Places: Wal Ken Farm and Greenbelt Riding School

Do I go to the barn or the stables to ride my horse? The stables is where I keep my horse. The barn is the building.

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Wal Ken Farms is where I learned to ride. Pop and Mom Billingham (Arthur and Gladys) owned the stables even though Mom did not have much to do with the horses. Pop had grown up with horses as a boy in England. He always had horses when in Canada. He started the business after World War II after some encouragement from my dad and his friends. There were pictures of my dad on a horse there but they were lost. Kathi and I never saw him on a horse but he and my mom were always supportive of our horsy interests.

Wal Ken Farms was named after the 2 sons - Walter and Kenny. When I first started riding there, Pop had hackney horses. In later years he moved onto Canadian horses. We joked with him when he was meeting with the other Canadian horse breeders from la Belle Province - Pop did not speak too many words of French.

The girls at the barn (and they were few boys) helped Pop with a lot of the barn chores - cleaning out stalls, carrying buckets of water and feed, and bringing in the hay to the barn loft. We had a lot of fun together.

I remember many happy hours spent in Mom’s kitchen listening to her stories and watching her bake pies. The two sons went into business together and bought a restaurant. Mom’s pies were much awaited every day. I can almost hear her saying - Arthur, put on a clean shirt, it is time to take the pies.

When Mom got sick and older, Pop took good care of her. Eventually he gave up the horse business and the farm was sold. He outlived her by several years. On the gravestone at Lachute Protestant Cemetery there are horse shoes and the barn’s Hackney logo on it.

Pop’s memory lives on in the folks who used to ride at Wal Ken. In the summer of 2006 we had a small reunion. Of all the folks at the gathering there was only one person not involved with horses in some way.

His memory also lives on in the Canadian horses that are listed in the Canadian Horse Association registry - 50 or 60 with the Wal Ken name in front of the horse’s name.

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I found Greenbelt Riding School one Sunday afternoon in November 1974. There were lessons going on. The atmosphere was much like I was used to at Wal Ken in Lachute. The horses were well taken care of and the kids were having fun. I decided right away that this is where I wanted to ride.

I rode the school horses for 6 months or so until I bought Wal Ken Valliant Charisma (Cari) and brought her to Ottawa in June of 1975. I had her there for 20 years.

The people and barns and the management have changed at Greenbelt over the years - I have been there for 34 years. The atmosphere is still the same. It is a very busy place with boarders and school horses and ponies being ridden.

I have recently spent a lot of time in the kitchen in the house - talking about my new horse Abracadabra and how she is doing. I have also enjoyed many cups of coffee and an occasional cappuchino.

I have had lots of friendly support recently from those who knew Bishop. Now folks are getting interested in Abra and how she is doing.