Open House at Fraser Downs Barn Area September 13, 2014

Fraser Downs barn area will be hosting an open house on Saturday, September 13, 2014 from 9:30am to 2pm. There will be barn tours and opportunities to pat a horse and talk to the people who work in the backstretch. There will be cart rides and a BBQ and they usually have contests going on to win small prizes like baseball caps or other Fraser Downs merchandise.


Saturday is forecast to be a nice day so come out and meet some Standardbred racehorses and the people who love the horse racing industry.


The barn area is at 17740 62nd Avenue. You get to it off 176th Street, turn at the lights and drive almost all the way down the road. Its better to park across the street in the big parking lot next to the red Agriplex barn instead of trying to find a spot in the backstretch parking lot.

Colebrook Road

Seeing as how Colebrook Road is getting a reputation recently for being a body dumping ground for criminals, its a good time to write a post about it.

Colebrook Road does a lot of stop and starts between Langley and Cloverdale, mostly running alongside the train tracks. The most continuous stretch of Colebrook Road is between 160th Street and into Delta. Just into Delta. It stops just west of where 120th Street would be. Mostly there are farms down here but these are the flats and prone to flooding.

Family friends used to live on Colebrook Road, actually pretty close to where the body dumping ground is, near 125A Street. They had horses and I liked going to visit and we'd go riding alongside the train tracks. There's a nice trail about 15 feet off the tracks.

In the 80's I boarded my horse near Colebrook and 160th Street for a few months and often rode alongside the train tracks or on the road itself. Depended on whether or not I could spot a train coming and even though I had a steady horse I preferred to give myself some distance if a train was coming.

Does anyone remember St. Michelle Winery? You could see it from Colebrook Road. It was just west of 152 Street on 54A Avenue. Its all industrial and warehouses in there now. I remember when the liquor stores were on strike, must have been around 1983, and I was riding my horse in the rain around Colebrook Road. Customers were going directly to St. Michelle to buy wine and I rode up there and there was a huge line up of people standing there with umbrellas. What devotion just to get a bottle of wine! The gravel pit just behind St. Michelle Winery, accessible off Colebrook Road, was a huge dumping ground for stolen cars.

The Cloverdale section of Colebrook Road is not too accessible. You have to head south out of town on 176th/Highway 15 and go over the bridge. Get in the left hand lane and turn onto 176th Street as if you're heading down to Super Soil. Keep driving and the road bends right and becomes Colebrook Road. Nothing much to see down there. Just wait. Maybe that'll be the next dumping ground because the mayor is talking about installing motion sensors and cameras down at the other end of Colebrook.

Excerpt from Horseman Spell by Cheryl Rhodes

 

“Ladies,” greeted Bob. “Pam, I’d like you to meet Scott.”

Pam had put her hand out to shake the newcomer’s, but snapped it back to her side as if it had been burned. Scott wheeled to face her.

“You!” Pam backed up a step.

“You!” The accusation in his tone cut off and filled the room with an awkward silence.

They stood motionless glaring at each other.

“I, uh, take it you’ve already met.” Bob cleared his throat and twirled the beer bottle in his hands.

Scott set his bottle down on the fireplace mantel and Pam scurried to the front hall. She grabbed her coat from the closet and curled her fingers around the front door’s handle.

“Don’t leave on my account,” the sarcastic voice behind her mocked.“I’ll go.”

Looking over her shoulder, Pam saw Joanne and Bob frozen in the doorway of the living room. They looked dismayed, but she couldn’t deal with them now when they only thing on her mind was putting some distance between her and Scott. She gripped the doorknob tighter, turned it, and marched out of the house. Hearing Scott’s footsteps close behind, she quickened her pace, reached the car and fumbled for the keys.

“I want to talk to you.”

“Forget it. Nothing you have to say interests me.” Pam tugged her car door open and slid into the driver’s seat. Before she could slam the door, Scott maneuvered his body between the open door and the driver’s seat. He braced his hands on the roof of her car and used his body to prevent her from closing the door. Pam desperately fought not to notice his thigh muscles bulged against his blue jeans as he flexed against the door at her eye level.

“You need to hear this.” Scott slapped the roof of her car once.

Pam raised her eyes and his dark eyes stared back into hers. Frown lines wrinkled his forehead and he scowled at her. Pam swallowed, remembering how many times she’d seen that expression before.

“Leave me alone or I’ll scream so loud I’ll have every person within five miles running to help me.”

“When are you going to grow up?”

They glared at each other. Scott bent down, his mouth drawn into a hard, thin line, his face getting closer to Pam’s. She pulled the seatbelt out, clicked it into place, turned away to put the key in the ignition, and started the car. Scott backed away from the car, palms toward her as if he were trying to ward her off. Just before Pam slammed the door shut, she heard him say, “You can’t avoid me forever.”

 

Buy links:

Musa Publishing
Amazon US
Amazon Canada
Barnes & Noble
All Romance Ebooks

Horseman Spell is available through other online booksellers and on iTunes.

Barn Tours and Open House at Fraser Downs Saturday August 11, 2012

Come to the backstretch of Fraser Downs for a free tour of the barn area and lunch on Saturday, August 11, 2012

Barn tours start around 10:30am and you get to meet some of the trainers and racehorses while following your guide around the backstretch. They are running qualifying races for the Standardbred horses in the morning and if they're late the start time for the tours will be delayed.

Lunch will be served from 11:30am to 1:30pm. I hear they will be barbecuing hamburgers.

Open house ends at 2pm.

Best way to get to the backstretch is head down 176th Street to 62nd Avenue and drive east. There are traffic lights there and the rec centre is on the corner and the red barn to the Agriplex is down the road. The best place to park is in the parking lot next to the Agriplex. The parking lot for the barn area across the street is probably already full of cars of the backstretch employees. Just walk across the street and sign up for a tour and enter to win prizes.

My Article in Current Issue of Horse-Canada Magazine

If anyone picks up the current issue of Horse-Canada magazine (July/August 2012) there is a nice feature story I wrote about geocaching on horseback, complete with photos taken in Pitt Meadows, Campbell Valley Park in Langley, and at Fraser Downs racetrack.

Latest Novel Horseman Spell coming soon!

Here's the cover of my latest novel Horseman Spell coming soon from Musa Publishing! My novel takes place in a fictitious area near Cloverdale and the characters are all pure fiction too. If you like romance novels, horses, or Standardbred horseracing this novel has a little bit of everything.

Musa Publishing Memorial Day Blog Hop and Contest

Welcome to the Musa Publishing Memorial Day Blog Hop!

Although this is not a holiday we celebrate in Canada, it is recognized in the United States this year on Monday, May 28, 2012. I would like to thank all the military forces in Canada, the USA, and all other countries for their participation in peace keeping duties in other parts of the world where civil unrest exists.

I never met my mother's father. My grandfather passed away before I was born. He was a doctor and he served in the British Army in World War One. He rode a horse onto the battlefield to assist wounded soldiers and he lost a leg in the war. He didn't pass on his riding skills to my mother who was always scared of horses and didn't want to get too close to them.

However I have loved horses ever since I was a little girl and have owned horses for most of my life - the advantage of growing up in Cloverdale when it was still a rural community and our neighbor across the road on 182 Street owned 10 acres where I kept my first horse Duchess.

I watched the racetrack get started in Cloverdale for Standardbred racehorses. The track was first called the Cloverdale Raceway and is now known as Fraser Downs Racetrack and Casino. I was very interested in Standardbreds as a riding horse, not as a racehorse, and in 1982 I purchased my first Standardbred - a wonderful gelding named Mark. He was the best horse I ever owned. Quiet, loving, well behaved, and always willing to hit the trails.

Here's a picture I took of Mark just after I bought him. He was lying down in the field so I brought his grain out to him so he could have breakfast in bed.

In fact I liked this picture so much I commissioned a charcoal drawing of it.

And here is Mark a few years later getting ready to go for a ride.

A few years after Mark passed away another Standardbred came into my life rather by accident. I was at an auction house in Langley and couldn't bear to let this poor Standardbred end up in the hands of a meat buyer so I shelled out $50 and took Lucky home with me. That was nearly 10 years ago and my big boy is still doing great. Another wonderful trail horse Lucky is the first horse I've ever owned who actually looks out for his rider and makes sure to give trees a wide berth so his rider never bangs a leg on to them.

Here's Lucky a few months after I bought him.

And here I am with Lucky at a Standardbred horse show in 2008.

I always liked reading books with horses in them. Romances, mysteries, comedies, ranchers, cowboys, horse racing books - I read as many as I could get hold of. I never was able to find a romance that had Standardbred horses so I decided I should write one.

My romantic mystery novel Ringer was recently published with Musa Publishing as an electronic book. My ebook is available in formats for all ereaders, including iPads, or as a PDF document to read on a computer.

A horse who is a dead ringer for a missing racehorse. A missing cousin whose body was never found. An attempted murder. Is anything what it seems? Holly Thompson is drawn into the middle of ths puzzle when she rescues sexy horse trainer Matt Winter and flees with him and the look-a-like horse.

Holly and Matt follow the clues from British Columbia to Matt's home in Oregon to a horserace in California, trying to find who is behind the horse-swapping scheme. Matt didn't count on losing his heart to a feisty woman who can saddle her own horse and hotwire a truck. And Holly has done the unthinkable: fallen in love with a horseman, something she vowed she'd never do. Is Matt a wealthy racehorse owner or just another backstretch con artist, cheating on horses and women? And will he ride to her rescue when they unravel the mystery of the ringer?

If you'd like to read the first chapter of Ringer, please click here to go to D. Renee Bagby's blog for a sneak peek. There is a warning that you will be entering an adult content site because it contains first chapters and cover photos of romance novels that range from sweet to wild and hot. The first chapter of Ringer does not contain any adult content.

I am holding a contest over the Memorial Day long weekend for a lucky reader to win a copy of my ebook Ringer. You can enter my contest two ways:

1. Leave a comment on my Memorial Day Blog Hop. If you are the winner I'll need a way to contact you so if your Blogger profile doesn't include a link to your email or if you are posting anonymously, please leave your name and contact email in the comments section.

2. You can friend me on Facebook. On the right hand side of this page, scroll up a little until you see a photo of Lucky near the bottom of my archived articles. There is my Facebook badge. Click on that or click here. I will have to accept your friend request and then you can leave a message on my wall asking to be entered into the ebook contest.

Deadline for contest entries is midnight Monday May 28, 2012. I will be drawing a winner on Tuesday May 29, 2012. Good luck!

If you'd like to purchase a copy of Ringer, it is available through Musa Publishing and other online booksellers including iTunes and Amazon.

Ringer is also available to check out at your local library in the United States and Canada. If your library doesn't have a copy yet, ask your librarian to order one through their Overdrive system so they can add Ringer to their ebook collection.

Other Musa Publishing authors are holding contests this weekend for free copies of their ebooks. Continue on the blog hop by clicking the link below and choosing another blog to visit.

Thank you for stopping by!

http://musapublishingbloghops.blogspot.ca/2012/05/welcome-to-musa-memorial-day-hop.html

Barn Tour at Fraser Downs this Saturday September 24 2011

If you like horses and Standardbred racing you might be interested in the open house at the Fraser Downs backstretch this Saturday September 24 2011. Address is 17740 62 Avenue. You get there from 176th Street. Turn east bound on 62nd Avenue and follow it along till nearly the end. There is a parking lot at the backstretch on the right hand side. That said it is usually packed full of cars and horse trailers from the people who work in the barn. Might be easier to park across the street at the Agriplex parking lot.

Barn tours start at 10:30am. Or thereabouts. They were late starting the tours last year because they waited until the qualifying races had finished when there'd be less horse and sulky traffic jams around the barns. I'm not sure what time the last tour goes, maybe noon or one. They close the backstretch at 2pm so to be safe you want to be there no later than noon to get on a tour. They have about 15 people or so in a tour and several backstretch employees leading the tours.

There is a lunch between 11:30am and 1:30pm. Last year it was sandwiches that you put together yourself, salads, pickles, and cake. Very nicely done and easily set up for the guests and backstretch workers to help themselves and enjoy.

Loose horses

“Cheryl, your horse is loose!”

Those words can strike terror into the heart of any horse owner. In this instance, I was fifteen years old and my mother had woken my up. I’ve never got out of bed and dressed so fast in my life. I ran into the garage, grabbed a bucket of oats and my lead shank and raced down the driveway, where I stopped. I could see my Quarter horse, Duchess, safely in the field across the street. And yes, there was a time when 182 Street on the hill above Cloverdale had several small hobby farms. Unfortunately we didn’t have a field and barn but our good friends the Scott’s let me keep my horse on their property. A quick glance at the field below where I kept Duchess and I could see the pony that lived in that pasture was accounted for. Then I saw the third horse, grazing at the side of the road by the field. I was carrying a bucket of oats and a lead shank so I walked down the street, approached the horse, gave him some oats and snapped on the shank. I led him to our back yard and put him in, not quite sure what to do next. Mother phoned the police department to report we’d caught a stray horse, only to be frustrated by a rude officer who kept repeating: “Phone the pound, ma’am, phone the pound.” She finally slammed the phone down on him and phoned the pound. They said they could pick up the horse, but it would cost the owner big bucks when they claimed him. Not wanting to cause someone financial problems, Mother told them we could keep the horse in our back yard, and passed the phone over to me to give the description. I was pretty sure the horse was a runaway from the local Standardbred track (now known as Fraser Downs) that had recently opened a mile from our home. I gave the clerk all the details on the horse. A couple of hours later the frantic owners phoned and we gave them our address. They were extremely grateful when they picked up the horse, which was indeed a racetrack escapee. This was the first in a long string of Standardbreds that I frequently caught over the next few years. My horse was probably the closest horse living to the racetrack, so they may have naturally gravitated in our direction.

One night I was driving home down 184th Street, nearing 24th Avenue and an oncoming car was flashing his high beams at me. I thought I saw something in its headlights and stopped my car. Sure enough two horses were galloping ahead of the car. I figured the owner could use a hand, pulled a U-turn and came up alongside him with my hazard lights flashing. An oncoming car cresting the hill forced me to pull behind the car trailing the horses. The car continued down the hill toward 16th Avenue, but I was positive I’d seen the horses turn right down 20th Avenue, which led to 176th Street a mile ahead. Just to be sure I turned right and caught up with them a block ahead. Carefully I pulled around them and got in front, slowing my car until I was able to bring them both to a stop. I got out of my car and approached them, but they ran down the nearest driveway. I got a hold of one horse’s halter. I knew a family who lived on acreage about a block away and figured I could lead the horse there and hope the other horse would follow. But it was not to be. The other horse bolted and the one I was holding yanked out of my grasp, and they both galloped down the road, fortunately headed back to 184th and not to the much busier 176th. I hopped back in the car and pursued them, but clearly I was not going to be able to catch them singlehandedly. I pulled out my cell phone, ready to dial 911 for assistance. These horses had to get off the street, for their own safety and the safety of any drivers who might not see them in the dark. As I approached 20th and 184th I saw several people on the street. I blocked my car behind the horses and two men managed to grab them and lead them onto the property on the corner. They’d heard the hooves pounding on pavement a few minutes earlier and had come out to investigate. With the horses safe, I turned for home, but at the first stop sign I noticed a man on the sidewalk. I rolled down the window and asked if he was looking for two horses. Fortunately he was and I told them they were safe and gave him directions where he could find them.

Cloverdale has grown significantly in the past 30 years. There are no small hobby farms housing horses. And the racetrack has fences around the barn areas making it less likely for Standardbreds to escape the fairgrounds. The days of catching loose horses roaming around town are over.

When the apple is ripe it will drop

Our Transparent apple tree is dropping apples. Today I picked up two buckets to take out to the farm for the horses. Transparents are a yellow, soft apple. They tend to ripen on the tree and by the time they fall to the ground are starting to bruise. They're not very tasty to me, but the horses like them.

In 2004 we picked up two mini donkeys from a horse rescue. They "might" be pregnant we were told. That had to do with a gelded donkey they'd bought at auction but they didn't actually check his plumbing. He was intact. We asked our vet about pregnancy test for mini donkeys because they can't be palpated like a full sized horse. Our vet wasn't a big donkey fan to begin with but he said a blood test could be done but was rather pricey at $200 each. His advice? When the apple is ripe it will drop.

The following March each of our mini donkeys dropped a cute little baby.

November 18 update

Just under 38,000 words to go. Its tough. I'm at work all day, then I have dogs to walk, and then drive out to the farm to feed my horses. Back home, dinner time, and then some writing time. I'm going to have to average over 3,000 words a day for the rest of the month. I don't think I'll make it, but I'll have a good head start and just keep going in December. And yes, this is bad writing. Bad diaglogue. But the story is starting to take shape and I think with lots of rewriting there might be potential here one day.

Lucky at the Standardbred Show N Shine

Our local racetrack Fraser Downs has a horse adoption program called Greener Pastures to help place retired Standardbred racehorses into new homes. They make fine riding horses, they're versatile and excel in many disciplines.

To help raise money for Greener Pastures they've held a couple of horse shows this summer called Standardbred Show N Shine. They have classes in halter, showmanship, English riding, jumping, Western riding, and trail.

I have an ex-racehorse, Lucky, that I rescued from the local auction on December 15 2002. He was several hundred pounds underweight, covered in cuts, mud fever, and severely neglected. I got him for fifty bucks. The meat buyers weren't going to buy this rack of bones. I wasn't sure if Lucky would live or not, but that horse has heart and under veterinary care, some groceries and TLC he came back to be a healthy horse.

We've come out to both shows just for a little fun and an outing for him. At nineteen years old he's probably the oldest horse in the show ring and maybe the most obstinate too. The first show he refused to trot and paced nicely all day. His pace is so smooth to ride and I was quite comfortable, but he didn't score too well when he should have been trotting. The last show was held on September 7 and he was in a more agreeable mood that day and did everything that was asked of him. Lucky is a big boy with a big stride and when asked to trot and canter he decided he was in a race and ran circles around the other horses. He does nothing halfway. When asked to canter, he gallops. If I pull back the reins to slow him down he'll go into a trot.

Oh well, he can be a fun boy. I thought he would do his best in the trail class because he fearlessly goes through the trails and up and down hills, over bridges, around trees, and under branches as surefooted as a mountain goat. A trail class set up in a riding arena has makeshift obstacles. The bridge was a tarpaulin, and no way was he going to walk on that, even though he walks over a tarpaulin at home back at the farm. The gate was a couple of poles with a rope strung between them. Nope. No way. If it had been a real gate there would be no problem, but not this pole and rope.

But on the last show they changed the trail class a bit and held it in the warm up arena. They put the obstacles up ahead of time and let the horses practice a bit. This time they had a small wooden bridge. I tried Lucky across it with little success our first few times. Then he finally figured it out and crossed it nicely after that.

But the call came for the Western discipline classes and we returned to the show ring. Lucky picked up ribbons in each class and then the group headed over to the warm up arena for the trail class which each horse and rider would enter the arena one at a time and go through the course. When it was Lucky's turn he took the course wonderfully. And this time we were awarded a 2nd place ribbon.

Not too bad for an old, grumpy man!

Under Apple Attack

We purchased our house a little over a year ago, a corner lot, located in a quiet area. On our side lawn are 2 mature apple trees. As the apples ripened last summer I tried the apples but didn’t like how they tasted so I collect them in buckets and take them out to the farm where I board my horses daily. One is a Transparent apple tree, mush yellow apple that bruises easily when it hits the ground. The other tree I’m not too sure about. It’s a red apple, similar to McIntosh, but doesn’t taste as good as one. This house had been rented for several years and the garden was badly neglected and overgrown, and likewise the 2 apple trees, badly neglected and not pruned for years.

Last summer a neighbour came over with an apple pie for us. She confessed to having picked apples so she could do some baking, and we invited her to help herself. Sad to say the apple pie wasn’t very good. Darned tasteless, mushy Transparents!

Over the winter we hired a gardener to prune the trees and as spring rolled around we put in fruit tree spikes and made sure the trees were well watered and we’re dealing with a bumper crop this year.

A couple of months ago we extended our fence line along the side of our house, putting the apple trees on the street side of the fence. Technically they are on city property but our responsibility. Therefore the apples fall on both sides of the fence. I’m constantly seeing apples with a bite taken out of them or even just the core left dumped on our lawn.

A couple of weeks ago I had just arrived home from work and was getting into my barn clothes when someone came to the front door. I heard Kerry talk to him and then he told me that the man who was pruning the neighbor’s tree saw our apples and asked if he could have some for his horses. Kerry told him to help himself. I was ticked. I hadn’t yet filled a bucket of apples for OUR horses. Not only did he clean us out but I saw him picking apples off the tree too. And those branches are quite high up due to our recent trimming. Nothing too close to the ground but he was a good sized man and was able to reach a branch and pull it down closer for picking range. And here’s the kicker. The man is trailering his tree chipper. One of our apple branches broke off and was lying on the ground right there in front of him. He's got to walk around it to get to the apples. The considerate thing for him to do in exchange for the apples would have been to toss that tree in his truck and then put it through his chipper the next time he was using it. But no, he didn’t. I told Kerry if he comes back wanting apples tell him no.

Today Kerry told me he caught a lady picking the apples off the ground and she told him she was making applesauce. Help yourself he told her. No problem there. I really don’t mind if the neighbor’s help themselves for their own consumption. There’s a bumper crop this year.

On Saturday night at 11pm I heard voices outside on the street. I peeked out the window and saw a group of teenage boys talking loudly and kept an eye on them. One of them stopped off the street onto our lawn and picked up an apple and started eating it. So OK, he’s hungry. Then another boy picked up an apple, took a bite, and apparently didn’t like it too much. He threw it at our house and it made a good thump against the siding. Then he picked up another apple and threw it against the house. Fortunately the siding again and not through a window. Kerry was downstairs and heard the noise and came outside. Ended up getting into a verbal battle and the boys took off down the street and he went back inside. I don’t think that was too smart for him to get into it with the boys because we park our truck on the street, and the car and motorbike in the driveway and those little buggers could have come back and vandalized any of them while we're sleeping. Then I watched the boys come back and the same boy picked up an apple and threw it against our house.

I know the police aren’t going to do anything so no point in calling them, so I grabbed my camera. I know its too dark to get a focused shot but the boys probably wouldn’t know that. All they'd see is the flashbulb going off. Then I heard 2 men down the other street yelling at them and the boys started running. I ran out to the sundeck and started snapping the shutter making the flash go off so the boys would know the camera was taking their pictures. And then one of the men yelled: “Good! They’re taking your picture.” The 2 men caught up with 2 of the boys with me continuing to snap a blurry documentary. I heard one of the boys yell: “Quit taking our picture. It wasn’t us.”

Kerry went back outside again and another neighbour across the street came outside. Apparently the boy(s) were throwing apples against his house too, though I hadn't seen that. One of the other men came back to talk. Apparently the boys had just been done their street and were throwing rocks at his neighbor’s house. As if that wasn’t enough one of them (probably the same apple thrower I observed) punched in the van that was parked on the street. That house/van owner is a biker. He caught up with 2 of them, and I believe he knew at least one of them, and found out who the other boys are, so it looks like he’ll take care of them.

In the meantime I now pick up those apples as soon as I can and do one final sweep before going to bed at night. Just trying to eliminate the ammunition.