Ray LaCroix rode his first horse at age 3. From that moment on, he was involved in "the family business" of Arabian horses -- first as Lasma Arabians, and later LaCroix Ltd., Ray won his first National Championship at age 16. At 27, he became head of the training division at Lasma Arabians, supervising 20 assistant trainers over the course of 15 years. Many of the trainers who apprenticed with Ray at Lasma Arabians and LaCroix Ltd. went on to head their own successful training operations -- familiar names like Gordon Potts, Brian Murch, Dwane Hankins, Joel Kiesner, Tom Moore, Rob Bick and Carolyn Schroter, to name a few.
Today, Ray LaCroix is a full-time equine consultant, involved in marketing, herd evaluation, sales, seminars, and individual coaching. Some of his current affiliations and accomplishments include: Arabian Professional Horseman's Association Saddle Seat Trainer of the Year. Member of IAHA, AHSA, APHA Licensed Judge - AHSA Arabian Division Certified Master Practitioner, NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming)
Horses and riders trained by Ray can account for over 200 Arabian National Champion and Reserve Champion wins, and literally hundreds of National top tens. Of Ray's amateur clients, over 50 percent won either National Champion or Reserve National Champion titles, in the diverse divisions of English Pleasure, Western pleasure, Country English Pleasure, Pleasure Driving, Formal Driving, Halter, in Formal Combination and Park. In 1990, Ray swept the U.S. Arabian National open divisions in English Pleasure, Half Arabian English Pleasure and Arabian Park with three young horses he selected and trained from the ground up: Mafier, Ice On Fire, and Matoi. In 1993, he taught an amateur rider to repeat this accomplishment, winning amateur titles with the same horses in all three divisions.
This beautiful Arena in Scottsdale Arizona, which Ray designed and built, has not seen another implement besides RiataRake. Ray is a referral champion for Riata as he is both highly respected and extremely knowledgeable when it comes to footing. He really is a perfectionist when it comes to footing and he raves about RiataRake.
You can see just how level this arena is in this photo. It is perfect.
This is the synthetic footing - very nice feel, stable "heavy" feel that you get with a nicely conditioned high clay footing, great moisture retentionwithout the compaction issues of clay. It also has some interesting challenges with the way the product clumps and interweaves under the wrong arena drag. RiataRake is designed for synthetic and organic footing.
More close up shots of the synthetic. This one is comprised mostly of recycled carpet felt pad. There are many different types of synthetics but this one is very promising according to Ray.
The Original Logo for Riata Ranch Company Established in 2000
