About Us
We are a small family owned & operated equestrian business based out of Fairview and Calgary, AB, that was established by Marjorie and Brian Wieben in 2000 and taken over primarily by daughter, Tara Wieben in 2018. The primary focus at Katalac Sport Horses is on producing and training top quality sport horses for the disciplines of hunter. equitation, show jumping & dressage. Our young horses are raised with care and attention, and for the most part, are allowed to simply 'be horses' for the first 2-3 years of their life--growing up in a herd environment with 40 acres of grass pasture in the summer months and quality round bales in the winter. Our training philosophy is based on developing mutual trust and respect, both on the ground and in the saddle. We combine natural horsemanship techniques from John Lyons with the principles of the German training scale to develop a well balanced athlete and a healthy willing partnership between horse and rider. The KSH young horses all begin with a foundation in the round pen and a focus on groundwork skills before advancing to under saddle work. We treat our own and client young horses on an individual basis and do not develop them on a specific time or age-oriented schedules. We strive instead to develop our horses in a non-rushed manner, taking care to the horse's physical and mental readiness for the skills being asked of them before advancing to more demanding work. We have found these methods tend to produce happy and willing partners with longterm soundness and success in the show ring.
Marjorie Wieben
Marjorie is an Equine Canada Certified coach with over 30+ years experience starting and training young horses as well as coaching students across multiple disciplines. She believes in instilling correct basics, flatwork, and groundwork skills in all her students and the young horses she develops. Marjorie herself has had a successful career in the dressage ring with several horses including campaigning our stallion, Arrezzo, in the 4 & 5 year old FEI young horse divisions. Marjorie previously competed in multiple other disciplines including cutting, reining, and trail.
Marjorie does much of the initial ground work and early training with the young ones in addition to maintaining the breeding operation at the home farm in Fairview, AB. While Marjorie previously trained young horses and coached students full-time, she now operates Katalac Sport Horses on a part-time basis managing the breeding farm, young horses and broodmares at the North location while her and Brian run an accounting firm full-time.
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Tara Wieben
Tara followed in her mother's footsteps and caught the "horse bug" from an early age and was in the saddle before she could walk. Under the tutelage of her mother, Tara learned the principles for correctly starting horses under saddle and the skills necessary for riding horses of all types; she started and finished her first sales horse at the age of 14. Since then, Tara has started numerous young horses both those on the breeding farm and for clients.
While Tara began in the dressage ring and competed in eventing for many of her junior years, her heart lies with the sport of show jumping where she has been actively competing for over 10 years. She successfully competed up to the 1.30m level with her previous mount, Buena Suerte, and current gelding, Enrique Dowers Hagen. She has trained with various top trainers throughout her show jumping career including Will Simpson, Judi Gorsline, Jodi McCulley, Jim Ifko, Lynne Macyk, Carla Diewert and Lisa Carlson. She also has extensive experience in the hunter and equitation rings, where she continues to campaign the young sales prospects and our stallion, Arrezzo. Like Marjorie, she believes in instilling correct basics, proper flatwork, and excellent ground manners in all training, competition and sales horses.
Tara was previously operating KSH on a full-time basis in 2020-2022. However, in the Fall of 2022 she started medical school at UBC and now operates KSH on a part-time basis, keeping a small string of four riding horses going while she attends medical school.
