A yearling colt adds another title to Iron Spring Farm’s growing list.

Most breeders are dreaming about the future when they look at their yearlings, but Mary Alice Malone already knows that her Iron Spring Farm’s Bien Sir ISF is a champion.

He bested all the competition in the breed show portion of Dressage At Devon to win the grand championship in Devon, Pa., Sept. 25-27.

By Sir Sinclair out of Toraya (by Goodtimes), the Dutch Warmblood colt impressed the judges with his elastic, uphill movement and charisma. He won three championships in one day in addition to the grand championship. These included the yearling colts and geldings (72.09%), the colt/gelding championship and the Great American/ USDF Colt Championship (87.25%).

“Bien Sir has incredible balance and expression in his gaits,” said Malone. “He is a lovely type with very good conformation. These are the qualities that the judges, as well as riders, are looking for. For a young horse, Bien Sir was very focused. He came into the ring and really showed off his potential. He definitely had that quality look from Day 1.”

She has bred Toraya to Sir Sinclair again for 2008. “Toraya has three excellent gaits and is a very good jumper; her damsire is Gershwin by Voltaire,” said Malone. “She is very pretty and passes that along. Sir Sinclair stamps his get with a well-set, long neck, long legs and good expression. All of the Sir Sinclair
offspring are inheriting his incredible temperament and great attitude.”

Malone is excited to see how Bien Sir continues to develop. “We will take it slowly, so he can follow in his father’s footsteps as a performance horse,” she said.

Bien Sir also came out ahead of last year’s grand champion, Rabiola, who earned the overall reserve championship and is also owned by Iron Spring Farm.

A 9-year-old Dutch Warmblood mare (Metall—Fabiola), Rabiola placed second in the 4-year and older broodmares class (84.44%) and won the mare championship and the mature horse championship.

“This year’s Dressage at Devon was absolutely incredible,” said Malone. “It was a dream come true. We have been coming to Dressage at Devon for a long time. It was wonderful for the horses to do so well.”

While Iron Spring Farm carried off a majority of the prizes, a newcomer to the breeding scene won the stallion championship, the 4-year and older stallion class, the Great American/USDF Stallion Champion-ship, the Swedish Warmblood class and placed second in the mature horse championship.

Stonefire 1074, a 9-year-old Swedish Warmblood (D-Day—Roderiks Oxalina) made owner Taunia Reed and Wellington Farm very proud with his accomplishments.

“I’m still on Cloud 9,” said Reed.

Reed only got into the breeding business two years ago. “I was always into horses since I was a kid, but I got away from it for about 10 years,” she said. “I couldn’t stand it any longer, so we started building the barn. It went from a four-stall barn to a 15-stall barn!”

And so she created her dream farm in Virginia Beach, Va. Reed hired Hokan Thorn to be Wellington Farm’s head trainer and acquired a broodmare in foal to Riverman.

Then last year Thorn went to Sweden to look for some sales horses and came across Stonefire in Jan Brink’s stable.

“When he got back, he said there’s this one horse that’s really special,” recalled Reed. “We’d talked about a horse for Wellington Farm, a good horse, so we decided to go for it. We bought him from the video and on Hokan’s recommendation.”

Besides being Reed’s favorite color, the gray has an incredible reach to his trot. “He is very intelligent. He loves to work,” she said. “He has a great temperament. He’s king of the barn. He wants to know what’s going on.”

Thorn also competed Stonefire in the fourth level performance classes at Dressage At Devon and earned good placings there as well.

“We took him to three shows this past season, enough to qualify for Devon,” said Reed. “He hasn’t been out very much. We don’t wear these horses out by going to the shows and chasing the points. He was a little tired by the end of the week. By Saturday and Sunday we didn’t have a whole lot of horse left. Next year we’re hoping to do the small tour.”

Sara Lieser