STUD FARM

The premises

The stud farm is composed of 30 hectares of fields, for approximately 30 horses. They grow up in small groups, with a rotation system around the different fields. There are 9 boxes available but our horses mainly live outside throughout the year, in big fields with field shelters and trees.
We produce our own hay, which according to regular analysis, is among the best of the region.

We have two arenas: our full-size dressage arena with Lastique sand (20m X 60m) and our small sand school, (42mX24m), essential for ground work and early training,

St Jean stud farm is just next to the magnificent Foret de Broceliande, where we take the youngsters for their basic training under-saddle.

Education & Training

We are present in the lives of our horses from the moment they are born. Our daily work consists of feeding and checking the horses in the fields, and care and education of the foals. We spend a lot of time helping them learn their basic skills. For example: learning to walk on a lunge-rein, loading and being relaxed in the trailer and lorry, having a shower, behaving well among other unknown horses, etc.

We take great care that each individual horse remains happy in his group and we regularly switch horses so that the dominance and submission of the horses in the herd remain in balance. It is remarkable how an unhappy horse in a group can change his or her behavior positively once he or she is integrated in a new group.

Many of our foals participate in breeding competitions and championships which allows them to be confronted with new circumstances from an early age. These experiences facilitate the further training and confidence of the horse.

After the summer the 3-year-old young horses are brought under the saddle. The first year we mostly train the dressage basics in the forest to have our young horses forward and participating with joy. They learn to cross the roads, the brook, the ditches, learn not to be afraid of tourists with mountain bikes, or parents with strollers, or locals with umbrellas.

Transitions and leg yield, for example, are playfully learned in a natural environment. Progressively the work in the dressage arena increases.

Every week we work the young horses with our dressage coach Virginie Boireau. We regularly receive positive feedback from clients and their trainers who are looking for dressage horses for sale, that our horses are educated in the universal tradition of classical dressage which facilitates further training and competition outside our stud farm.

We are grateful to Virginie for her incredible technical dressage knowledge, her motivation to transmit and her determination to make horses and riders progress in their dressage capacities. This is essential for the successful evolution of our young horses and the preparation for their future careers as top dressage performers.