We had a great time at the Ontario Fjord Show! The judges for the show were Bob van Bon, Chief Inspector of Fjords in the Netherlands, and his wife Joke (Yoka). The depth and breadth of knowledge and experience these two possess was immediately obvious and we were pleased to have such expert feedback on our horses.

The halter classes were operated in a european evaluation format, assessing each horse individually on the triangle and giving each animal a score in the five categories of breed type, conformation, legs, movement, and overall impression. The judge also talked at length about each animal's strong and weak points.

We were thrilled when our 6 year old mare Sparrow won Champion Mare under these well-respected judges! Vili, Sparrow's full brother, also had great results. Vili placed first in Pleasure, Equitation, and Training Level Dressage Tests 2 and 4. In English Pleasure Vili was given scores of 8 for trot, 8 for canter, and 9 for manners and obedience! Vili had the dressage High Scores of the day with 75.3% in Training Level Test 2 and 72.4% in Training Level Test 4!

On the Saturday evening dinner, Mr. van Bon gave a most interesting talk and commented on the quality of the animals presented at the show. He had on hand gold medals from the Dutch studbook to recognise these special horses - one for the best stallion, best mare, best gelding, best young horse, best driving horse and best riding horse. We were extremely pleased when both of our horses were recipients of one of these special medallions: Sparrow received the Gold Medal for Best Mare and her brother Vili received the Gold Medal for Best Riding horse! It was equally exciting when Felix's offspring received the gold medals for best young horse and best gelding.

Sparrow and Vili are both out of our mare Cindy (Ostar X Louise/Alfred) - what a wonderful testament to the grand old girl - two gold medal winning offspring! Cindy was our first broodmare and she is again in foal to FELIX, who was also sire to two gold medal winning horses at this show. Cindy and Felix's upcoming foal should be a wonderful example of the breed!