Karen Dallimore

I was born and raised in Toronto but somehow agriculture and horses got into my brain. My curiosity about all things agricultural took me to the University of Guelph to earn an Honours B.Sc. in Agriculture (OAC '85), graduating with an Animal Science major sprinkled with literature electives. 

The horse racing industry snatched me up after graduation. I worked as an equine midwife at Armstrong Bros. Farm in Inglewood, Ontario, known to most as Armbro, for five years. I delivered over 300 foals during my time in the Standardbred horse industry at five of the leading farms in Canada, Australia and New Zealand, looking after matriarchs such as Armbro Flight and Fan Hanover, managed mare and foal health, trained foals and weanlings and worked more than a dozen yearling sales in Ontario, Kentucky and Auckland, NZ. I spent another few years as Assistant Farm Manager at Windswept Farm in Ballinafad, ON raising and training their magnificent Hannoverians while continually working with horse training projects. 

As a break from the horse industry I spent several years at Roof Trusses & Components Ltd, a manufacturing business now located in Elora, Ontario, rounding out my skills in administration and customer service. Once I figured out how to turn on the computer they couldn’t stop me: I looked after everything from balancing the books to designing roof truss systems. I wrote and delivered training sessions to customers, scheduled orders and deliveries, built trusses, motivated the troops, and became involved in just about every other aspect of the business that is so important to the bottom line, all while helping the company itself to grow five-fold in seven years.  

My enthusiasm for working with horses continues to grow and my skills continually develop, deeply influenced by incredible people like Temple Grandin, Pat Carter, Guy McLean and Ray Hunt. Over the years I have worked with a large cross-section of breeds and disciplines and enjoy working with young stock, with an addiction to foals and foaling. For over ten years I worked regularly with a Standardbred breeder, Stu Cockshutt, giving his foals their early education. In recent years,  I have ridden in clinics and lessons under Peter Fraser, Jason Irwin, David Cowley, Jim & Andrea Anderson, Johnie Clemm, Chet Martin, Sue Caldwell, Lindsay Partridge, Sheila Rondeau, Lantz McLaren, Joanne Milton, Karen Rohlf and Kris Simpson. I've also taken time to work with Extreme Cowboy enthusiasts over two seasons in New Zealand as both a clinician and judge. 

I have also trained, bred and shown our own Sweet Grass Farm herd of Paints and Welsh ponies, with our homebred Scotch Bay Time colt Sweet Scotch Man (Spike) winning his division at the Ontario Paint Horse Club Futurity in 2012 and as a yearling, High Point Pinto Stallions and Geldings all ages and Reserve Overall High Point Pinto Halter horse in 2013, conceding the High Point Champion honour to his dam, SR Hot Lady of D Nite, herself holder of an ROE in Pinto halter, among other honours. Spike earned his ROE in Pinto Halter in 2016. Spike left us in 2021 but our 13-year-old homebred gelding and lovable clown, Sweet Grass Jake, was the 2017 OXC Green Horse Champion and has since discovered cows, which means I've discovered the lariat. We also have a nine-year-old gelding named Sweet Scotch Nemo by Scotch Bay Time that looks like a keeper, winning his first Extreme Cowboy race at the Erin Fair in 2022. 

In 2022, I obtained my Level 1 Judge's Card for EXCA and I'm looking forward to the further development of my judging skills through the 2024 racing season. 

Along the way, I started submitting articles to local newspapers and in October 2002, Words For Hire was officially launched. In 2014 I merged the business names, Words for Hire and Horse Basics, to become known as what I have been all along, a Horseback Writer. My curiosity, my urban roots, my education, experience, writing and photography skills and my passion for everything I do has been able to come together in a successful business. My writing appeared once a month in the Horse Tales column in our local paper, Country Routes, for ten years, as well as in the Ontario Farmer, Canadian Poultry Magazine and various agricultural specialty publications and newsletters.

When I'm not out working around Sweet Grass Farm doing hay and maintenance or sharing our obstacle facility with students and guests, you'll find me on FB where I have a personal page but also administrate Horse Basics, Sweet Grass Farm, Ontario Horse Trainers and Coaches, Extreme Cowboy Racing Trading Post, Marching Madness 2021 and Erin Extreme Cowboy, a race that I host at the Erin Fall Fair. As a hobby, I have shares in several Standardbred racehorses through TheStable.ca, racing weekly in Ontario, Ohio and Australia. 

You can reach me at karen.dallimore (@)gmail.com, call/text 519-855-1127 or find me on Facebook. My Instagram address is @HorsebackWriter 1 but I'm not on there much.