About Our Farm:
Our farm, Cherry Creek Canadians, is located just west of
the city of Kamloops, situated in the middle of the southern interior of BC.
For a map of our location, see our
Contact Us page.
Renowned for it's arid climate, hot summers,
and mild winters, this area is considered to be part of Canada's desert. It is composed of mountains, deep river valleys, sagebrush, bunch grass,
Ponderosa pines and prickly pear cactus.
Our property encompasses 120 acres worth of steep,
rocky, mountainous terrain. It has little to nothing in the way of lush pasture. As it turns
out, these are ideal conditions for raising Canadian Horses. Our horses
are turned out 24/7, and the terrain ensures that they remain fit, healthy, and
that their
hooves stay rock hard. Best of all, it prevents our horses from becoming overweight - a problem that
plagues many Canadian Horse breeders elsewhere.
We got our first Canadian mare in 1994, making us
only the second
Canadian Horse owner/breeder in BC, and now, now the longest term breeder
located here. The first BC Canadian Horse breeder was the late
Hans Bettschen, from whom we bought some of our early stock. For the story of
how and why we got into the breed, see our History
page.
While building our herd, we specifically looked for, and have bred horses which are athletic, versatile, and which
happily
participate or compete in any discipline we choose to do with them.
We have diversified our breeding stock as much as possible within
this rare breed, and our small select herd of carefully chosen Canadian Horses
contains six of the eight existing bloodlines. We have no Fox or Brio bloodlines
in any of our breeding stock.
We currently stand three stallions, and occasionally have stock for sale (see
Horses for Sale page).
Since they are so versatile, we like to do a wide variety of things with our horses.
This includes
showing them in a variety of venues, and of course simply doing a lot of trail
riding and driving around our farm and the surrounding areas.
Unlike many other farms who retain professionals to do this,
we do all the breeding, handling, training and riding/driving of our stallions
(and other horses) ourselves. We think this stands as a testament to our
"boys" wonderful, kind and tractable natures.
Although we enjoy taking our horses to a wide variety of shows
(both open and breed shows, dressage, combined driving events) we don't do
this, for the sake of winning a few prizes. We like to show
our horses because it gives us training goals to work towards,
and more importantly, it provides a great means of exposure to the breed for others.
Since we love the breed so much, we like to share our passion with others
whenever and however we can. By making an effort to get out to as many
events as we can each year, we feel that we are doing our part to accomplish
this.
We love having visitors come meet us and our horses, and we
happily do public speaking and various educational appearances with them as
well.
Our horses have been the "stars" of many a heritage school project! Be
sure to see our two photo pages, CCC photos and
Breed Promo, for examples of "our
gang" in action.
Jim, Yvonne and "Fonzie"
Thanks for stopping in and having a look at our
website.
We hope you have enjoyed learning a bit more about us,
and our "horsey" family,
as well as the Canadian Horse Breed!
