Training
Asunción Valley Farm is accepting clients for both consignments & training. We specialize in Show Jumping and Dressage as well as Early Education. The farm has a show schedule that follows the ‘A’ circuit up and down the West Coast, and a dressage team that attends competitions regularly and hosts well-known clinicians.
We have a select number of spots for clients who wish to join our team for training. We also accept horses into our sales consignment program and provide all of the marketing services to place your horse in a top-notch home.
Our resident trainers are a husband and wife team, Tim Forster and Lauren Ogden. They came to us from Santa Fe, NM, where they had a successful and established training business. Tim Forster brings a lifetime of experience to the farm. He has been a successful breeding manager for prominent stud farms in Australia, has started over 1,000 horses, developed young horses for jumping and dressage, and shown successfully through Prix St George. His passion for bringing along young horses correctly and compassionately is evident in the willingness and rideability of every horse he produces. Lauren Ogden is passionate about bringing horses and riders up the levels and believes in using a gentle and compassionate approach. Lightness, harmony, and a classical position are the foundation of her training methods. Horses trained by Lauren have a high degree of rideability and a relaxed and positive mind frame. Lauren’s students appreciate her demanding yet patient approach and have enjoyed much success in the show ring as well as developing rewarding relationships with their horses.
Meet our resident trainers
Tim Forster and Lauren Ogden
Our training facility blends many different facets to keep our equine partners not only in top physical shape, but also in optimum mental shape, too. We make sure horses are rotated in and out of very large sand paddocks & irrigated grass paddocks daily so that they can truly live the life of a horse. They are fed the majority of their roughage from hay that we grow on our farm (3x/day), and they get ridden on two exercise tracks to keep them from getting ‘arena sour’. We have a flat track that is .80 mile in diameter, and we also have a very rigorous hill track for keeping the hind end fit and powerful.
Our arena is 300 x 200 sq ft, with GGT footing (German Geo Textile) and a sub irrigation ebb and flow watering and drainage system. There is never any need to water it, and it drains within 2-3 hours, max, even after the heaviest downpour. We have a 60 ft round pen, and a 6 horse oval covered Kraft Werks eurocizer. For post-workouts, we offer a Theraplate with solarium lights which can also be used for horses that are rehabbing.
Our main barn has (8) 12×16 stalls, and one 12×12 stall, with paddocks off of them. All stalls have ComfortStall padding, the same stall liners New Bolton University & Rood & Riddle Vet Clinic use.
Many of our past sales graduates have gone on to USEF Pony Finals (and been in the top 10 or top 15 their first time out). We have had also had many successes with our own ponies and horses in the breeding rings: we had the top 2018 2YO Filly Of The Year with Qismet (reserve Filly of 2017), and our ponies have been champions at both Devon and Upoerville (Royal Affair & Farmore Eye Candy). We are continuing to strive to great heights in the jumper ring with our young prospects on the West Coast – our most recent stars are Daisy Love, Leonidas, Lorelei, & Gustavo Dudamel.
We hope to be a source people look to for either purchases or leases for top jumpers &/or equitation prospects, whether it is on the West Coast or in the US. If we don’t have what you are looking for, we are happy to help you source your next equine partner with our extensive network of contacts in Europe, or arrange a door to door trip for trials to find the perfect horse to put in your barn. We are a small niche farm, but we are proud to say we are trying to make big stars for the future of our sport.
Please call or email us for a visit, or stop by and say ‘hello’ to us at the shows!
