Terra Sano began just over 20 years ago.  Russ, who had grown up around horses, and worked in the industry for a few years after college, asked Chris if they could get a horse, just one gelding to ride.  Chris, who had always liked horses, but never had one, agreed.  And that is how this all started.  As Russ began to enjoy riding the gelding, Chris decided he would like to have a horse to ride. That brought a second horse into the picture, a wonderful riding mare for Chris.  After taking some lessons, Chris decided riding wasn’t really for him and declared that he wanted to breed his mare instead.  After some thought and discussion, Russ and Chris decided to sell his riding mare and look for a mare more suitable for breeding.   The decision was made to focus narrowly on breeding for Western Pleasure, and a nationwide search ensued that resulted in the purchase of BJ Outragous Girl, by the noted Varian sire Desperado V and out of Padruska, who was herself a Reserve National Champion in Open Western pleasure.  The mare was bred to two-time National Champion CA Hermoso and promptly produced a filly that had a world of trot.  The filly grew up to be TS Hermoso Girl, who was Reserve National Champion in the Hunter Futurity and U. S. National Champion in Hunter Pleasure.  Our first foal was a National Champion.  Her next foal was Chuy, TS Virtuoso, who is himself a Two Time Open National Champion and is the lead sire in our program today.  Not a bad start.  Yes, we were breeding for Western and got National Champion hunters, but our friend Sheila Varian always said, “Go wherever the horses take you.”  So we did.

In the years since we have put together a small group of exceptional mares that were selected or bred specifically to cross on TS Virtuoso.  We have now reached the point where a couple of his daughters are becoming producers as well, giving us a new generation and new ways to explore crossing him on other stallions.  We still focus solely on performance and seek to produce exceptional athletes with exceptional minds for training.