Welcome to our Home on the Web!
We are a small horse and cattle farm located in Central Missouri. We raise black baldy cattle (hereford & angus cross) & keep a few good horses around to indulge in the best sport ever invented, Cowboy Mounted Shooting! We have always been knee deep in the horse industry, although we have recently chosen to scale down drastically on our horse operation due to the current skyrocketing feed costs and plummeting horse market. Even though we are currently very focused on competing in Cowboy Mounted Shooting, we have experience in a variety of different equine sports. We have trained in many different disciplines (including TB & QH racing, hunter/jumper, dressage, barrel racing, a little cutting, reining, roping, & even western pleasure ) and we hope it shows in how versatile our horses are. We have over 30 years of combined experience in various aspects of the horse industry, even at our relatively young age. To our family, the words love, hope and dreams are synonymous with horses!
Our family is also involved in many different aspects of the equine industry, and we place a huge emphasis on developing future horsemen with our involvement in several different youth equine programs. Kids and horses are our two favorite things, and we believe that nothing is better for one than the other! Travis is a Professional Farrier serving the Mid Missouri area. He somehow also manages to find time out of his full schedule to lend his knowledge and expertise to putting on several clinics and demonstrations each year. See the "FARRIER" link for more information on Stonepoint Forge and where you can catch his next demonstration! Laura is an experienced horseshow judge, a member of the Boone County 4-H Horsemanship Committee and has also served off and on with the Missouri Central Region 4-H Horsemanship Committee. She is very active with the youth of Boone County, and devotes a large amount of time each month helping plan various local horseshows and events. In addition Laura is a horsemanship leader for the Harrisburg 4-H Horsemanship Program, and coaches the horsebowl, hippology and horse judging teams for the best club in the great state of MO! Our twelve year old daughter Katelyn (Katie) is very active in 4-H, within such projects as swine, beef cattle, ham curing, horsemanship, muzzleloading and archery, and she is also an avid basketball player on her school team! As you can see with this much going on in our family there are very few dull moments, but that's the way we like it!
Of course this is all on top of building our farm from the ground up. As two slightly hard headed kids who wanted to do it OUR way, and had always dreamed of building our own farm, we made the leap and purchased raw land north of Columbia in 2002 and have been having a blast making a horse farm out of it! We do love to take a nice trail ride on our farm with friends followed by a BBQ & a swim on the weekends in the summertime, which does allow us to relax a bit! Our farm motto is "Festina Lente" which is latin for "Make Haste Slowly". To us this means that all good things come with time, and reminds us to take our time both with the training of horses and in building our farm. As two pretty determined (i.e. workaholic) people we sometimes need to remind ourselves to slow down, and realize that things sometimes work smoother (and hence progress faster) when we relax and allow ourselves to re-focus once in a while!
We do occasionally have a few horses for sale, and all of the horses offered are well mannered, well broke (if of age) current on all vaccinations, and have great minds. In short, they have been started and handled right. Generally the sale horses are simply horses that don't fit our program or the direction we are heading. Or it may simply be that our herd has grown too large and we have had to make some tough decisions and put a few up for sale to make more room. We DO hold to a very high standard when purchasing horses, however, and will not buy a horse unless we think enough of that individual to keep him or her the rest of their lives. Based on that standard when we actually do sell a horse we have found that many times that horse ends up in a forever home, which is our goal. We pride ourselves on our honesty and integrity, our bottom line is that if you are interested in a particular horse there will be no 'spin' put on it, you will know everything we know, good and bad about the horse to help you in your decision process. We are real horse people not horse traders, and our horses are our life. We know what a big purchase a new horse is and we also know the feeling that comes when that horse isn't what it was said to be, and for that reason take very special pains to disclose everything. We do ask alot of our horses, and spend alot of time in the saddle, as we believe the only way to make a good, solid using horse is to invest alot of time in that individual. So most sale horses have had a variety of things done with them and been put in alot of different situations. We really enjoy challenging both ourselves and our horses and have NEVER produced a ring sour or bored horse yet! (But we have cured a few!)
Please don't hesitate to call or email us, we always welcome questions or comments. We hope you enjoy our home on the web, we have placed our favorite quotes at the bottom of most pages, these are bits of wisdom that we really take to heart and try to always keep in mind!
Thanks for stopping by! |
