Travel with Kevin and Ruth: It was all about the horses...

Monday, September 7, 2026

It was all about the horses...

This is one of the rare posts from me, Ruth! While Kevin was having a fun time with his friends in Newfoundland, I made my way from Halifax, Nova Scotia to Hamilton, Ontario to visit with my younger sister, Lesley.

Scenery somewhere near Montreal, Quebec

A nice complimentary glass of wine and a gluten free snack.

My flight was a little late leaving but that was fine as I was going to have to wait at the Hamilton Airport for my sister to finish work anyways, it ended up that I only needed to wait about a half an hour. We did a bit of running around and then just relaxed and caught up on each other's news.

Lesley and Jay, her husband are all about horses. Lesley started out working as a groomer at some stables that worked with standardbred horses that are used in harness racing. Jay was a trainer for these horses and at one time they had quite a few horses that they looked after and trained. Later on they bred some thoroughbred horses. He has since retired but they had one more yearling colt that they needed to sell. On Wednesday we went to the Canadian Premier Yearling Sale, the biggest yearling sale in Canada, where their colt would be auctioned off with almost 200 other yearlings. It was definitely an interesting day with some beautiful horses. Jay had a reserve on his horse of $10,000 and unfortunately that is what it sold for. Several people later came up to him and said the guy that bought it got a steal of a deal, the good news was that the guy that bought the horse was a good trainer and Jay will get a percentage of any wins the horse might make over the years ahead. One of the yearlings sold for $140,000!

Jay's yearling that was up for sale at the horse auction

They even had free ice cream at the sale!

On Thursday I headed over to the stable with Lesley where she keeps her horse, Galterio so that she could clean out his stall, put him out to pasture for a while, give him a quick grooming and feed him. He is a retired standardbred horse and she wants to eventually ride him on trails in the area, In the afternoon we picked up her daughter, Melissa and grandson, Dominic and we headed to the beach at the Christie Lake Conservation Area for the afternoon. While there we saw a film crew that we think were filming the Netflix series "Wayward".

Lesley and her horse, Galterio

One of the farm dogs enjoying the cool air from the big fan

And another one of the dogs lying down right in front of the fan!

Dolly loved having a fuss made of her.

The beach at Christie Lake Conservation Area

The film crew and cast at the far end of the beach.

Lesley, Dominic, Melissa and me.

On Friday, we were back at the stable to care for Lesley's horse and then did a bit of shopping at some thrift shops where I picked up a pair of nearly new Levis jeans for $8 CAD ($5.80 USD) and then we headed over to "The Ranch" a trail riding ranch just outside of Oakville. Lesley's friend, Charlene joined us for an hour long trail ride. It was a bit pricey at $90.40 CAD ($65.35 USD) for an hour long ride but we enjoyed the ride and had good time together.

Lesley

Charlene

Lesley, Me and Charlene

Saturday came around and it was time to say goodbye. Lesley drove me to the bus stop for my Flix bus ride to Toronto where I would transfer to another bus that would take me to Ottawa. Both bus rides were a total of $72 CAD ($50 USD). The bus departed on time but was a little late arriving in Toronto. I had a bit less than an hour before my connection which was just enough time to get out and get a few pictures in the downtown area of Toronto and to give my legs a stretch. My second bus left on time and I arrived into Ottawa around 5:30pm where Kevin was there to pick me up.