Tara Hills Stud Farm of Port Perry, Ont. has introduced a new feature on its website which allows mare owners to inspect the farm’s stallions from the comfort of their own
home.
Tara Hills’ Virtual Stallion Stable gives viewers the opportunity to have a close-up look at the stallions standing at the farm through extensive video footage which shows the studs from all angles and should aid broodmare owners when making stallion selections.
“It’s something that’s never been done before by a standardbred breeding farm and seemed the next logical step for us,” explained Tara Hills General Manager Dave Heffering.
“We host open houses to give people an opportunity to see the stallions up close, but realize that these days people often don’t have the time to take a day to drive here for those. As well, the weather is a factor if you’re trying to do it during breeding season. For two of our open houses we got a great deal of snow which prevented a lot from coming.
“It would be ideal if we could have it in September, but several of our stallions who shuttle Down Under wouldn’t be available then. We still love to have people come to the farm and encourage that, but with the Virtual Stallion Stable, they have the chance to see all of the stallions without leaving home.”
“The standardbred industry has embraced the internet, and with all of the progress that’s been made this Virtual Stallion Station is now possible,” explained Jim Gillies of Lambeth Desktop, which designed the new feature.
“Years ago people actually went to the farms to see the stallions, then farm owners began sending out VHS videos and then DVDs, now they can simply view the stallions online.”
Heffering believes this will provide another tool for owners to make the best sire selections for their mares. “This should help mare owners as they have the chance to view the conformation, size and stature of the sires and make the right choice to match their mares. The idea is to provide as much visual information as possible.
“We know it isn’t perfect, but this is a start for us. Unfortunately for a couple of reasons we weren’t able to video all of our stallions, for example Sportswriter and Tell All were Down Under (although some footage of Tell All is available). The weather didn’t co-operate when we tried to do Amigo Hall and Mr Lavec, but we hope to have all of them added in the spring.
“In the future I think it would benefit if we added narration to the videos, have someone not affiliated with the farm describe the horse as the video is shown and hopefully we can incorporate that next year. This is a start and I hope people will like it.”
Videos are available for Jeremes Jet, Majestic Son, Major In Art, Kadabra, No Pan Intended, Mister Big, Pilgrims Taj, Mach Three and Tell All.
To watch the virtual stallion stable, click here.
(Tara Hills)