06/04/2026
SENTINEL Flashback Foto
Many Bruce Station and area residents will remember Bill Horner and his passion for horses in his retirement. He was also known to be seen riding his horse in the Town of Bruce Mines. In a 1977/78 issue of The North Shore Sentinel, an article accompanied by these photos appeared, featuring Bill and his equine companions. Thanks to Jean Hershey and the Rydal Bank Historical Society archives for assistance with this post.
Bill teaches “horse sense”
(Reprinted from The North Shore Sentinel, circa 1977/78
with the support of Jean Hershey and Rydal Bank Historical Society records)
BRUCE STATION - If you want to talk to Bill Horner, there’s a good chance you’ll find him in the barn.
And, if you find him, you’ll probably have a hard time keeping up to him.
Bill, at 60, races around the barn with incredible agility. When he was younger, he said, no one could ever find him because he moved so fast, and he doesn’t seem to have changed much in 50 years.
He’s got things so well organized within his barn that he can feed 12 horses hay and oats in three minutes flat.
Full of life and energy as he raced around the barn, Bill talked about horse training.
He started training horses about ten years ago, when he purchased his first animal. A true lover of horses, Bill took a correspondence course from Ohio on horse training.
“They were wonderful books,” he said of the course, “they gave me all the information I needed to work with horses.”
A few years later, in 1971, he started boarding horses. The first horse to board with him belonged to Pat McKinnon of Thessalon, who has been helping Bill with his training ever since.
Last year, Bill had a 40-foot by 60-foot Wonder Steel building erected and then built a “barn within a barn”.
Within the steel barn, he constructed 14 standing stalls and has them built for easy feeding, cleaning and control of the horses.
He explained that with less room in a standing stall, he has far more control over the horse, which is unable to wander around as in a box stall.
At the moment, he has a dozen horses, six of them are his own.
Cream-coloured fibreglass skylights allow sufficient light into the building until twilight. The building has a light and airy atmosphere and everything has its place.
Bill can drive his tractor in one end of the building and out the other without disturbing anything.
He trains the horses for saddle, buggy and cutter. Bill explained that you have to train a horse not to be afraid. It’s important to gain the confidence of a horse, he said. His ears are an indication of how he’s going to act and you can act before he does if you’re observant, he explained.
Many horses born in the spring are put out to pasture during the summer and given training in the fall in time for the fairs, but Bill doesn’t waste any time.
There’s a lot of work involved in training, he says, and he begins with colts when they’re only a few weeks old.
He starts training them stable manners and teaches them to allow handling of the feet. For shoeing or hoof trimming or treatment of a foot injury, the foot has to be handled and if the horse is used to this, there is usually no problem.
“A horse only knows what you teach it,” Bill emphasized several times. “If you only teach him good habits, he’ll be a well-behaved horse. If you train him bad habits, he has bad habits.”
A horse has a split brain, said Bill, and you have to train him on both sides. If you always approach him on the left side, it might frighten him to be approached on the other side.
Bill does all his own shoeing and trimming and even makes his own rope.
To train a horse to have good manners and then see him return to its owner only to fall back into bad habits or to be spoiled is heartbreaking.
Bill was born and raised on a farm in Bruce Station and moved to Sault Ste. Marie in 1942 as a young man, where he worked for the Canadian Pacific Railway as a railway car inspector for 33 years. For 32 years, he worked the night shift until he retired a couple of years ago.
The Horners have five children, including Elsworth, Leona, Grant, Keith, and Darryl.
Bill’s father was a CPR man before him. He came from Shawville, Quebec as a farmer about 1912 and started railroading in 1917.
Bill has plenty to do in his spare time when not in the barn.
“I keep my own hands warm as well as everybody else’s,” he said as he showed some socks and mitts he had knitted on winter evenings and he was looking forward to experimenting with leather work.
