Archive 2008

The 2008 Season finds us with many exciting new faces making their debuts! We have a number of high quality new youngsters coming out and are very pleased with their progress and results so far.

Several previous years’ winners have also returned for new accomplishments, and we have a wonderful group of clients traveling with us this year. And are we having fun!

	Ashley Viney & Shadow, Lauren Christen & Chance, and Kristen Johnson & Rudy take a breather part way through the WAHA August Show. The car is Lois Marx' ever popular Pontiac Solstice. Of course it's emerald green, in keeping with her business, Emerald Green Landscaping.

And here's several of the riders & crew with the August Show ribbon spread just before tear-down after the show. You can't see the sea of trophies on the table behind these happy folks. Bev Cole, Michelle who came from Lake Geneva to help, Jamie Buedler, Lauren Christen, Kristen Johnson, Jessica Cole, Ashley Viney, Lois Marx, and Nikki Coates (Jessica's regular assistant who also showed Jessica's mare Show Tunes in some western classes at the August Show).

(Lois Marx photo)	The bionic trainer, Jessica Cole, showing off her hay loading prowess. Yes, she loaded all of that at home, all by herself. But little did she know that our black cat, Klinger, had stowed away in the dressing room and was also at the show. Bev sure was surprised when she opened the dressing room door and was greeted with a flustered black furry face meowing at her. He rode home with her in the car that evening, but he left us lots of good luck--look at that collection of ribbons above!

Klinger the stowaway recharging his batteries after returning home from the show with Bev.	Meanwhile, Matt the mascot stayed home and sent good vibes through sweet dreams.

Parents and spouses provided lots of support. Ashley Viney's mother kept us supplied with her famous cookies and Rice Krispie Bars. She, Lauren Christen's mother, and Jamie Buedler provided great hot meals and veggie treats.	Jessica's parents, Dave (in his 'vertible driving cap) & Bev, enjoying the good times. (Lois Marx photo)

Read more about our hard working riders & crew & their wonderful horses . . . .

Jazzmyne Breeze: Region 10 Top Five Country English Junior Horse in her first year out, owned by Lois Marx. Jazz has also earned several Open and AOTH halter wins with Jessica and Lois showing., and recently came home from the Norway, MI show with the Reserve Championship in Open Country Pleasure, as well as First place in 3 and 4 year old purebred mares!

Owner Lois Marx and Jazz at Region 10

Jessica and Jazz going Top Five
Country English Junior Horse at Region 10

Jazz and Jessica at the August Show

And then she followed that up with a great show at
Norway, Michigan, followed by more wins at the WAHA August Show, shown at the left. Just a four year old, Jazz was named Purebred Country English Pleasure Open Champion at the August Show! Next on her plate is the Abu Show in Springfield, IL, the first weekend in September.

(Caryn Henry photo)

Outrageous Raves: Outrageous Rave (aka O2), a six year old gelding owned by Jamie Buedler, posted a Reserve Championship in Gelding Halter and Western Pleasure at the MAHA Spring Fling show in Winona. He followed up by winning the Western Pleasure Limit horse class at the Region 10 Pre Show and has placed well in both Halter and Western AOTR all season with Jamie. Then he gathered more blues at the WAHA August Show under saddle and in the WAHA halter futurity. Now he's looking forward to Abu in Springfield, IL, the first weekend in September.

WR Bravissimo: WR Bravissimo (aka Rudy), owned by Kristen Johnson, Region 10 Top Five Open Stock Hunter Gelding Halter (shown by Dave Bilgrien), Top Five AOTH (shown by Kristen), Top Five HA Hunter Junior Horse (shown by Jessica), and Top Five HA Hunter JTR 14-17 (shown by Kristen).

Rudy at Region 10 with owner Kristen Johnson

The Region 10 ribbon collection part way
through the show

Rudy's next stop was Norway where he collected the Gelding Halter Championship as well as the HA Hunter AOTR Championship, and three first place wins! The next weekend he won his halter class at the WAHA August Show with owner Kristen Johnson and went on to be Champion Gelding, in addition to winning his hunter pleasure junior horse class with Jessica Cole and a Junior To Ride class with Kristen. Kristen heads off to her first year in college the end of August, so Rudy won't join the JCTS crowd at Abu.

Rudy & Kristen winning his gelding halter class
at the WAHA August Show

Johnny Dangerously: Johnny Dangerously, owned by Bev Cole and Catherine Mayfair, Region 10 Reserve Champion HA Gelding Saddle/Pleasure type, shown by Dave Bilgrien. Johnny returned to the halter ring ahead of schedule after a nearly miraculous recovery from a devastating injury suffered in the pasture late last fall. Huge thanks to Dave Bilgrien for his expertise in handling Johnny at Halter the past two years in a row!

A return to performance took a little longer, but Johnny was looking fantastic by the time he trotted into the ring on Friday at the WAHA August Show with owner Bev Cole to win the HA/AA Country English AAOTR class--his first performance class since Canada in August 2007. He followed that up Sunday afternoon with winning the AATR Championship class.		Johnny & Bev on the AATR Championship victory pass

Two mornings later Johnny made his debut in Show Hack with Jessica Cole, and he did a fantastic job before going on that afternoon to win the AATR Country Championship with Bev. It was a huge comeback for both after Johnny's injury and Bev's hip replacement in September 2007. Both pairs will be together again at Abu in September.



Johnny winning his first Show Hack class with Jessica Cole up



Idlis Last Shadow: Idlis Last Shadow (aka Shadow), owned by Crystal, John, and Ashley Viney, got his year off to a big splash by winning the Open Hunter Championship with Jessica at the WDHA May Show. This was Shadow’s very first show! Ashley followed up by finishing 6^th overall in the AOTR Select Rider class only a couple of weeks later at Region 10, and we’re sure a Top Five will not elude this pair for long. They also brought home a class win and the AOTR Reserve Championship at the recent Norway, MI show. Then the next weekend Shadow added more blues with owner Ashley Viney and trainer Jessica Cole at the WAHA August Show, and was awarded the AOTR Hunter Championship with Ashley. This has been a fairytale season for the pair--both Ashley and Shadow are complete newcomers to the Class A Show Ring.


Jessica Cole and Shadow at the WAHA May Show at State Fair Park		Jessica and Shadow on one of their victory passes at the WAHA May Show



Lauren & Chance at the August Show		Forevermore Idli: Forevermore Idli (aka Chance), owned by Lauren Christen, just joined our show string and started off their Class A show career with good placings in the JOTR Hunter division at the Norway Show. Lauren also WON the showmanship class at Norway and placed second in the AHA Hunter Medal Equitation class, so they are off to a terrific start. The next weekend found them at the WAHA August Show doing a great job there too. Next for them: State 4H at State Fair Park in September. This pair has made a huge amount of progress.

FLOOD OF 2008

Unprecedented flooding hit our farm during the week of the Region 10 Show, with 18 inches of rain hammering our county in just six days. If you have heard about what happened in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, you have a good idea of what ALSO went on locally here in Sauk County. (See a collection of pictures of our area below.)

The devastation has been amazing, but thankfully we have had no major damage here at the farm, aside from some flooding in the barn that was quickly dealt with. Many of our neighbors in Sauk County have not been so lucky and some people have lost everything.

Many people had a very long and difficult trip to return home from Region 10 because 100 miles of interstate were closed due to all of the damage. Many other major roads were closed as well, especially locally around our farm.

At the height of the crisis, our good friend and ultra reliable neighbor Carol Beckius stepped in to deal with the second round of flooding to hit our barn and to do chores, as all the roads were closed and barn assistant Nikki Coates was unable to get in to care for the horses for about 24 hours.

We would like to thank Carol for her help! We are truly blessed to have such a good friend and such fantastic neighbors! Thanks are also due to the Draves family, who pitched in to help Carol, and to Nikki Coates and Amy Lund, fantastic assistants who had everything back in perfect order as soon as roads permitted them to get to the farm. And huge thanks to others who helped with the first round of flooding: Jim Beckius, Tony Dimond, Steve Pignato, and again Nikki Coates.

We are blessed that we were able to remain at the Region 10 Show with no worries about how things would be cared for until we could return in the face of an amazing natural disaster!

Thanks also to Lois Marx and her Emerald Green Landscaping for the tremendous job they have done on our drainage system and landscaping following the flood. Everything looks absolutely fantastic!


Our neighborhood! Water, water everywhere!

June 15. Exit 106 on I90/94 facing south. Baraboo and our farm are to the west (right).	A familiar sight in Sauk County, even two months later. This is Highway U about 3 miles from us on June 14. This is the road we take to get to the interstate. It was closed for a few weeks.

June 14 looking into a sea of Baraboo River water that covered about 4,000 acres of prime corn land on both sides of Hwy U. It curves to the left in the middle of the pictures, and by June 18--in the next picture--we could get beyond that curve and see more of the devastation.	June 18. Beyond the curve in the previous picture. Farmers will be lucky if 400 acres of the 4,000 recover for harvest.

June 21. Hwy U is mostly visible now. High winds from the west had battered the road with the sea of flood water, torn out the guard rail, and set the posts afloat. Note white caps in some of the pictures!	June 21. U was still closed until the water receded enough that the county could assess the left lane for safety. Of course this is the route between us and our hay supplier! Ultimately, we got permission to travel on it before it was officially open, so we could get wagons of hay off the field.

June 21. Some of the normal scenery is reappearing, such as this road out into the fields.	June 21. A drainage ditch reappears on the right side of the picture.

June 21. But mostly, it is still a huge sea where corn should be well along to knee high by the Fourth of July, or higher.	June 21. A waterfall in the field going from growing land on the upper part of the picture into the drainage ditch in the lower part.

June 21. The bleak aftermath for many farmers is barren fields with sand and debris that need to be removed. No crops here this year!	Some of the functional and beautiful drainage work done by Lois Marx (Emerald Green Landscaping). This "dry river" just to the left of the main entrance will help a lot.



Just to the right of the main entrance is another "dry river" that feeds into a low passage back to three culverts that replace one older, mal-positioned one in front of the arena. Lois even tried to save our Indian corn and pumpkins, which were planted too late because of the cold, wet spring weather. They probably won't produce corn & pumpkins, but we like them anyhow.	The three culverts from the far side of the barn, leading into another ditch headed for the woods beyond the barn. It would take more than 13 inches of rain in 30 hours to get the best of this setup. Thanks so much, Lois and Emerald Green!

While many folks had too much water, others had too little!

June 20. "Lake" Delton looking at the east end and all that's left of the Tommy Bartlett Water Show venue.	June 20. The other end of "Lake" Delton. This 267 acre lake disappeared into the Wisconsin River on June 9. That weekend, we had gotten over 13 inches of rain at our farm in 30 hours. According to the Baraboo News Republic, Lake Delton drained 696 million gallons of water, and 85,000 cubic yards of sand were displaced.

June 20. The Lake Delton wasteland, 267 acres of emptiness.	June 11. Dave suggested this picture when he noticed the irony of people standing by the sign that read "Boating Regulations on Lake Delton" --flanked by trash and tourists, along with people exploring the empty lake bed in the distance.

Back to the top Bottom & links

Welcome to A Long-Awaited Afire Bey V Filly!!

We’re very pleased to present our exceptional purebred filly of 2008 by the number one sire of National winners, Afire Bey V, and out of our fifth generation Sandhill bred mare, Grace Notes.

Born on March 19^th, 2008, she has extreme quality and motion and has been a joy to raise thus far.

Recently weaned, she is now growing up with two reliable older geldings, her 22 year old “uncle” Prix de Lafite ("Cookie"), and 27 year old retired Park and English Champion VB Electromotive ("Choo Choo").

Meanwhile, Grace Notes has returned to training and may debut in the show ring next year.

March 19, 2008. An hour or two after midnight.	April 27, 2008: Grace Notes & her filly, nicknamed Ariel, at almost 6 weeks.

June 29, 2008: A few hours before weaning and just over 3 months old.	July 2, 2008. Getting acquainted with "uncle" Cookie.

July 2, 2008: Getting acquainted with "uncle" Cookie.	July 6, 2008: Growing up with Choo Choo, Jessica's old champion park and English horse, & Prix de Lafite (a.k.a. Cookie).

	Now that her filly has been weaned, Grace Notes is working on getting back into great performance form. (Works of M'Art photo, summer 2007)

Fall 2008 Photo Shoot
Show Season News
Flood of 2008
Afire Bey V Filly of 2008

Fall 2008 Photo Shoot Sneak Peek

Professional Photographer and good JCTS friend Caryn Henry paid a visit to the farm late in September. Some of the results of her work are already posted on the Sales Page. As usual, she was fun to work with and got some great shots for everyone! We are pleased to share some more of her work on the news page for everyone’s enjoyment!
AFIREY GRACE at 6 months old:





STA A HORSE AFIRE Lois Marx’ up and coming young Afire Bey V gelding, at age 3:

HL Superstition++: HL Superstition++ (aka Stu), owned by Pam Brantner, is not a full time training horse at JCTS and spends most of his time at Kathy Findley’s barn in Racine. However, Pam still rides with us occasionally and purchased Superstition with Jessica as agent last fall. HUGE congratulations to them on a Championship and two Reserves at Region 10 in Show Hack and Hunter Pleasure! We were really happy to have Pam & Stu stable with us at the WAHA August Show where they picked up several more high placings, and we look forward to having them with us at Abu.





Didn't we have fun at the WAHA August Show? And who can argue with the results!

(Lois Marx Photo)