Our Farm

Lockerby Lur Struthan is our family home and hobby farm, located in beautiful Wellington County, Ontario. The name is derived from "Lockerby" a small hamlet in Ontario, Canada, where Jim's parents farmed; "Lur Struthan" is a Scots Gaelic phrase for land with a small stream running through it, and refers to a beloved feature of our property. Why the Gaelic influence? The Celtic culture has worked its way into our family because our daughter, Ashleigh, plays the bagpipes!

We keep a few Haflingers and use a portion of our land for pleasure (including getting 'show ready' for a few fairs and shows each year). We rent the workable land to neighbouring Mennonite farmers.

'The Ranch,' as Ashleigh calls it, is a wonderful, peaceful place where friends and visitors are always welcome. If you'll be in the area, let us know – we'd be happy to have you at 'our place'!

First season showing in harness.

Our Family

Jim is a 'semi-retired' Agricultural Engineer. After spending almost thirty years working for the Ontario provincial government, he took an early exit option and is now working part-time as a consulting engineer. You may also know him from his "From the Stands Photography," as he has turned an amateur interest in photography into a popular source of Draft Horse images for friends and exhibitors in Canada and the United States.

Marjorie has retired from close to 40 years of Nursing in acute care, community care and private health care related businesses. She keeps herself busy with friends and helping with the horses and around the farm – and keeping up with all the current news in her social network through Facebook. If you show horses in Ontario or the Midwest and Eastern United States, you've probably seen a friendly comment from Marjorie in your news-feed!

Ashleigh has recently completed a Master of Public Administration (MPA) from the University of Victoria (British Columbia, Canada). She currently works for the City of London (Ontario, Canada) as an AMCTO Municipal Management Intern. She is also a competitive bagpipe player and loves to travel. Ashleigh may not be "horsey", but she loves the farm and feels fortunate to call Lockerby Lur Struthan "home".

 

Our Hitch

Our family has a history of active involvement in the draft horse community (it's how Jim and Marjorie met!). After a long hiatus from the show ring, we purchased our first Haflingers - a mare in foal and her yearling – in May, 2002. For the first couple of years, we showed only in-halter classes. Soon, though, we began hitching teams and singles.

In 2007, we put our first four-horse hitch together. At that time, we had an energetic, if a bit ramshackle, gang of horses – consisting of one 'real' team and 'two others' that we hitched together! Our show-schedule was still limited to the Ontario circuit, but we were beginning to look for other ways to challenge ourselves and our horses.

In 2008, we decided that we wanted to put together a stronger and more competitive four-horse hitch to show "stateside". We originally planned to show at some Michigan shows, however one was cancelled and the rest were experiencing financial difficulties. Our best-laid plans were experiencing some challenges…

Our Grand Adventure

Our 'grand adventure' began in 2009. We attended the Ohio State Fair in Columbus for the first time as exhibitors and had a great time. With the generous help of Gerald and Melissa Allebach, we were second in both the Unicorn and Four Horse Hitch classes. We are greatly indebted to the Allebachs for getting us off to a great start. Jim drove the Tandem for the first time in at least 25 years and came fourth in a large class. After a successful show, we sold our lead team to our first American buyers, the Clemson Family.

The following week, we attended the Lake County Fair in Crown Point, Indiana. Once again, we greatly enjoyed the comradeship of our American Haflinger friends. To our great happiness, we won the Four Horse and Unicorn hitches. At Crown Point, we sold one horse out of our wheel team to Bob and Sharon Crawford. By the end of the 2009 show season, we had only one horse out of the four left!

In 2010, we rebuilt our hitch and went on to return to the Lake County Fair (Crown Point, Indiana), as well as show at the Armada Fair (Michigan) and at the Great Lakes Haflinger Association Show in Corunna, Michigan. Building on our fledgling success in 2009, we continued to enjoy strong results across our 2010 show season.

 

Jim's Bucket List

After the 2010 season, Jim added "Show at the Indiana State Fair" to his 'bucket list'. We decided we needed our own six-horse hitch and set about looking for the right horses to make it happen. We finally found our third team in the spring at a sale in Indiana and got to work turning this new idea into reality.

This year (2011), we showed at the Great Lakes Haflinger Open Show in Mason, Michigan and accomplished our goal of showing at the Indiana State Fair. To our surprise and delight, we won 'The Six' at Mason. This was our first year putting our own six together and the first time they had seen competition! We were thrilled!

At Indiana, we were third in the Haflinger Six and second in the Mixed Six (Draft Ponies & Halingers) – in a field of 14 for each class. We had a very successful show at 'Indy', winning ribbons in all of our classes, producing a total of 2 firsts, 6 seconds, and several other colours to add to our collection. The highlight of our time at Indy was winning the Grand Champion Haflinger Gelding with our horse Jake!

We have so enjoyed both the competition and the camaraderie at the shows we have attended. We have been very fortunate to have had three successful show seasons in the United States and to have made so many wonderful friends.

We definitely didn't get here alone and we're thankful to the neighbours, friends and family who continue to support us. Many thanks to our dear friend Kathy Nagtegaal, who helped us in our early years showing Haflingers. Thank you to 'Team Purcell' – Blair, Holly and Kathryn – for their friendship and hard work, without which our many adventures would not be possible.

IT HAS BEEN QUITE A RIDE! (And we're just getting started!)