| Willow Wood Farm Reining Horses |
| Willow Wood Farm is a third generation farm nestled in the south east end of the Adirondack Park. W. Merritt Wood bought the farm in the early 1900's and opened the Ticonderoga Egg Farm. The barns and home of the current farm housed over 3000 laying hens. Over the years "Poppy" changed to a dairy operation known as Willow Brook Dairy. After retiring the farm became multi faceted. Merritt's son Russell converted one end of the "chicken house" into a state of the art garage. Russell had International Paper's heavy equipment repair contract and worked out of the "chicken house" repairing dump trucks and a variety of earth moving equipment. The storage area of the "chicken house" was converted into an apartment for Poppy so that his daughter, Prudy, could have the farm house that she loved to raise her family. Hence, that's where we come in! Through the years growing up we were involved in 4-H having cows, chickens, horses and vegetable gardens. Upon graduation I, Ann, went off to West Virginia to Meredith Manor for equestrian studies. After MM I landed a job in Georgia starting off with cutters but moving to reiners. While working for MD Babcock who was partners on many horses with Norman Bruce, I had the opportunity to be associated with many great horses including Haida's Little Pep. At Charlie Hutton's I got to ride the first $100K NRHA Futurity winner Lucky Bay Glo. Six years in the south was enough so I headed back north. For obvious reasons I didn't want to name the farm Willow Brook so I took my grandfather's name and Willow Wood Farm was opened in 1986. I took a brief leave from NY in the mid 90's and went back south riding in Alabama at NCHA professional Sam Shepard's and in North Carolina with Charlie Smith to hone my skills. Making a living training horse in the north country is hard. By the late 90's I secured a good full time job that I enjoyed and decided to give up training horses. As a Non Pro and having a consistent paycheck we have exclusively reiners. In 2001, I met Amy and we have been able to work successfully at building Willow Wood Farm into a reliable source for the purchase of quality reining horses. Our goal is to find good bred reiners and bring them to the north east to ride and show then offer for sale. Watch our for sale page for sons and daughters of great horses that have money earned or incentives like Sire and Dam and NRBC to help promote them. In 2010 Foxy Little Squall and Spicy Charlie will be my show horses. Charlie will be shown in Non Pro Derbies until sold. Foxy feels better than ever so watch out for us in Non Pro and Novice Horse! I've come to the conclusion that I will probably never be able to sell Foxy cause I just like her so darn much! As always keep your eyes open for our horses at national sales and at area reinings in various classes! |
J.E.M. 11/23/2007
