We’ll keep you posted. September 1st 2008 We held the first ever AGM for Great Owners Stable on August 30th. This is the syndicate we started with a group of new owners, we bought two yearlings last year and had hoped to have them racing now. One of them has been sold (Great Luck has gone to PEI) and the filly (Great Diva)has had surgery and will resume her training later this month. We are launching a new syndicate (Great Owners Stable 2008) which will hold shares in two of our yearlings , Ok Chaos and OK Carolion. If you know of anyone who would like a 5% or 10% share in the syndicate please ask them to contact us at the farm. August 25, 2008 We spent most of the weekend preparing for and going to the Standardbred Canada Mixed Sale on Sunday. We entered 3 broodmares for sale and were agent for Great Owners Stable who were selling one of their 2YO racehorses.
The racehorse, Great Luck, sold for $10,000 which was our minimum price and one of our broodmares, Island Escape, sold for – get this - $450! The minimums were not reached for the other 2 mares so we brought Classy and Magic back to the farm. They will be entered into another sale, hopefully with better results.
We bid on one racehorse – a full sister to Mach Three with a poor race record - to join our broodmare band. Our budget was $20,000 but another breeding farm got her for $40,000. Our rating system indicates that she is only worth $20,000. It will be interesting to see how the new owners make money on her. August 19th 2008 Once again OK Amelia is the highlight of our week. She was driven by Mike Saftic at Mohawk last night and very nearly won her race, she was just pipped at the post but ran a very commendable second in 1.54.3 Meanwhile, at the farm we weaned OK Diablo, he took it very well and seems quite happy out with the other mares and foals. He and OK Darling are now best friends! August 12th 2008 Close but no brass ring! OK Amelia ran at Mohawk on Monday and finished 4th with a dazzling 4th Q of 28.4, the fastest in the race. It was a great effort for a first time at the A track level. Other Oak Knoll graduates finished well in the last 7 days – OK Brilliant had a 1st in PEI, OK Amazing a 2nd in Clinton, OK Acrobat and OK Boromir each had 3rd’s. OK Boromir now advances to the Gold Finals next week at Flamboro. Go Boromir! August 5th 2008 Once again, the highlight of the week is OK Amelia! She has moved up to participate in the OSS Grass Roots series and on Saturday she travelled to Woodstock for her first effort at this level. She raced beautifully and finished a strong second. At the farm, we are starting to work with our yearlings - they all need to learn how to have a bath, how to stand quietly in cross ties and eventually how to be groomed with a vacuum cleaner. July 28, 2008 Our trainer, Mike Wade is so impressed with OK Amelia’s performance that he has recommended we put her in the Ontario sires Stakes Grass Roots series. We agreed, gave her a week off from racing and entered her in next Grassroots race at Woodstock on Saturday going for $20,000. While it is a long journey to Woodstock she deserves her chance for a shot at winning a stakes race. Rick Webb will drive her. Look for results next Monday! July 22nd 2008 We are having fun! Our three year old pacing filly OK Amelia continues her winning ways. She raced at Kawartha Downs on Saturday and under the guidance of Rick Webb ran a thrilling race and finished first (again!) On Saturday we were at Mohawk to see OK Boromir run in the Gold Final - he raced beautifully and finished a strong second behind another No Pan Intended colt. On the same night Somebeachsomewhere was narrowly beaten by an Art Major colt - Art Official. We have OK Boromir's brother by Art Major going to Harrisburg in November (OK Commander) ...should be interesting. July 14, 2008 Great racing news on the weekend! OK Amelia resumed her winning ways by scoring a solid 1:54:3 win at Kawartha to raise her lifetime earnings to $19,500 and a fourth win out of 10 races. Rick Webb, our driver (and our farm manager), guided her to a perfect trip, fighting off some challengers in the stretch for a one length win.
On Sunday Double Crème’s 2YO offspring, OK Boromir, ran a spectacular race to win his OSS Gold Elimination in 1:55.3 at Mohawk, leading all the way around the track. This is only the second race for the colt and he now moves on to the $120,000 final next Sunday at Mohawk. Caroline and I have only 2 crops go to the races and this is the first Oak Knoll Stables offspring that is in the OSS Gold final. Go Boromir! July 7th 2008 As Breeders, it is a huge thrill for us to see how our "Graduates" do and this year we have both "A babies" (OK Amelia, OK Acrobat and OK Amaziing) and the "B babies" (OK Brilliant and OK Boromir so far) at the track. On Saturday night OK Boromir ran the first race of his carrer and he won! Not only did he win, he raced in a very impressive 1.54.4 He is expected to move to Mohawk next week to race in the Gold Eliminations. This could be quite a summer! June 30, 2008 The Oak Knoll graduates are starting to show up. Last week OK Brilliant qualified in Charlottetown with a 1st in 2:02. OK Amazing raced at Clinton and had a 2nd in 2:03. However, the one to watch is OK Boromir. At Sarnia last Saturday Boromir qualified in 1:57.2 with a last quarter in 27.4. This is truly impressive for a 2YO and hopefully is an indicator of the success he will have on the Ontario circuit. June 23rd 2008 Well, our breeding season is over and ten of the eleven mares we bred are pregnant! Thanks to Dr. Kelli Gilson and also Rick Webb for all their efforts and to Mike Hook who is our semen delivery runner. In addition, Pat Webb picked up semen for us one night so we could inseminate a mare at midnight. Now that the mares are taken care of, our attention turns to the Yearlings . They will have their feet trimmed this week and very soon the whole Yearling Prep process will begin. June 16, 2008 OK Amelia moved up in class at Kawartha Downs last Saturday and the odds caught up to her. The race went 2 seconds faster than she has ever run and she finished 7th. Unfortunately she didn’t get a good start and got caught in traffic but still ended up with a respectable last quarter. Mike Wade, her trainer will be changing some of her equipment to help her along so we are optimistic about next Saturday’s race! June 9th 2008 Our breeding season is over! We have nine mares checked and in foal (the latest addition is Whitesand Jewel in foal to Western Terror) and two others still to be checked. Both Island Escape(bred to Modern Art) and Color Me Beachy(bred to Western Ideal) have been bred and are pending pregnancy checks next week. June 2, 2008 OK Amelia did it again! Trainer Mike Wade had her racing at Kawartha downs on Tuesday, mainly against the boys in race #3. Driven by our own Rick Webb the betters had her down to 1/1 odds. Amelia took the lead on the first turn and led wire to wire winning in a slow 1:59. She is capable of and has gone much faster but in a race you only need to be in front at the end, regardless of the time. Amelia’s earnings are now at $15,615 with a phenomenal 6 firsts and seconds in 7 races! May 19th 2008 We bred Stolen Magic today to Jereme's Jet and if all goes well we will breed another mare tomorrow, one on Wednesday and another on Saturday.Brian Webster came this week to evaluate the yearlings for the October Sale in London. OK Canada and OK Chivas are both going to the Selected Sale on October 19th. In our racing world, OK Amelia finished second at Georgian Downs in Barrie, driven by Tony Kerwood. May 12, 2008 Good news and poor news this week. We received confirmation that Camaronni N Cheese is in foal to Artiscape and will be coming back to the farm from New York tomorrow. We have an active breeding week - at least 3 mares to be bred. The poor news is OK Amelia in that she didn’t have a 4th Q kick and finished 5th in her race at Kawartha Downs on Saturday. On the other hand, she has now picked up a cheque every time she has raced! May 5th, 2008 We are roughly midway through our breeding efforts, 4 mares confirmed pregnant, 4 pending pregnenacy checks (bred but not confirmed in foal) and the three mares who delivered in April due to be bred next week. We travelled to Georgian Downs on Saturday and watched OK Amelia lead the field until the last 50 yds where she was narrowly beaten into second place. She ran well and Robert Sheppard drove her beautifully for the second time. April 28, 2008 Amazing Amelia is back! On Saturday our 3YO, OK Amelia (Aces N Sevens – Jennies Girl) ran her 3rd race of her career and came in a decisive 1st in 1:57.1 at Georgian Downs. Amelia is now 2-1-0. Mike Wade, her trainer had the filly sharp for this race backed up by his team of Duncan and her warm up groom and biggest fan, Billy. Amelia will be running again next Saturday. April 21st Lots of good news this week - on the foaling side we are done! Erin Kay delivered a beautiful filly foal on April 16th, we have named the Art Major daughter OK Dynasty. This is the third Art Major foal for us and none of them bear any resemblance to each other. In racing news, OK Amelia qualified at Kawartha Downs and OK Acrobat ran his first race as a three year old at Northlands in Albert. He won by half a length - his owners must be delighted. We have confirmed another mare pregnant for next year - Wiggle Your Class is carrying a Real Artist foal. April 14,2008 WOW – what a weekend! We can monitor 2 broodmares at a time by a video system which is shown on the office TV’s and on the house TV’s. On Saturday morning at 4:00 AM Caroline noticed that Erin Kay and Color Me Beachy were very restless so she went to the stable to check on them. Lo and behold, neither was in labour BUT Island Escape had a foal on the ground, one week early! A beautiful, long legged but well proportioned Modern Art colt who we have named OK Diablo.
 April 7th 2008 It seems as if everything is on hold......we have three mares "ready to go" in the next ten days. In addition, all our young horses are close to qualifying. This week, OK Acrobat qualified as a three year old in Alberta. We expect OK Amelia to do the same in Ontario by the end of April. In May the two year olds should be running strong training miles and then they too will hit the race tracks. Good news - CC Stacy is in foal to Dragon Again. March 31st 2008 This time of year, the term "preg checks" becomes very significant. This morning two of our mares were confirmed pregnant for the spring of 2009. Bailey Bug is carrying a Mach Three foal and Jennies Girl is carrying a Modern Art foal. Two down, nine to go!On Wednesday we are going to Mike Wade's training centre to meet Mike Saftic (one of the top ten drivers in Ontario) He has generously agreed to drive our two year olds and give us some feeedback on what kind of prospects we have. We hope that OK Bravo, Great Luck and Great Diva will impress him! March 24, 2008 For those of you who read our news on a regular basis, in the past 2 weeks you will have noticed some strange things happening and some items missing from our website. We have changed service providers and some material was lost in the process, such as all the February news items and some horse pictures. All is well now but ain't technology wonderful! Monday, March 17th 2008 Today we went to visit one of the stallions we plan to breed to this year - Lis Mara. We have also bought a share in him and were delighted to see him "in person." He is a big horse (16 hands) and one of the fastest racehorses on record. Dr. Pat Meyers who looks after him describes him as "wonderful to work with" and "an easy horse in the breeding shed." On the way home we collected semen from Seelster Farms and got back to breed Jennie's Girl to Modern Art. Tomorrow we will breed CC Stacey to Dragon Again - exciting times! March 10, 2008 It was a traumatic weekend! Stolen Magic, in foal to Village Jolt, was increasingly uncomfortable and well past her due date. Kelli Gilson our vet recommended that we induce her since the foal appeared to be very large and it was risky for both mare and foal to continue. Magic delivered a large, long legged and beautiful colt. Unfortunately, as is the case with many internally underdeveloped foals, the colt never had the strength to stand, developed pneumonia and had to be euthanized. On a more positive note we are starting our breeding season with 4 mares to be bred in the next 2 weeks and 7 more to follow - it is going to be busy! January 28, 2008 As a continuous improvement to our equine management system (EMS), we have purchased a high powered microscope to support our de-worming programme. Rick Webb, our farm manager, has the unenviable task of collecting samples and determining worm egg count. This then enables us to treat each horse individually. Furthermore, over time we can track each horse’s response to a specific product and continue to adjust their treatment accordingly. January 21, 2008 This week Rick Webb had a chance to go and visit two of his favourite fillies at Mike Wade's training centre. OK Amelia has grown considerably since last August when Rick drove her to victory at Kawartha Downs. According to him, she is not just taller but longer too! She is full of energy and enthusiasm, we can hardly wait to see her race again. OK Bravo was the little foal that had to be carried as a newborn. Now she is pacing beautifully and Rick is very impressed with her action and her attitude. Mike and his team are doing a great job with these horses and we are all looking forward to an exciting racing season. January 14, 2007 We had 2 visitors from Morocco last week – Dounia Amrani and Driss Temsamani – who were fascinated with our operation and especially the yearlings. Driss had never seen snow before and while we tried to tell him that snow is not a great thing he loved it! Since he now lives in Miami he can afford the luxury of loving it and leaving it!
By the way, Dounia’s father owns one of the best restaurants in downtown Toronto – Matignon. If you have a chance to visit this exquisite international restaurant let Mustaffa know that you heard about it from Oak Knoll Stables.
 January 7, 2008 On Saturday we took some of the owners from our syndicate, Great Owners Stable, to see their 2YO's in training. Mike Wade, our trainer, showed off the young horses and explained how they will develop over the next few months. Great Diva won the hearts of all the partners!
In addition OK Bravo is jogging beautifully and OK Amelia is training in under 3 minutes. We are looking forward to seeing all these young horses on the track in May and June. December 31, 2007 HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE! Kelli Gilson, our vet, checked our new mares today – Whitesand Jewel and Camaronni N Cheese – and both are confirmed breedable. Today we finalized our stallion choices with Western Terror to Jewel and Artiscape to Camaronni N Cheese. If everything works out 100%, in 2009 we will have 5 Ontario bred foals and 6 US bred foals. With this many horses on the property we are now planning to rent additional land for paddocks which will allow us to rotate pastures and horses without as many constraints as we now have. December 24, 2007 To all the people who read this site – Merry Christmas and best wishes for the New Year. Big excitement for us, we have added two new mares to our broodmare band. Cameronni N Cheese is a 4yr old Camluck mare who has won $219,000 and Whitesand Jewel is a 6 yr old Artiscape mare who has won $328,733 and raced in 1.50.4 Both these horses were trained by Mark Ford and he is arranging to move them from the Meadowlands to Ontario. We are not quite sure when they will arrive but they will go under lights immediately and then we have the pleasure of deciding who to breed them to. This brings our total number of mares to 11 but we expect to sell two of them in 2008. The other great news is that the pregnant mares have very active foals, Double Crème is carrying a Camluck foal, from the activity we see this one should be a great racehorse! December 17, 2007 Since we were unsuccessful in buying broodmares at the Harrisburg sale, we are in the hunt for racehorses that fit our criteria for broodmares for our broodmare band - less than 6 years old and over $100,000 in earnings. We have identified 9 mares that are presently racing and have approached the trainers and owners of these horses. Everyone is interested in selling the horses but at what price? This week we will finalize our deals – look on our news next week to find out how we did and what we bought! December 10, 2006 This is a quiet time for us, settling in to wait for the spring foals. Meanwhile our soon-to-be-yearlings passed a major milestone last week. OK Bravo and her companions learned to work with hopples. Bravo has been pacing beautifully free-legged so she found the transition pretty easy. Mike Wade is very patient with the young horses and he takes his time with new equipment so they seem to accept his demands quite well. Now we have weeks and weeks and weeks of jogging before they can start to train seriously! December 3, 2007 Since we need information for breeding and broodmare purchases, we have been collecting data about all the stallions in the industry in a fair degree of detail. The information ranges from performance of offspring over time, size of the stallion, to the success of each stallions mares as broodmares. What we also need is "anecdotal" information about all the stallions. We need to hear "offspring tend to be hot" or "throws crooked foals" - information which is from observations. While it may be someones opinion, we would like to be aware of it and then make up our own minds. If anyone wants to send us such info we could consider sharing it, maybe in the form of blog site. November 26, 2007 We have been working on sire matches for our broodmares for some weeks now. Finally the lineup is complete - we are breeding to Modern Art, Lis Mara, Mach Three and Jeremes Jet from Ontario and Real Artist, Dragon Again and Western Ideal from the US. It is always a compromise depending upon whether we are breeding to sell or want the best match possible for the mare. Hopefully we have achieved both and are especially looking forward to the crop from first time sires - Lis Mara and Jeremes Jet. All we have to do now is get the mares in foal - no small feat! November 19, 2007 Now that all our yearlings are gone the farm seems really quiet! This gives us a chance to research the sires we want to breed to in 2008 for the 2009 foals. We expect to breed nine mares. Currently we are looking at breeding four of them to American sires (Dragon Again is the only one we have booked so far) four of them to Canadian sires (we have booked Mach Three and are considering Lis Mara and Jeremes Jet) and the other mare could be bred to either side of the border. One shift for us this year is that we will not breed to a New York sire because we have to move the mare to another farm and we think it is hard on the animals to travel long distances and be away from here for several weeks. November 12, 2007 We just got back from Harrisburg with empty hands. While we got a great price for OK Braveheart the high price was also reflected in the price of good broodmares – way beyond our budget! We are now searching for good racehorses who are still racing and who fit our criteria for our broodmare band – earnings over $100,000 and less than 5YO plus some other criteria. If you know of any racehorses in this category, please contact us – we may be interested. November 5, 2007 Well, this is a major milestone for us!! We sold our first ever $100,000 yearling. OK Braveheart sold at Harrisburg for $115,000. He traveled to the sale on Saturday and had lots of people inspecting him on Sunday and Monday. A lot of the credit for his price goes to Rick Webb who washed him, groomed him, polished him and managed him so that he was in superb shape for the sale date. It is both sad to see him leave us and a relief to know that all our yearlings are now part of the racing world as they prepare for their debut next summer. We have posted their “Graduation pictures” in the barn, a reminder of the B Babies – OK Brilliant, OK Bravo, OK Braveheart and OK Boromir. October 29, 2007 Who are the most successful broodmare sires?
With the fall sales upon us many of us are looking to buy broodmares with the hope that they will produce the next million dollar winner! To assist us in developing a purchase strategy, we researched which broodmare sires have been most successful in producing high dollar winning foals. Not surprisingly, Artsplace mares are the most desirable but the up and coming broodmare sires are Cams Card Shark and Jennas Beach Boy mares.
The full results are in the Research section of this website. October 22, 2007 We are having glorious weather here and our weanlings are having great fun in the sunshine. There is something very beautiful in watching a group of young animals play and chase each other around the paddock! Next month we will divide them into two groups. The four colts (OK Commander, OK Chivas, OK Cognac and OK Canada) will remain where they are and the two fillies (OK Carolion and OK Champagne) will join the gelding (OK Chaos) in another paddock where there is a protected indoor area for the winter months. Nominations close today for the names of our two new syndicate horses, each will be renamed “Great” and another word for the Great Owners Stables. We will announce the name selection very soon. October 15, 2007 Quite a weekend!
We went to the Forest City Yearling Sale where 2 of our yearlings were to be auctioned and we also were looking to buy 2 yearlings for our syndicate – Great Owners Stable.
The Oak Knoll Stables yearlings sold for a little less than what we expected but on the other hand the person who bought OK Boromir out of our mare Double Crème got a bargain. If he does great as a 2YO this will be one of those Cinderella stories that happen every year. OK Brilliant brought more than we thought so somebody believes that they have a winner.
Two of our new owners in Great Owners Stable were with us and we bought 2 yearlings. Tymal Diva is a Modern Art filly out of a Cams Card Shark mare whose half brother has won $165,000 and her 2nd dam is loaded with black type. The second yearling, Direct Business, is an E Dees Cam colt out of a Direct Scooter mare who has won over $200,000. Both yearlings are now with Mike Wade for breaking and training. October 8, 2007 We have a victory! CC Stacey, our four year old pacer, ran at Woodbine and won wire to wire. We are delighted that she raced so well but unfortunately we were not there in person. Ironically we had spent the Thursday evening at Woodbine with our Northern Lights Syndicate members. We had tried to arrange for them to be with us when we had a horse racing but the dates did not work out. Then, the next night our horse wins by a nose in a thrilling finish, four horses crowding the wire and she just hung onto the lead. Many thanks to Susie Kerrwood her trainer and Mike Saftic the driver. October 1, 2007 We have added the videos for our three colts – please checkout the yearling you want to buy! We all found the process of making the videos very stressful. We have trained our young horses to come to us in the field, to walk quietly beside us and to trust us when we are close to them. Suddenly, on “Video Day” we are driving them away, yelling and shaking things and they were truly panicked. We will not be making videos again! When OK Brilliant and OK Boromir leave for the Forest City Yearling Sale, Mike Wade will collect OK Bravo to begin her life in training. Three of our four yearlings will have graduated from the farm. September 24, 2007 Great Owners Stable, our syndicate operation, now has 7 partners who have invested in the ownership of 2 yearlings. We elected not to bid at the Standardbred Canada Canadian Open sale since there were a limited number of potential acquisitions. We have now identified about 20 yearlings at the Forest City Sale on October 13/14 which we are interested in. Bob Young, our trainer, is now in the process of visiting the farms where the selected yearling were bred and raised and will give us his evaluation next week. Then the fun starts – bidding at auction! September 17, 2007 We are fully engrossed in Yearling Preparation for the Sales. Our young
colts are being polished and taught how to behave like adults! The good
news is that they are all accepting the vacuum cleaner. It took a little
while but now they stand quietly while we vacuum their coats. CC Stacey
will have a week off this week but will race again next Friday at Mohawk.
She finished second in her first race for us so we are encouraged by her
progress. September 10, 2007 Our 4YO mare (soon to be broodmare), CC Stacy ran again last Thursday and ended up 6th BUT 1/5 of a second off the 2nd place horse! Her last quarter was a blistering 28.0 but traffic on the turn prevented her from getting free. Always next week. Today we are videotaping our yearlings – this will be fun! September 3, 2007 We have had a week of great visitors. Following the Hall of Fame inductions (special congratulations to Jack McNiven, an ally of ours!) Mike Kimmelman, President of Blue Chip Farms and Jean Brown, Vice-President of Blue Chip Farms came to see our operation. They were wonderfully informative and shared many helpful hints in preparing our yearlings for the upcoming Sales. In particuler, they were intrigued by OK Braveheart because they stand his sire, Bettors Delight and because he is an exceptional colt. We also had the honour of a visit from David and Peter Heffering of Tara Hills Stud. We have two of the Astreos offspring here, a filly yearling (OK Bravo) and a weanling (OK Chivas) They were very complimentary about our facilities and they enjoyed meeting the foals, the broodmares and the yearlings. August 27, 2007 Exciting news - last Friday we launched our new horse syndicate operation – Northern Lights Standardbreds Inc. If you know someone who is interested in owning a partnership share in a yearling to race in 2008 at minimal cost in association with our professionals, please direct them to www.greatowners.com.
Another good piece of news - our 4YO mare - CC Stacy - qualified at Mohawk last week. We are off to the races this week. August 20, 2007 The racing world is an unending series of triumphs and disasters! Just as OK Amelia begins to perform and win, she gets hurt. She has a crack in her pastern, she will have to remain on stall rest for six weeks and will not race again until the new year – her two year old campaign is over and we will wait to see what she can do as a three year old. Meanwhile we are weaning our foals, two of them are no longer with their mothers (OK Chaos and OK Carolion) and gradually we will wean the others. We had a fantastic trip to New Brunswick where we had a chance to visit Steve Downey and see his “Downeast Stables” – wonderful hospitality and beyond belief lobster! August 13,2008 Caroline’s pet – 2YO OK Amelia – swept the field last Thursday with an exciting win at Kawartha Downs. OK Amelia, with Rick Webb in the bike, took charge rounding the bend and never looked back going down the stretch for her first career win in 1:59.3. The plan is to keep racing her at Kawartha to give her experience and then make a decision about moving her to a higher purse races at other tracks. August 6, 2007 A thrilling event for us! Our first “homebred” filly raced for us at Kawartha downs. OK Amelia, trained by Mike Wade, driven by Rick Webb, groomed by Duncan Brock and warmed up by Bill put in a fabulous performance. She ran four wide at the last turn and still finished a close second. We were delighted by her performance and look forward to an exciting season with her. July 30, 2007 Our first Oak Knoll Stables bred and owned horse has made it to the races! OK Amelia, the daughter of Aces N Sevens and Jennies Girl qualified in a fast 1:58 at Kawartha Downs on July 26th. This Thursday, August 2nd, will be exciting when she runs her maiden race at Kawartha for a purse of $5,800 against a group of 3 and 4 year olds. Rick Webb, our farm manager, is driving OK Amelia as he did for her training and qualifying races. We’ll keep you posted! July 23, 2007 We had the great pleasure of a visit from Jack McNiven of Killean Acres – he came to the farm to help us with our Yearling preparation. He is acknowledged in the industry as a master in the art of bringing young horses to the sales. He generously offered to share his wisdom, his experience and his expertise. He actually demonstrated some of the grooming techniques on OK Boromir (No Pan Intended- Double Crème) The colt loved the experience and his coat is still glowing! Jack’s guidance will be invaluable to us as we work with the horses that are destined for the Harrisburg Sale and the Forest City Yearling Sale. July 16, 2007 Our 2YO mare OK Amelia (Aces N Sevens/Jennies Girl/Village Jiffy) had her first schooling race last week at Kawartha Downs. Rick Webb, our farm manager, drove her and she handled the track like a pro. No hesitation, responded when asked and didn’t shy away from the gate. The time was 2:07 without any urging. We are looking forward to a fun summer of racing Amelia after she qualifies in 2 weeks. July 9, 2007 We now have our final broodmare/sire pregnancy lineup for the 2008 foaling season – 6 foals from Cams Card Shark, The Panderosa, Village Jolt, Camluck, Art Major and Modern Art (4 US and 2 Cdn.). Three of our mares will be barren and in fact we have put CC Stacy back in training to race for the balance of this year. We always hope for more breeding success but coming off 100% success - 7 mares with 7 foals - in 2007 perhaps the odds are catching up with us. July 2, 2007 One of our foals – OK Commander had to have surgery to repair damage to his back leg caused by a kick. (We think his mother, Double Crème may have lashed out at another mare and inadvertently caught her own foal in the line of fire.) We are fortunate to have the opportunity to work with Dr Marc Desjardins of the Milton Equine Hospital – he is a renowned Equine surgeon and he and Kelli Gilson have managed this case together. The little colt has been remarkably co-operative and his wound is healing well. He stays indoors during the day to avoid the flies and is turned out at night – he plays and bucks in the paddock so we think he is feeling better now. June 25, 2007 We are now in the final stretch of breeding – in fact we may be at the finish line! Kelli Gilson, our vet, has confirmed that out of 9 mares we have 5 mares in foal, 1 probable and 1 to be checked on Friday. It will be a great 2008 if everything goes according to plan since we would have foals from some very exciting sires - Modern Art, Camluck, Art Major, Village Jolt, The Panderosa, Mach Three and Cams Card Shark – 3 Canadian and 4 US breds. June 18, 2007 At last we have all our foals at home – Erin Kay travelled back from New York on Friday and we watched with delight as her 8 week old colt, OK Cognac, set foot on his home turf for the first time. He is a lovely, long legged little guy and bears no resemblance to his half brother, OK Braveheart (both of them are sons of Bettor’s Delight) Today we weighed all our foals, yearlings and broodmares (a monthly ritual at Oak Knoll Stables) and were entertained to discover that one of the yearlings - OK Brilliant - has increased his weight to 1000lbs and actually weighs more than one of our broodmares! He is a huge colt and looks more like a two year old than a yearling. June 11, 2007 We sold our last non-Oak Knoll Stables bred horse on Sunday. Santana Seelster, who we purchased at the Forest City Sale as a yearling in 2004, was sold in the Standardbred Canada Spring Fling mixed sale on Sunday. Santana won $35,000 for us but we felt that she was worth more as a racehorse than a broodmare. However, she brought the low end of our range - $15,000 – but a bargain for her new owner. We now only have Oak Knoll bred horses with the first crop (all the “A” babies) at the track this summer. June 4, 2007 Exciting news for us – new pregnancies to announce! Erin Kay is in foal to Art Major and will be traveling home in mid-June. In addition, Color Me Beachy is in foal to The Panderosa and our new mare Island Escape is now in foal to Modern Art. In the ”very exciting category” Caroline had a chance to drive our 2YO racehorse, OK Amelia, this week – the first of our home bred foals we have kept for ourselves. She is training well and we anticipate that she will qualify at the end of July. What a coincidence - for a few minutes we shared the track with one of the premier Canadian racehorses - Invitro is at the same training stable as Amelia!! May 28, 2007 The Two’s In Training sale is now history and OK Acrobat and OK Amazing have a new owner. Steve Mitchell from Alberta is establishing a new racing stable in the East and he purchased both geldings. While we hoped that the sales prices ($14,000 and $15,000) would be greater it is satisfying to know that they are going to a good owner and will continue to be together as an OK team. We will keep you posted on their successes during the summer. May 21, 2007 Big excitement at the farm this week - for the first time in our business we took two year olds we had raised and sent them out to qualify. Both OK Amazing (the Presidential Ball colt) and OK Acrobat (the Mach Three colt) behaved very well and finished their mile successfully. Tim Gillespie, the trainer and Rick Webb, the driver were delighted to have both these young horses perform so well. Next week they go to the Two\'s In Training sale. Meanwhile we have moved our six mares and foals into one extended paddock, they look truly beautiful out basking in the sun. The four colts and two fillies are learning to play together and we hope OK Cognac will return from New York soon to join them. We are waiting to hear that Erin Kay is in foal to Art Major before she returns to us from Blue Chip Farms. May 14, 2007 Our 2YO colts – OK Amazing and OK Acrobat – were in a schooling race on Saturday at Kawartha Downs. Both colts were very impressive! They were the only 2YO’s in the schoolers and they ran as though they were experienced racehorses – no holding back from the gate, no hesitation when asked to move out and no problem accelerating on the stretch. These colts should be standouts when they go into the 2YO sale on May 27th! May 7, 2007 You know our lives are hectic when the update is late! This is a big training week for us. We went to see OK Amelia train with Mike Wade. She looks terrific, she has grown quite extensively in the past month and has added bulk – she looks like a real race horse. Our geldings went to Kawartha Downs today – their first trip away from their home track. Both OK Acrobat and OK Amazing behaved like pros, they were settled and attentive and performed very impressively on the track. Thanks to Tim Gillespie for getting them ready for the sale on May 27th and to Rick Webb for driving OK Acrobat in the schooling work today. We are going to Woodbine on Thursday to watch Santana Seelster race – her last performance before moving to Mohawk. May 1, 2007 Last week we traveled to Blue Chip Farm in Walkill NY to see our Art Major colt out of Erin Kay and to visit with the Blue Chip people. Blue Chip is the home of Art Major and Bettors Delight and is located about 80 miles west of New York City on 600 acres of rolling land. We were treated wonderfully by the management of the farm and got to see exactly how a 1st class facility is managed. We named the colt OK Cognac and he is one great looking foal! We also had a chance to see Art Major (Erin Kay will be bred to him) and he is a magnificent looking stallion. No wonder OK Commander is also so good looking and with great presence. April 23, 2007 Twins – sort of! Despite the fact these two mares were due ten days apart, they managed to deliver on the same day. Erin Kay had a Bettor’s Delight colt, born at Blue Chip Farms, at 1.40am on April 17th. The call came into the barn as we were working with Wiggle Your Class to deliver her Art Major filly. It was an extremely difficult delivery and sincere gratitude goes out to Kelli Gilson (our vet) and Rick Webb for – literally – dragging this foal into the world. The filly is called OK Champagne, she is making remarkable progress and is turned out in the paddock every day. We have named the colt OK Cognac and will travel to Blue Chip today to see him. April 16, 2007 One more foal – 3 to go! Last Thursday Bailey Bug had a great looking Astreos colt. This one is a handful – big, strong and active. The remaining foals to arrive are sired by Art Major (Wiggle Your Class), Bettors Delight (Erin Kay) and Royal Mattjesty (Color Me Beachy). We are still projecting that these 3 will arrive by the end of April. April 9, 2007 We are anticipating three foals this week, Erin Kay is five days late and both Bailey Bug and Wiggle Your class could deliver “at any minute.” We have undertaken a big step in our feeding program. We are working with Robert Van Camp and Vernon Avery of Brooks’ feed in Port Perry. We have bought a new scale and started a monthly measuring program to track the growth of our yearlings and foals. Each animal will have an individual profile matched against the norm for an animal of that age. We can rapidly identify growth spurts, weight change or an indication for a ration adjustment. Both Robert and Vernon have great expertise in feeding and managing young horses so we are very excited about our new partnership. All our horses are fed exclusively with Kentucky Equine Research products. April 2, 2007 Sanatana Seelster continues to show good form. She had her second straight victory last Monday and is the favourite in the 5th race at Woodbine tonight. Compared to her 2YO season the Camluck filly has lengthened her stride and is responding well to her driver who has yet to touch her in the stretch. Foal watch starts again this week with foals due each week of April. Then we are finished for the year! March 26, 2007 We are back at the track! Last Monday our three year old filly, Santana Seelster raced at Woodbine. Paul MacDonnell drove her beautifully and she won by two and a half lengths!
We also visited our two year old filly – OK Amelia who is jogging with Mike Wade. She looks very fluid on the track and Mike is pleased with her progress. She has settled into his barn and is (so far!) behaving beautifully.
Meanwhile we are having fun with our three foals, they are out playing every day and growing rapidly. March 19, 2007 We have added a new feature to our website. You can now view the pedigree for any horse in our stable by highlighting the horse and then clicking on the link displayed in the picture of the horse. This will bring up a Standardbred Canada breeding and sale pedigree report showing complete details of the dam and 2nd and 3rd dams with offspring earnings. The data reflects the most current information on all the offspring, including race winnings of the previous night. March 12, 2007 Now that all our “early” foals are on the ground we are preparing for the four foals due in April. Erin Kay has moved to Blue Chip Farms where she will deliver her Bettor’s Delight foal. After she recovers, she will be bred to Art Major and then return to Oak Knoll Stables later in the summer. We are hoping to travel to Blue Chip to see the mare foal but given our record with due dates it is a bit of a trick to predict when these foals hit the ground! Meanwhile OK Chaos is making remarkable progress and he will be turned out in a paddock today. Stolen Magic will be relieved to get outside, she has been in the stall with him since Feb 21st. March 5, 2007 Quite a week! OK Chaos returned home and has shown an amazing recovery – a large colt who is bucking, kicking and running around his stall! On Thursday Double Crème had a beautiful fine boned Art Major colt (OK Commander) who is now running around his stall. Last night - Sunday night - Jennies Girl only took 5 minutes to deliver a gorgeous Island Fantasy filly (OK Carolion) who is now (6 hours later) following her mother around the barn when being relocated to another stall. All foals are in great shape and look like WINNERS! See the Foal section for the latest pictures. February 27, 2006 An intriguing week for us – one we would never have predicted. Stolen Magic delivered a stunning colt on Wednesday evening and it seemed all was well with him. However, a few hours later he developed a hernia which rapidly grew to be a life threatening situation. We planned to send him to Guelph but the storm conditions (major snowfall and very icy roads) suggested he might not survive the journey. Our vet and her colleagues at Millbrook Equine Clinic agreed to take him as an emergency procedure so at the tender age of 15 hours he underwent major surgery. The three young women vets took turns nursing him over the next four days and he is now home with us. We have named him OK Chaos! Very special thanks to Kelli, Lindsay and Kristin who pulled him through this ordeal. February 20, 2007 Our 2YO’s – OK Amazing (Presidential Ball) and OK Acrobat (Mach Three) -continue to come along nicely. When they started in November/06, Amazing took to the bike and track like a duck to water but Acrobat was a handful! Last week, our trainer Tim Gillespie reported that they were both doing 2:50 and Acrobat was on course to overtake Amazing. Both 2YO’s are being trained to qualify at the time of the 2YO In Training sale in late May. February 12, 2007 We are still waiting for Stolen Magic to foal!
During our travels in the North Island of New Zealand we drove past a stud farm and decided on the spur of the moment to drop in and talk to the owners. We had the great good fortune to meet Greg and Tina Tilden, the Studmasters at Woodlands Stud. This is one of the premier breeding operations in the southern hemisphere and where Bettor’s Delight stands. Given that we have a colt of his here (OK Braveheart) and two of our mares are carrying his foals this year it was very wonderful to see him playing in his paddock. He was due to return to Blue Chip Farm four days later so we caught him just in time. Greg and Tina were very generous and very welcoming – this little detour proved to be a highlight of our trip. February 6, 2007 We are still waiting for our first foal to be born. Stolen Magic had a PFD of January 19th for her Western Hanover foal BUT no signs of anything imminent. We contacted her previous owner and found out that she went 367 days last year before foaling, so we may have to wait until February 14th! Double Crème is due on March 3 with her Art Major foal and she has shown signs of an early foaling. We will keep you posted. January 29th 2007 We are home! After our many adventures in Australia and New Zealand we have returned to the frozen north (-25C at night for those of you Down Under and a “High” of minus 16C!!) Stolen Magic, due on January 19th has elected to wait for our return and – so far – there is no indication she plans to deliver. Before we left New Zealand, I was invited to ride with the Papakura Hunt – what an amazing experience! Four riders (luckily, one of them was the Huntsman) set off with the hounds, 16 of the dogs were “puppies in training” so it was great fun to try and get them to work with the pack. A very special Thank You to Joy Calway for making the calls to allow me to participate in this great event. |
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