“RIVER OAK” had its beginning in 1985 when we were managing the famous Arabian Park Stud, owned by the late Paul and Ella James. The name River Oak was taken from the trees surrounding the house where we lived at Arabian Park. The first River Oak horses were a combination of horses that we each already owned including the colts Arjai Summitt (Ralvon Pilgrim x Arjai Tammie) and Arabian Park Triumph (Arabian Prk Faraz (Imp.USA) x Desert Queen) and the fillies Dynasty Lamech (True Fame (Imp./Exp. USA) X Dunwingeri Farhlima) and Rhamadan Talia (E'Arlia Jaime x Mutilla) to name just a few. Mares such as the famous Dimity (Banderol x Tamara) and Ballerina (Shafreyn (Imp.U.K.) x Baksheesh were purchased from Arabian Park and both, along with Dynasty Lamech produced foals by Arabian Park Egyptian Magnetic including River Oak Tabu our leading black stallion and River Oak Dancing Girl who is one of our top producing mares.
When choosing Arabians our first consideration is they must look like an Arabian. Then we look for a quality animal with good conformation, good muscling, large joints and excellent movement. As mentioned before, an Arabian is first and foremost a saddle horse. Beauty is part of being an Arabian but he must not be judged on beauty alone - he is a riding horse excelling and unequalled in endurance and possesses great stamina. He is a saddle horse and should be built to carry a rider. He should have good feet, good legs, be well muscled, have a long neck well set into good, long sloping shoulders, a short strong back and loin, well sprung ribs, with a long croup and well set tail. He must be of sound temperament. After all, who wants to live with a horse with an unpleasant temperament? Our mares have been selected for their individual good points as much as for their bloodlines. The size of our mares is unimportant to us and some of our best show and breeding mares are under 15 hands, while others such as Dancing Girl have been up to 15.3 hands. When choosing which stallion to use we look to complement the mare, as there is no perfect horse you must consider individual features of both mare and stallion. We feel a concentration of particularly good and prepotent horses is better than a mish-mash of "Heinz" breeding.
We personally love the Ralvon Pilgrim bloodlines for their quality, type, movement and substance. Many of our horses are linebred to Pilgrim, a stallion we believe was one of Australia's best. When these horses are then bred to good individuals of a different bloodline the outcome can be super. We may use a linebred Egyptian, Spanish, Polish or whatever, as long as it is a superior representative of its bloodline and type. We may then breed the resulting progeny back to our linebred Pilgrim stock.
We started in a small way and we strongly believe anyone can succeed with open-mindedness, dedication and hard work. Willingness to learn and appreciate the good points of other people's horses is also very important. We recognize and admire other bloodlines and have successfully introduced them into our breeding programme. We firmly believe a good horse is a good horse no matter the breeding or the farm that owns it. Sadly, many people are unable to recognize their fellow breeder also has "a good horse or two".
We believe only the very best colts should be kept as breeding stallions and to this end our stallions have all been very carefully selected. They have been successfully shown under both Australian and international judges. We never "pick" our judges as we have always had faith in the quality of our horses to show no matter who the judge was or where the judge originated. Our stallions include the prolific show winner Arjai Summitt, twice Supreme Exhibit at the National Arabian Stud Show when it was the biggest Arabian Show in Australia. Arjai Summitt ranks 11th on the Australian Contemporary Sires list and has produced both halter and saddle East Coast and Australian National champions on a consistent basis. He is affectionately know as "Australia's moving machine" and is celebrated for his movement, quality and charisma.
Arjai Summitt sired River Oak Imprint, the 2000 East Coast Champion Stallion and 2000 Australian National Champion Stallion as well as River Oak Prestige the 1998 Australian National Champion Colt and 1998 National Arabian Stud Show Reserve Champion Ridden Junior. Both these horses are now siring top quality foals. Imprint is one of Australia's most successful show horses, winning Champion and supreme awards at all the major shows he attended over the years. It is noteworthy that Imprint was awarded the Air New Zealand Cup for his 1998 Australian Grand Champion Led Stud Exhibit at the National Australia Show where his Supreme Arabian award pitted him against 16 different breeds, under almost as many judges, to take out this prestigious honour for the Arabian breed. Following his 2000 Australian National Champion Title he was again awarded 2000 Supreme Arabian Exhibit at Sydney Royal Easter Show for the third consecutive year.
The 1998 East Coast and 1998 Australian National Champion stallion Kyremi Illustraa is a full brother to Arjai Summitt and we purchased him as a yearling. Illustraa's show career has been exciting with far too many awards to list and like Summitt and Imprint he has always been a crowd pleaser with his awesome presence and movement. He is also siring excellent foals and on a ratio basis is fast becoming a leading sire of show horses. All five Illustraa progeny shown at the 1999 National Arabian Stud Show won blue ribbons and between them they clocked up nine firsts including five individual class wins, colt filly, mare and stallion, Filly and Colt Head and Trot classes, two Futurity Champions and Champion Arabian Mare. At the 2000 Australian National Championships four Illustraa offspring were shown and three received Top Ten honours and one was Reserve Australian Champion Mare. The 2000 National Arabian Stud Show once again saw all Illustraa's doing extremely well including winning four Futurity Championships. The 2001 East Coast saw River Oak Monarch take out Reserve Champion Junior Gelding and Romac Scimitar awarded Top Five Yearling Colt and at the 2001 Australian National Championships the Illustraa's took out Top Ten in the Filly Final, the Colt Final and two Top Ten awards in the Senior Mare Final with River Oak Monarch being awarded Australian National Reserve Champion Junior Gelding.
Our stallion River Oak Tabu is bred along a different line, mainly Egyptian bloodlines, and he too has had enormous show ring successes and is producing both winning halter and saddle horses and also has progeny competing in endurance. His black daughter Killara Cherish is a highly decorated show mare now producing champion offspring for the stud.
With judges worldwide claiming our horses number amongst the best in the world, we are happy to have bred horses we believed in and not chopped and changed to each "new fashionable" bloodline. We strongly believe it is the duty of all breeders of Arabian horses to maintain a high degree of quality, Arabian type, sound conformation with excellent movement and kind temperament. Responsible breeders will keep in mind the generations of Arabians to come.
Ray & Kerry Smith
