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Tropical Rider
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Want to exchange a link,
advertise, put your banner in our arena or have us include your info in
our visitor packages?
Affordable, often
even FREE.
Some restrictions apply.
E-mail/click for
inquiries. |
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Free barn cats & kittens
from Sulphur
Springs TX Animal Control. Free adoption. Donations so much
appreciated.
Call (903)
438-9369. |
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What Friesian is the right one?
When shopping for a Friesian--especially when unfamiliar with
the breed--build up reference material by sample riding several
of ours. For more info visit the
Lesson & Visit pageor
e-mail us. |
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We take
our Friesians to
Liefie Li Vine restaurant
in historic Winnsboro TX.
South
African cuisine, Texas wine, gifts. Our favorite place to eat
with an apple for the horses! |
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33 years
of Friesian Love and time in the breed. On this page we provide in
brief how we fell in love with the KFPS Friesian back in The
Netherlands in 1981, which is the reason why we are & remain
committed for life.
Are you
in love with the Friesian breed, want to spend time with them, and
learn about these mesmerizing horses?
We hope
to inspire with the genuine, heartfelt ways in which we share our Friesians
with others, helping you
navigate the KFPS Friesian world (see the
Lesson and visit page).
Water the seed of your dream and watch it grow.
Maybe you will even find your dream Friesian on the
Herd & Sale Barn page.
Page Index.
.
33 Years of Friesian Love
We had a
blast going through old photo albums, back to where it all started.
You may find a selection of scanned photos below this paragraph or
click here.
Part 1 of
the story about Anneke's Friesians can be viewed on the
About Us page. Below we
share the rest of the journey, which started in 1981.
Anneke's
Friesians as a business (per 2005) was completely accidental,
something we always dreamed about but never thought was attainable,
not to mention that it has been an unimaginable experience, with
many blessings for equally as many disasters. Keep reaching and
things will happen!
Anneke's
Friesians made our passion and experiences come full circle from
hobby to full-time business but in recent years it also completely
burnt us out in as far as that the horse world is no different than
any other world and it became so toxic with egos and politics that
we had to let go for a while and retreat in the horse barn on a
sabbatical, still working in the background, to get back to the
heart of it: Friesian love and blessings.
Our breed
knowledge and language skills give us the responsibility to make
no-nonsense, translated education available
with factual information
to
demystify and dissect. We gladly continue to do so like we have for
so many years
before with our translation work, e-newsletter, and Friesians 101
page.
Let's
share some photos here and if you really want to know the nitty
gritty read on below the photos.
Return to top of
the page.
Photos
Anneke with then 17 year old Pitie/Petra
(ster mare out of Ritske 202 pref) in 1982, riding through town
and here in the driveway of her childhood home for a cookie for
Pitie. Bareback, driving bridle with ropes as we didn't have the
funds yet for real riding tack or clothing for that matter. |
Anneke learning to drive with
Pitie in 1982 in our childhood street in The Netherlands. |
Anneke with then 2 year old Alice
in 1983 (Pitie's daughter sired by Lammert 260 pref and our
Sanne's mom, later a Lammert ster mare), riding bareback across
the premises of Uddel where she made 1st premie and reserve
youth champion. Notice the driving bit to save money. |
More photos
after more scanning. |
Return to top of
the page.
More History
Anneke
was born and raised in The Netherlands and would ask for a pony
since being able to talk. At the age of 8, riding lessons started.
It was customary to take care of other people's horses in exchange
for riding and so the search soon started for someone who would say
'yes.'
Back in
1981, we accidentally came across what was then a rare find,
especially outside of the province of Friesland: two Friesians just
down the road in the neighborhood; the grand dam of our Sanne at
then age 16 (a ster Ritske mare named Pitie, called Petra) and the
dam of our Sanne/Petra's weanling filly (a ster Lammert mare named
Alice), thank you, Beerten family!
Friesian
Love Fever set in immediately! Petra had been a working agricultural
and carriage horse before she came to the Beerten family and was
kind but also reserved from probably bad treatment in the past, had
very modern conformation especially for that time, with an
incredible willingness to work in spite of the wear and tear from a
hard life, and a dislike for trucks and tractors, which made her
prance beautifully when going through traffic.
KFPS
published Phryso as a small, thin, black and white magazine-booklet
throughout the '80s and we still have a stack of those treasured
publications. We devoured them and quickly noticed patterns and
breed traditions. We were hooked!
As Petra
wasn't used as a riding horse and money was tight Anneke rode her
bareback through town and the fields, with a harness bridle with
ropes for reins, riding her and her filly to and from the far
pasture bareback with a halter, tied together and a rope for reins.
The breed's wonderful personality was obvious.
Anneke
learned to 'break' horses by playing with Petra's filly Alice and
over the years playfully trained her to ride, trail ride and even
jump sizeable jumps. We went to keurings where Alice made 1st premie
reserve youth champion, then 3rd premie stb, and on the second try
Ster mare.
Did we
ever get ridiculed for riding Friesians, not having the proper gear
or our own horse but who cared: not us! For a couple of years,
Anneke switched to riding KWPN warmbloods simply for being able to
ride more at that barn, and that is where Anneke really learned how
to 'break' horses by doing it a whole lot with horses that had
barely been handled. It all went smoothly but it was completely
unsupervised, unstructured, and could have been very dangerous. We
clearly were naturals but never realized it was a special skill. In
1991, Anneke left for the United States.
Fast
forward to 1995, when there was still no internet in common use and
barely any Friesians in the U.S. Anneke accidentally came across the
Hekstra's in Michigan, who referred to Fryslan Farm outside Chicago
and the Friesians returned full force.
Our mare
Sanne B. arrived fall 1997 from our Dutch hometown as a weanling. We
really wanted a mare for breeding but meanwhile we love geldings and
stallions just as much. Thank you, Hekstra Family and Fryslan Farm!
The rest of our substantial Friesian resume from 1995 through now
you may read on the About Us
page.
Return to top of
the page.
(Photo header: Anneke on her stallion
Tropical Rider's Wieger, 2011.)
Return to top of the page.
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