Wow, time sure flies when you're working and around here, every day is a work day. First for the big news... In June we purchased a new horse training facility in Brooksville, Florida. It tooks months and months of searching and looking at lots of places before we found the perfect place. We looked in Tennessee, Kentucky, Georgia, and Florida. When we were filming Walking Dead, I had to make a quick 450 mile drive to Florida to see the facility and as soon as I saw it, I knew it was the right place. We are going to miss a few things from Sterling, like the Forest Inn, the butcher shop, Cindy from the western store, our banker Gayle and Andy Younger from K's Korner. We want to say a special heart felt thanks to the owner of Double G, Gary Schreiner who gave us the opportunity to manage and live at his wonderful facility.  It helped get Clinton Anderson off to a good start and was good for us too, but as we grow we have other needs. My main love of this place is the barn and the pastures. There are 14 pastures with nicely shaded and very large trees to protect the horses from the sun. We are only 20 miles from the coast, so the breeze is cool. We have two deep wells on property, so the water is nice and cold (In Florida that is very rare) Each pasture, stall and paddock has automatic waterers, large soft dirt stalls, a hot walker, indoor and outdoor training area, miles of trails, and completely gated. Being that it was a race horse facility it does have a race track. I can't wait to take the boys out for a run on it. This is a perfect place for horses.  I hope to keep up the vision that Al Alesso had for this place. I can see that he really cared about and loved his horses by the way the place was layed out and the materials used. All the fences are hot wired and PVC for the safety of the horses. Secondly, it has areas for tack, training, students, interns and a classroom. And lastly, it has all the room we need to grow our business. This place is so big that the zero turn lawn mower has a diesel engine. I'll post picks once we get settled in. We're working hard to get it into shape again.


This is the main aisle of the barn with a nice rubber mat to walk the horses, concrete walkway for durability and ease of cleaning along with the nice dirt stalls. The barn is also set on a hill to keep any standing water away. Fans on every stall and they stalls are open all the way around so the horses can see each other and get the nice breeze.


This is the main drive to the house, office, garage, back barn, horse swimmer, and camping area. The trees keep the place nice and cool. I'll have more about the place as we get it up to speed. We have a ton of things planned for here, so we'll keep you posted.
WALKING DEAD UPDATE
Since the Walking Dead filming and my last post, Chantal and I have done clinics in Kentucky, went to see Ray and Terri at the Cook Forest Trail Ride, worked a PRCA rodeo, worked a PCB Rodeo, did a clinic in Chicago, did stunts with Blade on the set of "War Flowers", and moved 16 horses and our entire business 1250 south to Brooksville, Florida, It took 10 trips and we logged over 25,000 miles in the past 30 days just on the move alone, but it will all be worth it.  We have an incredible year shaping up for 2011 and an open house will be coming shortly. Hope you all can attend.

I just got the link for the Walking Dead preview reel. It was debuted at Comic Con a couple of weeks ago to incredible reviews. You can really see Blade and Andrew in the "city" shots. I'm the one doing the fast riding stunts, the rear, and the take down, but Andrew did a great job with the time I had training him to ride Blade. I think it is awesome in the shot where Andrew (the cop) is walking cautiously through the city and Blade has his ears up and checking it out too. Looks pretty cool. I am so proud of Blade and what he has become. Quite an accomplishment for a Mustang.  




Here is the preview from YouTube.   The video was recorded from the monitor at Comic Con. I think Frank Darabont has a winner on his hands with this. He has a great eye and feel. Enjoy!
Ride Fast... Take Chances!     tommie