About Us
Commitment to Excellence
Prima Equestrian was established in 1992 when Michelle Bartlett and Roy St. John Maher purchased their property in Mount Albert, Ontario, Canada. Situated in the heart of historic York Region nestled within the beautiful preserve of the Oak Ridges Moraine, the farm is surrounded by a mixture of protected agricultural land and forest. We are centrally located within one hour of most of Ontario’s ‘A’ circuit horse shows and only 35 minutes directly north of downtown Toronto as well as the Pearson International airport. Our purpose built state-of-the-art facility offers exceptional care catering to the needs of both horse and rider in a relaxed setting.
Rich History
The property has a long established 100 year history in the community having hosted Horse Trials, with some of Canada’s top riders competing on the rolling hills of the property, for over 20 years and numerous other annual equine events. The original wooden constructed arena was one of the first erected in the area and stood for over 25 years until very recently when it was replaced by the magnificent steel structure that stands on the farm today. As lovers of history, the century home and gorgeous original century barn have been extensively renovated to maintain their unique charm as well as functionality. The fully restored main barn is wonderfully cool in summer while maintaining a perfect and healthy temperature in the cold Canadian winters. Over the years, Michelle and Roy have completed extensive renovations and additions to Prima Equestrian which include; a new spectacular indoor arena with stables, a full facility extension to the original century barn featuring; two tack rooms, wash stalls, foaling stalls, office, lab and a complete washroom and shower facilities. Outdoor projects include; extensive landscaping, new grass and sand arenas and miles of new fencing.
Breeding Philosophy
Our awarding winning KWPN breeding program features bloodlines that represent some of the most successful and sought after international performance horses today. Our focus is to develop and breed sport horses for all Olympic disciplines with superb minds that amateurs can train and ride. Turnout is an extremely important part of all equine management but more so with breeding mares and young stock. Almost all of the beautiful rolling acreage is turned over to spacious safe, well designed and maintained paddocks to allow our mares to roam at will and foals to grow strong and happy in a healthy essential heard environment. Our foals are imprinted at birth and handled daily with special attention paid to proper nutrition. Socializing of all of our mares and foals ensure bad habits are avoided and makes for well-rounded people orientated foals.
We have clients located all over North America, in recent years our horses have been sold to: Florida, California, Texas, Washington State, Quebec, Ontario and British Columbia.
Site Photographs
We are often asked about the photographs on our site, are they all of the farm and who is the photographer? Just about all of the photos on this site were taken by Roy St.John Maher using a variety of Nikon bodies (both digital and film) and Nikon lenses. He has been taking equine, landscape and urban photo’s in both North America and Europe for many years and with the launch of this site has put his endless hours of labour and enjoyment to work. No filters are used, as Roy prefers to utilize the many different light conditions that occur naturally, similarly Photoshop has not been employed to this point letting the composition and exposure stand for themselves. Yes, the photos are all of the beautiful Prima Equestrian and yes, with the exception of the stallions, all of the horses are either bred, owned or both by Prima Equestrian.
Future Vision
Things never stand still for long; a culture of constant improvement is a mainstay of Prima Equestrian’s success. The day you stop looking for improvement is the day you begin to decline, these are words Prima Equestrian considers every time they make a decision and that have focused their efforts into a breeding program second to none in the America’s. Each year new stallions are evaluated against their mare herd to see what they can add and only the best are added to the roster.
Prima Equestrian has evolved into one of the top breeding centers in North America and serves as the corporate head office for Michelle’s Canadian owned equestrian based business, Equine Systems. In 2004, Equine Systems was selected by the Athens Olympics to be the sole supplier for all the dressage equipment for these Olympic Games. In 2007 and 2005, Equine Systems was selected as the equipment supplier for the FEI World Cup Finals in Las Vegas. To read more please visit our business web site at: www.equine-systems.com.
We truly hope you enjoy all the efforts we put into our site and come back to visit often as it is constantly updated.