12/ MARCH/APRIL 2018 THE RIDER


Horse Industry Builders Roy & Joan Ionson – To make a long story short… Part 1


By Karen Dalimore When the bridge


went down in the village of Chesley, Roy and Joan Ionson heard about it in their tack store first. If you ever want to know what’s going on just go to Ionson’s Saddlery on the edge of town. The coffee pot is always on, tucked beside a wall of photos and a stream of never-ending stories. You may hear how


Joan and Roy met, or how Roy started up the Ontario Quarter Horse Association. He might tell you about his in- volvement with the Western Horse Associa- tion of Ontario, or how he bought his first Quar- ter Horse, Charlie, for $400 from Cletus Hulling in Illinois back in 1954. Joan will spell out


the names for you, said Roy. Her father would give her $50 if she stayed top of the class for spelling. She worked hard, using the money to keep her first horse, Smokey. He was a two- year-old Arabian stallion, “unbroken, untouched, un-everything,” said Joan. She was responsible for his upkeep. She was also responsible for his train- ing but unfortunately she knew nothing about riding and only managed to teach him to gallop every- where, stopping him by running him into fences. As a stallion,


Smokey was very rude. Victor Smith at the Palomino Ranch offered to get Smokey gelded. At that time you had to take your horse to the Univer- sity of Guelph for the sur- gery. Smith’s hired man, Herb Towers (who was quite the cowboy at the time) delivered Smokey and on his way home with Joan he had to stop by the Galt Spring Fair to pick up a Saddlebred stallion for Bill Long. At the fair, along


how Joan met Roy. They started going out right away, going to a barbecue the next day at Bob Tweed’s. The cow- boys were all good friends back then, always having bar- becues. That would have been around 1954. Roy and Joan dated for three years before they got married, going to a horse show every weekend somewhere. They got married in 1958.


Roy was from a


comes this fella riding a black stallion. It was Roy. As Roy recalled the meet- ing, “It was terribly ro- mantic and it had a horse in it, like everything else ever since.” The next time they


met was at the Royal Con- naught Hotel in Hamilton


come? What did Joan say? “No!” He asked if I’d ever tried it? Joan replied, “no, but I know I don’t like it!” (“That’s Joan,” said Roy. He real- ized then what he was get- ting into.) “If you want to go, come along,” said Roy. “If you don’t, that’s


fruit and vegetable farm in Clarkson. They had a milk cow and a team of


horses to do farm work, but he was young when a tractor replaced the horses. He remembers driving single, scuffling. Roy’s parents weren’t horse people; Joan’s par- ents were city folks. His first horse was


was never reluctant to step up when needed, get- ting elected as treasurer at 19 years old and two years later becoming pres- ident, holding that posi- tion for five years, stepping back for a year, then coming back for one more year. “When I started the


Ontario Quarter Horse Association (OQHA) I didn’t think it would be right to do both,” said Roy. The first OQHA meeting attracted 126 people with maybe only 16 Quarter Horses in the country. It grew to 1,000 members in its heyday. The first OQHA fu-


turity was held at the Ion- son farm in Georgetown. “I can see it right now,” said Roy. “Here’s my arena, it’s got a big wet spot in it, right inside the big doors. I got a pile of bark stripped off cedar posts and dumped a big pile of dirt on top of it and it held.” The futurity has


changed since then. The OQHA was started to pro- mote Quarter Horses but today it’s more just a horse show association. We used to have a very strong breeder’s futurity but numerous things turned against us, said Roy. This happened in the United States too – the breeding has gone way down. You can’t have a futurity with no foals. The futurity is only


one piece of a larger horse industry puzzle, flanked by the economy, demo- graphics and organiza- tional structure, in which Roy and Joan have spent their lives. Come back for an-


where the Western Horse Association of Ontario (WHAO) meetings were held. Roy was waiting for her near the elevator. “He knew I’d show up,” said Joan. After the meeting they always went for Chi- nese food, so Roy asked Joan if she wanted to


tough.” Roy was President of


the WHAO at that time, helping to build the west- ern industry. “We had our meetings at the Royal Connaught Hotel for years because I said we’re going to have our meet- ings somewhere where nobody could say oh, they had their meet- ings in somebody’s backyard. It gave credibility. And you didn’t wear jeans to the meeting. If you did you got a letter and got told about it. Today that wouldn’t work but it did back then. We changed the dress code of the western shows en- tirely. A lot of them would come in their barn clothes to horse shows. And we changed all that.” So anyway, that’s


an Appaloosa gelding named Desert Chief. “I won the stock horse class, first time I ever went to a show. I didn’t know what I was doing. Who knows what made me do it? I have no idea,” said Roy. “My parents didn’t have horses. I just thought it would be something to do.”


Western riding was


going strong at that time. The Dundas Rodeo would attract 26,000 spectators over its three day run. There weren’t even stands, just a hill on one side where people would sit. Roy called the first meeting around the camp- fire there on a Saturday night to start the Ontario Rodeo Association. The WHAO had


been going a few years by then. “I was green as grass when I went to the first meeting,” said Roy. He


other coffee in the next issue of The Rider.


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