Linda Plank

Linda has been involved in horses all her life. Starting out riding a Shetland pony of her friends', she graduated to horses until eventually she could buy her own. The Eventing bug hit when she was introduced as a groom to the Radnor 3 Day Event in Malvern, Pennsylvania, while on a working student program.

Linda's current equestrian pursuits have resulted in successfully competing at the Preliminary Level with her home bred registered CSHA mare, Touch the Crowd. Competing in her second preliminary level competition, she placed 4th at the Ontario Preliminary Championships in September 2005, up against seasoned horses that had previously competed at the World Equestrian Games and at the Advanced level. Plans for 2006 are to compete in an FEI CCI* level event. She also is working with some young Thoroughbreds off the track that she is training for the eventing discipline. Linda is also dabbling in breeding, by producing some wonderful registered Canadian Sport Horse foals from her breeding program. 

At the March 2006 Canadian Sport Horse Association AGM, it was announced that Touch the Crowd was the 2005 CSHA National Achievement Award winner for Eventing. This is a breed award for the outstanding achievements for the past year for a registered CSH in the Eventing discipline. These awards are given to all nominated horses for the Olympic disciplines. Touch the Crowd's half brother was the recipient of this prestigious award in 1998.

Not only is she an active competitor, Linda is very involved in the organizational aspect of her sport. Her volunteer duties include being a dedicated Director on the Board of the Ontario Horse Trials Association, Equine Canada - CEC's National Athlete Development Committee, National Young Riders Coordinator and has recently completed her tenure as the Coordinator of the Ontario Young Rider Program.

Linda has combined her joy of sewing to manage her own blanket cleaning and repair business and also her own line of SpruceWares equine clothing. Visit the Blanket Service page for more details on her products. 

  Grant Plank

House of the Other Horsepower - after a 23 year hiatus, Grant is skinning knuckles again on a car! Not being content with a relatively straightforward restoration, the project includes taking a skeleton frame and body, then developing all the requirements for a full fledged road racing car, as well as being street legal.

The car is a replica of a 1966 427 Cobra, using a custom suspension, and a full fledged Ford Big Block drive train. The body required extensive modification before it was satisfactory, but I guess that's the nature of the project!

The start of the project included taking an abandoned chicken coop (the only previous use by Grant and Linda was junk storage, and the occasional pony stalls!). The building needed to have the ceiling raised, and proper doors fitted. The project also gave Grant the opportunity to outfit a pretty well tooled shop for both the project, and regular farm equipment maintenance.

As this is the first time for a ground up car build, it is more of a 'functional' build (i.e. - everything is being built to work the way it is planned, but the aesthetics are left for another winter project - maybe next year?)

The timeline includes having the car safetied and ready to roll before April 24, when the racing school is held at Mosport (need a license to road race - kind of like the graduated licensing used for regular licenses today) We'll see - missed it last year............