There was a time when Emma-Jayne Wilson dreamt little girl dreams.

She dreamt of being a jockey and of winning races such as the Queen’s Plate and even of being famous.

Race tracks are full of dreamers, of course, but Wilson never stopped believing, working and driving herself not just to make it, but to make it big.

If you watched her patient, powerful and precise steer of Mike Fox to win the 148th running of Canada’s most famous race yesterday, you saw a superstar of her sport.

In a race that was sullied by as sleepy a group of horses you’ve ever seen chase a $1- million purse, Wilson’s performance stood out.

That she became the first woman to win the opening jewel of the Canadian Triple Crown will enshrine Wilson, but it won’t define her. It will confirm only what racing fans have seen here the past 2 /12 years — a clever, hard-riding jockey who won’t give an inch to her male counterparts.

Six years ago, Wilson vowed to make it happen and put it down in writing for future reference. That she stumbled upon that promise on Saturday night, mere hours before her biggest win, was part-omen, part-inspiration for yesterday.

“It was dated Sept. 14, 2001, and it said: ‘On this day, I Emma-Jayne Wilson promise to make it as a jockey,’ ” she said after fighting her way through an adoring crowd among the throngs at Woodbine.

DREAMS CAME TRUE

“As far as I’m concerned, my dreams did come true when I won my first race. That was glory for me.

“But this is history. Girl power, go for it. First female rider (to win the Plate). I’m just so glad it’s the last time it will ever be said.”

That’s another thing you need to know about Wilson. She’s proud to be a woman and is touched by the little girls who look up to her.

But she doesn’t want to be known as the best woman jockey, just the best.

The 25-year-old native of Bramalea certainly outsmarted some of Woodbine’s best. Breaking sharply from the outside Mike Fox, owned by D. Morgan Firestone and trained by Ian Black, was settled nicely, sitting off the frontrunners in the early going.

In the drive for the wire, Wilson angled her mount from the rail and split between frontrunner Alezzandro and heavily favoured Jiggs Coz.

Working feverishly, her arms pumping Mike Fox’ neck, she made the lead just three jumps before the wire, finishing in 2:05.45.

Since she rocked her way on to the Ontario scene in 2005 winning 175 races and $7.4 million in purse earnings, Wilson has been Woodbine’s leading rider. So the shock value wasn’t that she won, though at odds of 15-1 she helped light up the toteboard quite nicely.

The shock was more that heavily favoured Jiggs Coz could be so listless in the late-going. Or that the field came home in an achingly slow 28 seconds. Or that only eight horses — equalling the smallest field in history — were entered in 1o-mile race.

None of that will be remembered. Horse power is nice, but girl power works just fine.

Everybody watching chuckled.

The 6-year-old passed the reins of her horse to the judge so she could scratch her head.

Though it was an uncommon practice, she still got a fourth-place ribbon after she showed her 29 year-old mare, Taz, at the Huachuca Saddle Club Open Horse Show held Sunday at the Rockin’ JP Ranch in Miracle Valley.

Her mom, Marion, won second place and reserve champion with another mare, Miss Sunny Go Rose, and her cousin Jasmine Newton, 12, from Tucson, won third place with RM Friendly Tyler.

It was Newton’s first time in the show ring and she has been spending a lot of time helping her Aunt Marion and working with Tyler getting ready for the show.

It’s a family affair. Marion, who also competes in women’s roping, has been raising quarter-horses and paints for the past six years and has been showing horses for over 20 years.

“These are just brood mares. They had been saddle broke, but not much was done with them over the years. They hadn’t even been brushed,” said Marion. “I wanted something gentle for the girls and they have been just wonderful horses.”

Her suggestion for anyone starting out in the horse ring is to find a breeder or trainer with good horse sense and a horse that’s good and gentle.

A beautiful black stallion said to be “90 percent Arabian, 10 percent Polish” by his owner Carol Shields, of Hereford, had put up a bit of a fuss in the ring, doing what stallions do best — show-off a little and act like a scamp a little. He strutted in front of the judges with head and tail perked, then reared front hooves off the ground, mane and tailing flowing in the wind. The judges still liked him and gave him the Blue Ribbon and Grand Champion Stallion of the show.

“The judges don’t have to award ribbons,” she commented. “Even if your horse is the only one in the ring, you can come away empty-handed.”

In this instance, she and Fahiim were the only entry in the class.

“I waited for 52 years to have a horse like this,” said Shields. “I read ‘The Black Stallion’ when I was growing up and made up my mind, someday I was going to have a black Arabian stallion.”

She’s been working with the 10-year-old named JRW Bikr Fahiim, since last August and noted that he “wasn’t too good at anything.” He was used for stud and had not even been ridden.

“The first time I got on him, he was a dream,” she said.

She said in training a horse to saddle, it’s best to take a lot of time and patience, and lunge the horse a few times, building the gear up from bridle to saddle, before you put a foot in the stirrup.

“You just put one foot in the stirrup and kind of hang there. You don’t commit to getting up in the saddle. It’s easier to kick out of one stirrup and fall back. It’s less distance to the ground.”

She kept working with him and has gotten him into the ring several times now on a lead rope. Her pride in him shows as she says they’ll be in the Scottsdale show in the fall.

Shields’ love of horses began at an early age, but was put on hold after she joined the Marine Corps. She spent 18 years serving her country, many of those years spent at Fort Huachuca.

“They sent me here, then forgot about me, I guess,” she said with a laugh. “But, this is where I met my husband, so I’m happy with how it worked out.”

One thing you probably would not expect to see at a horse show is a mule, but there she was.

LT Bit O’ Honey was taking in her first show in the ring.

Terri Barrett, Hereford, had bought the 15-year-old mule for her boyfriend, who rides and packs, but couldn’t resist taking her in the ring in the Western Pleasure class.

The day held many events for riders of all ages and levels of experience.

Brenda Allen, organizer and president of the 50-plus-year-old club, said the show had done better than she expected, even with the heat, as she bustled about getting everything up to the judging booth. The front compartment of her horse trailer has been turned into the club’s mobile office.

“I like to show, but I can’t run the show and be in the show. It makes for cranky horses,” she joked.

Several members of the board participate in helping with the shows and it does take a lot of work.

“We’re all volunteers,” she noted.

A rider came out of the ring and rode up to the registration table to make a complaint. Seems the judges had set a figure-eight course up with themselves at the nexus. On top of that, they both had plastic bags blowing in the wind, which was stressing some of the horses and the young riders participating with this particular rider.

Allen simply said, “I’ll take care of it.”

She entered the ring, informed the judges and walked away with the two trash bags. Just another day at the show.

Lord of the Rings actor Viggo Mortensen has a veterinarian’s bill after emergency surgery saved Brego, his mount in the film trilogy, the horse’s minder said.

A small bowel tear almost did what the films’ villains Saruman, Sauron and the black riders could not - kill the trusty steed of Mortensen’s heroic character, Aragorn.

The actor bought the Dutch stallion after filming and lives in semi retirement in New Zealand on the North Island property of Ray Lenaghan, the horse’s minder.

Lenaghan, himself a veterinarian, noticed Brego was in trouble two weeks ago. The horse was rushed to Massey University’s equine hospital.

“It was very clear from the moment he arrived he was in a critical state,” said equine surgery expert Frederik Pauwels.

“We anaesthetised him, made a mid-line incision into his belly,” and found that “part of his bowel was stuck,” Pauwels said.

He said Brego would have suffered a “pretty nasty death” without surgery, but has come through well.

Running through the fields with her newly-born foals, mare Royal Beatrice has good reason to celebrate - after managing the astonishingly rare feat of producing twins.

The 22-year-old New Forest Pony has shocked equine experts with the surprise birth of healthy twin foals because the chances of both surviving are so slim.

In nearly all cases, one or both foals die in a twin pregnancy because the mother’s uterus cannot support two babies.

The chances of a mare giving birth to healthy twin foals are about 1 in 10,000, experts said today.

But little filly Bess, and colt Royal, have defied the odds by becoming the first twins to be born in the New Forest, Hampshire for many years.

And at just a few weeks old, the playful pair are lapping up all the attention they are attracting from horse lovers across the country.

Royal Beatrice gave birth to the pair at St Leonards Farm near Beaulieu after mating with a spotted Appaloosa Cockaroost Pazaz stallion.

Bess and Royal can thank their father for their distinctive white markings and have been registered as First Cross New Forest/Appaloosa ponies.

Secretary of the New Forest Pony Breeding and Cattle Society, Jane Murray, said: “It is extremely unusual for horses to give birth to twins like this.

“To get both foals surviving to full pregnancy is a very rare feet indeed and we only have a couple of examples in our stud book of it ever happening before.

“But it is even more rare when the mare is so old. At 22, I think it’s fair to say that Royal Beatrice has done extremely well to have healthy twins.

“Her owners can be well and truly chuffed.”

Owner Stacey Gulliver from Beaulieu added: “Although my dad did mention she looked a bit fatter than is usual, it was a total surprise that it was twins, especially as they are so rare.”

The British Horse Society’s senior executive of welfare, Lee Hackett, said the overall chances of a mare giving birth to healthy twins are 1 in 10,000.

He said: “This is incredibly rare and it is wonderful news that both these foals have been born healthy.

“In most cases both of the foals will die during pregnancy, or if you are lucky one might manage to survive.

“Most owners will choose to abort as soon as they realise that the mother is expecting twins because they don’t want to risk losing the mare as well.

“Horses are just not designed to carry twins. The mother’s uterus is not large enough or well enough equipped to cope with them.”

He added that a mare’s placenta cannot support the needs of two growing foals once they reach a larger size in the later phases of pregnancy and therefore one or both die.

Twins account for around 15 per cent of all pregnancies in thoroughbred horses but in only 10 per cent of those cases will both foals survive to the point of birth.

And even if they make that far, only 15 per cent of those will result in a successful birth of two live foals.

The odds are even slimmer in cross-bred horses, Mr Hackett said.

IT has cost £500,000, has all the latest medical equipment and even a spa. . . but this hospital is for horses.

The equine sports injury centre is on an 80-acre site at Normans Hall Farm, Pott Shrigley, Macclesfield.

Specially designed stables will offer total care on site, with staff on 24-hour call.

Veterinary physiotherapist Gabrielle Kerfoot, who intends to open the centre in January, said: “There is nothing else like it in the north west.” The centre will have 29 stables but 12 will be designed for elite competition winners.

Mrs Kerfoot, the vice- chairman of the National Association of Veterinary Physiotherapists, has treated an Ascot winner valued at £4 million, as well as horses on the professional show jumping circuit and contestants at Badminton.

She said: “Footballers have physio after treatment for injuries and it is just the same for horses.

“There will be a state-of-the-art spa, which is like a salt water Jacuzzi. The facilities will be top class, and provide a calm, efficient environment.”

Mrs Kerfoot, 37, who used to be a show jumper, said that it was difficult to treat horses properly in their yards because the facilities were not avail- able.

She said: “Some horses could have to stay for up to two months at the new centre, which would have the latest medical scanning equipment.

“With MRI scans we are diagnosing more and more problems with spines.

“Spinal work and postural work are something I am very keen on.”

The first planning application for the centre, which will cater for all types of horses from children’s pets to Group One race horses, was rejected last year, but modified plans have now been approved.

As well as therapy and treatment rooms, there will be on open-air exercise arena and a 40-metre diameter horse-walker.

Mrs Kerfoot said: “This has been two years in the planning.

“It is a big investment and I have had lots of sleepless nights.”

She can’t ride a bicycle, but Rachel Estrada can ride a horse.

For the past year and a half Estrada, 9, has been riding weekly with Courage Reins in Highland, a therapy program for children and adults with physical or mental disabilities. Because of their disabilities, these children are hardly ever offered the same opportunities as other children.

“The children sit at the lunch table with other children who talk about what they’re doing after school,” said the nonprofit’s director Vicki Armstrong, “They’re playing softball or basketball. This program gives kids bragging rights, too.”

Horses have been used as therapy for centuries. The Greeks put their soldiers returning from war on horses as soon as possible because they discovered the men recovered much more quickly from their wounds.

The powerful animals are used in therapy because the movement of the horse’s pelvis elicits a response in the rider that is similar to the movement and patterns of walking. So even though the rider is not — or may not be capable of — walking, their muscles are still responding in the same way.

A horse’s body temperature is on average 3 degrees higher than humans, which means that a rider’s muscles are also warmed during the ride.

“We’ve had students with cerebral palsy whose stirrups have had to be loosened four or five times during a ride,” said Armstrong. The combination of the warmth of the horse and gravity lets legs relax.

The horses provide mental therapy as well as physical.

“Riding requires sequential thinking,” Armstrong said.

To ride a horse, the rider must be always thinking ahead. Where to lead the horse. Which way to turn. What rein to pull.

“We start them slow and by the end they’re doing four or five things in a row.”

That type of thinking relates directly to school. Or cleaning their room.

“We’ve seen lots of improvements in Rachel since she’s started riding,” said her father, Dagoberto Estrada. “She’s learned how to read and write in the last year.”

Some of the students’ disabilities are more noticeable than others. Some have anxiety and some have Down syndrome. Some suffer from learning disabilities and others from spina bifida.

“When they’re on the horse, you might never know that they have any disability,” said Armstrong. “They feel very accomplished.”

For some, the first time near these large animals is scary. Most have never been introduced to a new activity, let alone an activity with an animal. It can take a couple of lessons before actually getting on top of the horse. And once they do, rarely do they ever want to get off.

Often the horse will nuzzle the student if they get scared. Even if they’re not scared, the horses know the rider and become closer week after week.

“They know their mission,” she said. “There are really neat things that happen between horse and rider.”

Most of the 18 horses of Courage Reins are retirees or rescue horses. They come from all over the world for their special gaits or training. One was brought to the program from Iceland because she has a fast, smooth gait with no bumps, ideal for students with spina bifida because their spines are never agitated while riding.

During each lesson the students also tack up their horse by brushing, cleaning hooves and preparing the animal to ride. If the students are unable to do it, then one of the 150 volunteers are there to help.

The horses are pampered with specialized diets, regular health check ups and constant love.

“They’re our partners,” said Armstrong. “They’re treated with respect. We can’t do any of this without them.”

Any day of the week, the 16-acres of Courage Reins is busy. All the volunteers always have a horse to help tack or supplements to bring to one the half-dozen pastures. All three arenas — an indoor and two outdoor — are bustling with horses and riders. The program caters to 115 lessons each week.

“That’s 115 people being helped here,” Armstrong said, smiling. “It’s a neat thing to bring joy to someone’s life.”

Imagine being 3 feet tall and being able to come face to face with a horse as small as you are.

Toddlers in Claudia Campbell’s Little Pony Mommy and Me class get to do just that.

The class is the latest addition to Campbell’s packed schedule. The busy mom of 1-year-old Sasha and 3-year-old Arabella has been riding since she was 6, and taking and giving lessons all of her adult life.

She moved to Loxahatchee 10 years ago with her husband Scott. She teaches English riding and hunt seat equitation. She taught at Wellington Show Stables for years before she started giving her own lessons.

The Campbells’ home is named Delmar Farm after Campbell’s 17-year-old horse Delgamo, the only horse she brought with her from New York. The farm has 13 horses, four dogs, four cats and two bunnies. Campbell got the idea for the Little Pony Mommy and Me class while taking Arabella to gymnastics class. Campbell noticed that the parents just stood around while their children were having their lessons.

“I noticed that the moms had nothing to do,” she said.

Campbell thought that a Mommy and Me class that involved her miniature horses would be a great way for the kids and their parents to interact and for the toddlers to mimic what they saw adults doing.

“I got the idea from my 3-year-old,” Campbell said. “She’s been grooming and brushing since she was old enough to walk. She’s always been obsessed with doing everything that I do and everything the kids are doing.”

The class is in its infancy, but is already showing promise.

“I have a Monday and Tuesday class, and I might have to start a third,” Campbell said.

Campbell has a handful of high school students who help her in exchange for lessons. She needs all the help she can get during the summer when she has camps, lessons and classes going on simultaneously.

“It’s a lot of hard work, don’t get me wrong! It’s hot, you have a lot of responsibility, but I have the best counselors,” she said.

The toddler class is held in the afternoons once the high school students get out of school.

When the kids and their parents arrive at Campbell’s farm in the Deer Run neighborhood, the horses are ready to go.

“When the kids get here, I have two ponies tacked up with girls leading them and two miniatures here in the barn on cross ties,” she said. “I have a bucket of brushes. They come right in and start grooming the minis. They brush them. They each go out two at a time and do pony rides. The moms walk alongside them. When they are all done, everyone gets a bucketful of hay and they all get to feed the ponies and the minis.”

The toddler class is an introduction to horses for many of the kids. Campbell hopes the kids will continue to take lessons once they’ve outgrown the minis. She hopes people will see the Little Pony Mommy and Me Class as an alternative to traditional toddler activities.

“I think it teaches them to work with animals,” she said. “If they want to ride, it’s an introduction. It’s good for their motor skills because they’re working with brushes. They’re working with animals, so they need to be aware. They can’t just run around; they have to learn some rules because it is more dangerous than being in a dance class. They have to be more aware with animals.”

The Prescott Animal Hospital treats animals of every shape and size.

However, treating horses at its Iron Springs Road office is a challenge. Horse owners find it difficult to maneuver their trucks and trailers on the parking lot.

All that is about to change.

The veterinarians at the animal hospital are opening a new equine center at the Prescott Air Park specifically for the treatment of their four-legged patients. It is the first all-equine hospital north of Phoenix.

Drs. Steven Dow and Bryan Nolte will open a new Prescott Animal Hospital Equine Center for the safe and efficient treatment of horses this summer.

Dow said the wide doors and large rooms will allow staff members to walk the horses into the building for exams. The hospital will use state of the art diagnostic equipment including ultrasound and digital radiography.

One of the exam rooms includes a bay door and stocks so horses can enter the exam stall directly from the trailer.

“The stocks provide a safe place to examine and perform procedures,” said Nolte. “Stocks are like a gurney is for people.”

Adjacent to the exam room and on both sides of the surgery room are padded, post-surgery stalls.

The new center includes a fully functional laboratory. Dow said the doctors do a lot of their own lab work.

“A lot of the lab work is the result of emergencies,” he said.

The nine stalls will line the side of the building for overnight stays.

In addition to the exam and surgery rooms, the new equine center will have an apartment for vet students or staff members keeping an all-night vigil on a patient.

Five veterinarians work at the Prescott Animal Hospital. Dow and Nolte both work on large animals, with Nolte doing most of the detail work.

Operating on a horse is not easy. First, the animal receives a pre-anesthetic. The doctors then lay the animal on its side, place it in a hoist and raise it onto a padded table.

Nolte said horses tolerate anesthesia relatively well, but staff members monitor them closely during surgery.

“Operating on horses is an art that requires a padded room,” Dow said.

Nolte said the new equine center is not just for surgery.

“This is a full-blown hospital. The need for an equine hospital in this area is great,” Nolte said.

People who take their small animals to the Prescott Animal Hospital need not worry that the doctors will abandon them. Dow said the office on Iron Springs Road would remain open for the exclusive treatment of small animals.

Dow said the original plan was to open the new equine center the end of May. However, he said crews still need to finish some of the details and Dow and Nolte want to wait until “everything is perfect.”

The new Prescott Animal Hospital Equine Center is at 2611 Avenger in the Prescott Air Park.

A RESTORED horse-drawn grocery van fondly remembered by Fleckney residents has made its first appearance since the 1950s.
The refurbished Co-op van was back in the public eye at the recent St George’s Day event in the village.

It was its first public appearance since a restoration project was finished at the end of last year.

The van spent decades in retirement, lying in a village garden as a pigeon coop until it was bought and restored by Fleckney History Group.

Secretary Betty Morley said: “There was a lot of positive response to it. There was a shire horse there and people were shown how they are harnessed up.

“There was even a chap there who worked on it and other people in the village who remembered it.”

The van is kept by one of the restorers, Gary Ward, of Lubenham, on condition that he brings it to the village when requested.

Lindsay Sceats spends about 30 hours a week with horses — after school and on the weekends.

“My bond with horses is extraordinarily important to me, and my daily hours at the barn are an escape from the pressures of school and the real world,” she said.

Her love for the animals goes back to when she was a toddler, and her mother used a Barbie horse to cajole her into using the potty.

“When I was little I wouldn’t go to the bathroom in the toilet, so my mom got me a Barbie horse and said if I went, I could have the horse,” Sceats said.

Sceats, whose horses are named Cruiser and Puffy, founded the Cheyenne Mountain Equestrian Team at her school three years ago and serves as captain. She ranks eighth nationally out of about 500 in her age group for competitive equestrian.

She sometimes missed school Fridays to compete in horse shows but always came back with her homework done, said one of her teachers, Janie Mueller.

Sceats, 18, has been a counselor at a horse camp for the past three summers, where she helped young and disabled campers learn about basic horse care and riding.

She plans to follow in her parents’ footsteps and become a doctor. Her goal is to volunteer with Doctors Without Borders, an international organization that delivers aid in more than 70 countries. Her training with horses, she said, is helping her prepare.

“The balance between horses and school has taught me to be an exceptional manager of time,” she said. “Working with young horses and inexperienced riders has taught me patience in the most trying situations.”