about us

As a little girl growing up in Albuquerque, New Mexico, I dreamed of having enough space to keep some horses of my own. My sister, Georgie, and I had to keep our "borrowed" horse at the New Mexico fair grounds. It was convenient to our home but lacked the feeling of the great outdoors. I married, had children and a career that didn't allow time for horses. At age 45, my husband, Bob, bought me a horse of my very own. At first I kept my horse at a local boarding facility where I took riding lessons. It was a great compromise and a wonderful learning experience. Circumstance allowed us to move to Hot Springs, Arkansas and in February 2005 my barn was done. We had both retired early so we decided to work at what we loved best - and my loves are my children, grandchildren and horses. Since I was going to be there all the time, Bob suggested that I take in some boarders to help with the expenses and Arkanna (Arkansas and Janna merged) Downs (means rolling hills) was born!

The barn is designed to be as maintenance free as possible. It includes a 50X90 indoor riding arena. Each horse has a run that is 20X50 feet. Pastures are available for turn out on a daily basis. Currently we have 12 horses (some boarders, some of our own) and 1 miniature donkey named Louie.

We are fortunate to have the training services of Dena Popra available. Dena comes to our barn and gives riding lessons (Western or English) to our boarders and she also trains horses for us. She is an experienced trainer and is wonderful with the kids and the horses. Her rates are very reasonable and will give lessons at our barn for non-boarders as well.

I am very excited about the newest endeavor at the barn - developing a line of Missouri Foxtrotter Ponies. I love the Missouri Foxtrotter breed. They are great family horses, wonderful, kind, gentle and a ride that is smooth as silk. My personal horse is a 9 year old Foxtrotter Mare named Cloud's Cindy Sue (daughter of Black Cloud C). I call her SIS. Sis is a dream and every one loves her but because she is 15.2 hands, she is on the tall side and can be intimidating to some folks, especially children. The foxtrotting pony seems to be the answer. The ever versatile, smooth riding, wonderful Foxtrotter in a smaller size. I am focusing on ponies that are between 13.0 and 14.0 hands. This size means you won't necessarily outgrow the pony. The term "pony" refers only to their size and not to the bloodlines. The bloodlines are from foxtrotters that are smaller in size (most of my ponies are blue papered foxtrotters and are double registered as Foxtrotting Horses and Foxtrotting Ponies). I have refrained from introducing "pony" blood to get the smaller size. I want a smaller horse, not a big pony. We are introducing one of our ponies, Arkanna's Abzolut Abbie, at the Missouri Foxtrotter Celebration, in Ava, Missouri on September 6, 2006. This is the first time that the ponies have been in the show. Abbie happens to be the 8th pony permanently registered and she is a doll baby! We are sure she will get some attention.