Flying R Stud has been a family heirloom for many years, started as back as far as my grandfather – who bred Clydesdales for showing and for working them on the property at the homestead in Jervois back in the 1930’s and 1940’s. My father (Les Richards) took over the stud many years later. My father was a man of many talents included racing steeple chasers, showing, hunting, bronco riding and breeding ponies for Sharon to ride as a child / teenager. Les had many winners over the years in the racing industry including Mr Herb, Bluetime and St Pierre. One of his greatest highlights as a trainer was winning the Grand National steeple chase in 1972 with St. Pierre.
Dad leased Silver King off Frank Thomas from Ashville back in the 1950’s and bred many ponies with him, including Flying R Black Beauty who is “Flying R Bright Lights” grand dam, who is our resident sire here at Flying R Stud. Still to today the bloodlines are still going strong through dad’s breeding.
I started riding as soon as I could walk. I had my first pony at the age of 2 years and his name was “Bluey”. As I got older dad was breeding ponies and I started competing with Bluey and later moved onto “Flying R Black Beauty”. We started breeding with Flying R Black Beauty in the 1960’s and I decided I wanted to start crossing my foundation stud mare to outside Riding Pony stallions. I put her to stallion “Bright Crown” and outcome was Flying R Crown Beauty (reg: Aust. Riding pony, Aust. Saddle Pony and Aust. Stud Saddle Pony) who later on bred many outstanding ponies after a fantastic show career. Flying R Crown Beauty is the dam of Flying R Annatasia, Flying R Bright Lights, and Flying R City Lights – just to name a few. Over the years along with a successful show career I have judged many breeds and still do to this day.
In the 1980’s I was fortunate enough for dad to sign the stud over into my name. In 1986 I started my own family and had my only child Amy Louise.
Myself, Amy and my partner Allen Williams work together to keep the stud alive and to keep the history of my father going through the bloodline. We still live in the homestead in Jervois which was built by my grandparents.
Amy has also taken an interest in judging, her judging has taken her many places in SA and also VIC. We both judge a lot of the time together and love to spend the time together travelling to new spots to judge!
The love of horses all started through my father and is still going today. We believe in breeding quality stock not quantity.
