Shane & Vix

Shane

  Shane was born in Bulawayo Zimbabwe, he moved to South Africa when he was 13 years old.  He has always ridden horses but his first love was Polocrosse. He played for South African Schools and was awarded his colours for both his province and his country.

He came to the UK in 1996 hoping to earn money and travel the rest of the world but he met Vix and didn’t leave!!!!  He played Polocrosse and in 1998 worked and played for a Polo team, Talacrest who turned out to be the most successful medium goal polo team at that time. 

Having spent a year at Talacrest, Shane and Vix moved back to the Midlands and started out on their own, renting a yard and taking in horses for training.  It was also at this time that Shane travelled to the states to look for a Quarter Horse stud to breed to his Polocrosse TB and Stock horse mares.

Shane subsequently bought Sons Royal Chic, at the time he was told that with his bloodlines, Chic’s future lay in Reining; he had heard about Reining but had never crossed his mind to take part.

Shane and Chic started competing first in the Western Pleasure, that Chic did not like and then in the Reining. Unfortunately, due to his stud duties, Chic’s competition career didn’t really get off the ground.  Shane continued to play Polo and Polocrosse, even representing Great Britain at the Polocrosse World Championships in 2003. It all got too much so Shane gave up the Polo and the Polocrosse and concentrated on the Western disciples. 

In 2004 Shane moved to a new yard based just south of Stratford upon Avon in Warwickshire where his business has been going from strength to strength.  He has been very successful in the Western Pleasure with Seren Jolly Profit owned by Frances Payne.  He represented South Africa at the World Reining Masters in 2005 and at the World Equestrian Games in Aachen in 2006. Shane also has a knack for starting 2 year olds.

In 2008, Shane ended the season as British Reining Year End High Point Champion, AQHA-UK Year End High Point Champion, AQHA-UK Open Reining Champion & AQHA-UK Senior Horse Champion with SES Smart Star, owned by Sheena Parfitt.

Vix

Vix was born and brought up in Hertfordshire. She eventually moved to the Midlands in 1992 when she started to go to Warwickshire Agricultural College to study Horse Management and Business Studies.  She has always owned horses from a very young age and went through Pony Club, representing the Essex North Branch at Gosling Cup and various Polocrosse Championships. 

She captained the Great Britain Polocrosse Team in 1991 on an inbound tour from Zimbabwe.  She then travelled with the GB side to Zimbabwe in 1992.

She continued to play Polocrosse for a Midlands based team Stoneleigh and in 1996 then won the UK Polocrosse Association Championships. Vix was awarded the Best number 2 in the Open Division. During that year, Vix and Shane met and in 1997 they got engaged. Vix moved to Berkshire with Shane while he was working for Talacrest but didn’t get to play polocrosse as her Argentine mare was in foal to Zero Skipkeo. In 1998, Shane and Vix got married and at the end of that year they both returned to the Midlands to make a go of things on their own. 

While Shane was doing the hard graft on the yard, Vix returned to work as an administrator, firstly for a number of companies as a temp. Including Land Rover & Jaguar. She eventually settled down to a full time position with Arden International Motorsport Ltd as their Team Co-ordinator, a GP2 race team. 

Vix also eventually gave up Polocrosse to concentrate with Shane on the Western disciplines and to help develop the business. This was going all swimmingly well until the beginning of 2006 when she got pregnant.  On 30 October 2006, Samantha Rose Borland arrived.

Sammi

The boss of the outfit, Samantha has her own pony, Ted who she hopes to take to her first show season to compete in the small fry classes.  Watch out, this could be chaos!!