The North Fork portion of our name simply happened because we bought a ranch called North Fork. As part of the business of the ranch was originally Horse boarding and we had decided to keep that business, it just made sense to keep the name. So our farm name is actually North Fork Equestrian Centre, although for the breeding side of the business, we use North Fork Gypsy Cobs. The Gypsy Cob portion we added to reflect what we had researched about the breed we were most interested in, and their body type. At that point of course, we were not part of any breed registry.
Did you own horses before the Vanners and if so tell us about them. Dale bought his first horse about 6years before getting into the Vanner breed. He was going through a hard time and wanted to do something relaxing and restorative. He bought a quarter horse named Chief, who was a well-trained lesson horse, and started to take lessons. This was both the continuation of a child-hood love of horses and the start of a very strong connection between his own healing and the relationship between him and his horse.
How many years have you owned Gypsy Vanners? It's been 3 years now.
How many Gypsy Vanners do you own? Stallions, mares and foals? 12 mares, 5 stallions, 4 geldings, 2 fillies, 3 colts, Total: 26
When you purchased your Vanners did you have a breeding plan on which stallions and mares would compliment each other or did you just buy horses you liked? Did you consider DNA or pedigrees when you purchased? The first 6 we really just picked out the ones we liked after thoroughly researching the breed. We only intended on starting with 2 or three mares and ended up handpicking 6 mares, 5 of which were bred. When choosing our first horses we chose more of body type then pedigrees and DNA was not readily available from the breeders in England at the time.
Do you put a limit on how many foals you have a year and if so how many and please explain why.We breed most of our mares unless they are too young. We also are starting to get an idea of what we can handle, so we probably wouldn't go over 10 a year but you never know. Never say never! We've not done any surrogate mom breeding at this point but it is something we are considering for the future so if this is the case, things could change. Our intention for using surrogate mares would not be to have more babies but to leave some of the Gypsy mares open for training and to give them a bit of a break from carrying babies now and then.
Do you have a favorite out of your Stallions, Mares and if soplease tell why. Well I think we both have our favorites - but for me it's Priceless, our grey dapple mare. She was the first Gypsy Vanner I had ever ridden (and gotten lessons on!) and I think you develop a special bond with a horse like that. I have to say her colt Rorschach is also my favorite - at least at the moment! J Dale's favorite is??? Oh man that's so hard to say! Everyone in the family has their own horse and all of them are mares and my horses are the stallions by default ha ha. Out of the five stallions we have it's simply impossible to have a favorite as they all have such wonderful yet diverse personalities. If I have to choose one, I think it would have to be Billy Boy. He is such a grand old gentleman and now that we have him home he has a huge personality and dignity to him. He is proud, gentle, loves attention (unless he has his eyes on his mares) and is surprisingly full of energy. On top of all of that, he is an important stallion in the history of our breed and we are simply honored to make North Fork his forever home.
Do you feel any of your stallions or mares are proponent in producing one thing or another and if so please tell us about it. Tumbleweed puts a solid body on anything he produces. As they say in England and Ireland, a "leg in each corner" to be sure. He tends to throw a much bigger baby consistently than his size would suggest (13.3hh) and gives that sweet head and almost always gives them his thick double mane.He is homozygous for the tobiano gene so will always throw the colored foals this breed is so well known for. He sired a beautiful Buckskin colt last year that is sure to be a winner just like "The Weed"! Tully is our 15.1hh stallion who is heterozygous for the red gene and is heterozygous for the tobiano gene, which allows for solid and colored palomino foals if bred to a mare with the cream gene. When our new palomino filly Aurora is old enough to be bred we are excited about what that pairing will produce. Although he does not have a double mane, he has thrown most of his foals with a double mane where none of the mares have one themselves. Billy Boy, well what can we say about him...he is a legend in our breed, being sired by none other than the Lob. We do have a daughter of his by the name of Violet...a stunning beauty. As he just arrived at North Fork in early April this year we are yet to see what he will produce for us, but are excited to see what he will give us. We knew he was a much older stallion but through our research over the past few months we have determined that he is probably 23 years old, and still very able to carry out his stallion duties. He is just shy of 15hh and in the pasture as full of life as any young stallion.In hand he is an amazingly sweet and gentle boy to handle. We will be collecting and freezing semen from him this year. Aslan, our new 2-year-old Palomino colt is an up and coming stallion that we have high hopes for. He is sired by the one and only Shambo out of Ireland and is a stunning example of our breed. His confirmation is amazing and he has the most beautiful head we have ever seen. We expect he will mature to a height of about 14.3hh. We spent a very long time looking for a palomino stallion and mare prospect to add to our operation and feel that we have found a winning combination with him and Aurora. With a 50% change of a palomino and 25% chance of a cremallo between the two of them, needless to say the prospects are exciting. With 6 out of 10 of our mares possessing the red gene, we expect to see a great selection of buckskins and palominos being offered over the next few years here at North Fork. We could go on forever telling you about each and every one of our mares as well but we will let our website speak for them there. We feel that each one is special and unique.
Do you ride or show your Gypsy Vanners and if so can you tell us about that and what other activities you do with your Vanners and do you prefer one discipline if so why over another or do you have a favorite discipline? With Canada being such a small marketplace for Gypsies at the moment, there have been no shows in the past specifically for our breed. This September the first ever Vanner Fair will be held in Ontario Canada which will be a fantastic event, but being an over 20 hour drive from home, we won't be taking any horses with us. We do ride and drive some of our horses for fun and of course as an added bonus for our buyers. We also exhibit our horses at 3 large horse events every year simply to expose new people to this breed.
Do you train your own Vanners or do you have someone else train for you and what age do you normally start training? Can you please share some thoughts on this. We have a full time trainer working here with us at North Fork that does almost all our training. We start working with our horses from when they are about a month old with simple halter and lead training just so they have some very basic ground manners. About a month or so after they are weaned, we take them into the barn for about a week and give them some more ground lessons and one on one work just to keep them understanding who's boss. Formal light training doesn't start until they are 2 1/2 or so and that again is mostly groundwork. By the time they are 3 they are ready for some real training to start.
Can you please tell us what you looked for when purchasing a Gypsy Vanner? Mainly body type - conformation that fit our ideal, the more traditional stocky cob that is heavier set, strong bone, muscled, and small head - more of the body type for pulling and driving but not limited to that.And of course, heavy feather, mane and tail.As mentioned above, we weren't really looking at pedigrees simply due to the lack of availability and written history.
Do you prefer to buy from an importer/trader or a private breeder in the USA/ Canada and why? Historically we have imported most of our breeding stock from Europe. We are super picky about what we want in our horses and end up looking long and hard all over the world including Canada and the USA. It seems that most of the time there has been a larger selection of what we were looking for in Europe although that certainly is changing quickly with so much great stock here in North America. Our preference would certainly to deal with a private breeder here in North America and our first searches always start here.
Does it make a difference to you on who you are buying from if they show their horses or not? Whether a horse has a show record or not doesn't affect our buying decisions.
Have you attended a GVHS breeder/judges seminar and evaluation or annual meeting? What is your opinion on the GVHS breeder/judges seminars and evaluations? Do you think you will put any of your horses in a evaluation if one is in your area? Yes we attended the last GVHS annual meeting in Florida and learned a lot about what the judges were looking for. There were great resources to learn from and we would definitely like to have our horses evaluated if there is one in our area.
What made you decide to register your horses and become members with the GVHS? Are you pleased in the direction the GVHS is going? If so or not please explain why. Would you like to see the GVHS working on other things and if so, what are they? We decided to become members with the GVHS after our experience with another organization left us feeling hung out to dry with a total lack of communication and organization. Having our horses registered certainly adds credibility to us as breeders and value to our stock in the eyes of our customers.
Do you have a specific feeding program? Explain what you feed and why? We feed mostly a mixed grass and alfalfa hay through the winter and grass in the pasture in the summer. Depending on the needs of the horse, we will supplement their diets with specialty feeds as well. There is always a high quality mineral block available to the horses at all times in addition. We are looking at starting to supplement our foal's diets after weaning and up to 2 years of age as it is such a huge developmental stage of life.
How do you feel about crossbreeding? We personally won't cross breed any of our horses unless it is to a Shire, Clydesdale or Friesian if a customer wants a drum horse. We don't judge others that want to cross breed but we personally feel that this breed is so new that is seems foolish for us to do anything but concentrate on the purity of the breed itself.
Do you stand your stallions to the public? Yes our stallions are available to outside mares. We have shipped semen all over the USA and Canada.
Is there anything that has happened that is special or funny with your Vanners that you can share? All we can say is that every moment is special with this incredible breed and we are always laughing at their crazy antics!Each one has their own personality, likes and dislikes, and we not only enjoy them, but learn from them.We also are privileged to offer them for use in a pilot project taking place on our farm in a program that works with counseling troubled teens.It's exciting to watch them interact with the horses and amazing to see the results.
You can visit Dale and Cheryl at North Fork Gypsy Cobs. If you would like your farm featured in the Vanner Banner contact the editor.
10 Years at the MN Expo ! 
