High Spirit Ranch

Spirit was lightly started as a two year old. We acquired him in October 2011 after he had spent 45 days training with Clifford Elliot. Watch video here.

He spent three months in the spring of 2012 with Mark Nugent where he furthered his foundation training and started him on roping. Mark did quite a great job with Spirit; we believe Spirit is the nice and well behaved horse he is due to the experience and basics he learned with Mark.  Watch video here.

In 2013 Spirit went to Kelley Drake for three months to get started on barrels. Kelley started him on the pattern and he came back with so much more experience. When we started riding him on the barrels after his time with Kelley he already had a pretty good idea of the barrel pattern and was very willing. He's been started the right way and has a desire to please. Kelley has been a pillar for Spirit's foundation on the barrels and we are blessed that she accepted to help us training Spirit. Watch video here. 

In 2012 he started his breeding career with a few mares. His first crop in 2013 produced two beautiful stud colts. His second crop in 2014 produced beautiful buckskin fillies and a bay stud colt. 2015 was the year of the fillies! Spirit gave us two beautiful fillies, a long legged buckskin and a cute little bay, as well as two palomino fillies. In 2016 we were blessed with three beautiful stud colts. There has been many more foals after that... so far he has thrown lots of coloured foals. 

While keeping a stallion can sometimes be challenging, Spirit is the kind of guy you can just grab in his pen in the middle of the breeding season and go for a ride. Mares will be yelling at him and we can just ride away without any problem or any fuss. The foals out of Spirit are showing excellent dispositions and are easy to train, we just can't wait to see the oldest foals competing! Check his babies here.

Competing in the 2014 Canadian barrel futurities proved to us that Spirit could handle the pressure - different grounds, long hauling, etc., - and behave like the real gentlemen he is,  in any given circumstance. Bianca has been running him in most of the futurity events and she was very pleased with how he handled himself. He showed that he could be competitive against some tough horses when placing in the Northlands Futurity. In 2015, we rodeoed him, and took him to some derby races. Kathleen was his jockey in 2015 and they have both learned quite a bit as a team, making money at the ABRA and the CBHI finals was their biggest accomplishments for the year. In 2016 Spirit and Kathleen went to a few derbys and jackpots, as well as the ABRA finals where Spirit made the short go for the 2nd consecutive time and won some money. 2016 was the year of the trails, we went riding in the Okanagan and in the Rocky Mountains, Spirit is the kind of horse you can run at a rodeo or a jackpot, then trail ride all day the next day and have a relax ride.  Watch videos of some of his 2014 and 2015 runs here.

Spirit is showing outstanding dispositions and athletic abilities. He has tons of speed, and he is demonstrating excellent cow sense. A sweetheart to work with and a perfect gentlemen around mares and geldings. There is just not enough words to explain how special this horse is to us, he has a special soul, that we're hoping you will see in your resulting foal when breeding your good mare to him.