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The not-so-silent, "silent" partner
of the ranch is M.E. (Bunny) Eastveld, a city girl with a passion for horses. An RN, at St. Boniface Hospital's Emergency
Department, Bunny still found time to go out to the ranch and ride.
As a teenager she rode extensively until
she began to have problems with her knees. Much to her disappointment she had to curtail many of her athletic activities.
(Including riding.)
In 1992, twenty years after giving up riding, Bunny decided it was time to try again. She
found out, to her surprise, that riding horses was excellent physiotherapy for her deteriorating knee condition.
She
started out slowly, riding quiet horses at Art Butler's Ranch, but soon found that she was part-boarding a greenbroke, three
year old horse, named Justin. It was not too long before she was full-boarding Justin and eventually in 1994 she bought
him outright from Art. (Justin is a grade horse: a Standardbred/quarterhorse cross).
In 1994 Les returned to
the ranch during the hay and straw season. Bunny and Les developed a friendship and began to discuss the fate of the
ranch. It was clear that Art would not be able to continue running the Ranch on his own and that eventually Art would
not be around to run the ranch, so came the question of what would happen to the ranch and the horses?
They began
to formulate a plan to carry on Art's family tradition of breaking and training horses and ponies, teaching people how to
ride "properly" (Art's way), continue with the boarding stable, and try to keep boarding costs down.
For Arts philosophy
was:
"the working person should be able to enjoy horses too, not just the wealthy"
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| Don't try this at home! |
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| The "Art Butler Dismount" |
Justin is the first horse Bunny
ever owned and trained, with lots of reading, hard work and advice from Art. (We have a saying at the ranch: "What Art don't
know about horses ain't worth knowing.")
This type of dismount, named after Art, could be dangerous, but at LB Ranch,
we teach our horses good ground manners. Tell him whoa, drop the lines, and he stands ground tied. Then he just waits
for you to get off, however you want to.
Our horses are not allowed to kick or bite, either, but they are our
friends, and willingly accept what we are doing with them. Such is the legacy of Art Butler's way of breaking and training
a horse. Praise and rubs when they're good, discipline to "fit the crime" when they're bad.
We also follow
a rule of thumb: Hit a horse once is discipline, (you have 3 seconds to react). Hit a horse more than once, is abuse.
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info@lbranch.net
LB Ranch:
"The place where horses can BE horses!"
For information regarding boarding your horse at LB Ranch,
please call us at: (204) 633-9100
LB Ranch* Box 26D RR2* Winnipeg, Manitoba * Canada*
R3C 2E6 *(204) 633-9100
Site designed by CyrabGraphics
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