Jeremy Dingy, Trainer

Training and Teaching

Jeremy Dingy heads the training program and has been riding for over 20 years with experience in both jumping and dressage. He grew up riding and starting many thoroughbreds at Debbie Chidsey’s Stone Well Farm in Genoa, NY. After a working student position with international event rider and hunter/jumper trainer Marcia Kulak he attended Syracuse University and now works as an architectural designer. Bull Hill Farm and it’s breeding program has provided the opportunity for him simultaneously continue his riding, training and teaching.

Bull Hill Farm will create a custom training program for your current horse or any horse purchased from us. Only horses in a training program can be boarded at the farm. Private lessons are also available to those wishing to trailer in.

Regardless of a horse’s chosen career, we strongly believe in cross training and building a strong foundation with flatwork. The farm encourages you to contact Jeremy directly to further discuss what we can offer you.

Meet some other members of the Bull Hill family

Cricket – Jeremy adopted Cricket just prior to moving to the farm. Her friendly and energetic personality is one of the first to greet newcomers. Most days she is the first to rise and last to sleep!

Monty – Jeremy also adopted Monty in 2004. He is now the privileged cat who resides in the farm apartment and you’ll frequently find him lounging in the windows overlooking the indoor ring. If you take a break in the farm lounge he is likely to be meowing at your feet.

Boarding

Boarding is only available for those enrolled in a lesson or training program.

Bull Hill Farm

Bull Hill Farm is in its eleventh year of operation as importers and breeders of Irish Draughts, but the farm has been in Paul Ferenchak’s family since 1978. The farm was built in the 1800's and has since been updated while maintaining it’s historic integrity.

Bull Hill Farm’s facility includes 24 stalls, 2 foaling stalls, a large indoor and spacious outdoor arenas. The farm sits on 50 acres of rolling, organic pasture for rotational grazing.

We are set in the country, but conveniently located just off Route 81. Bull Hill Farm is only 15 minutes from downtown Syracuse and 20 minutes from Handcock International Airport. The preservation and development of the purebred Irish Draught is one of our major interests and commitments.

The History of Bull Hill Farm

as told by Paul Ferenchak, owner

The land was surveyed in 1790 and privately obtained in the Purchase of 1817 from the Onondaga Nation. The area was called East Hill, or Reservation Hill. Squatters occupied the hill for some time before the purchase, but the first deeded owner was Jerome Cook, and the House was built around 1820-25. The only other farm on the road was the Shute farm on the North East corner of Kennedy and Bull Hill Rd.

Jim Bull, son of Henry Bull from McCleary Rd obtained the property about 1850, and the Road became his namesake. Jim Bull's second wife of four was Amanda Lavina Miller of Lafayette. Their only child was Phoebe Amanda Bull who married Johnson Edgar Morton who had a home on Lafayette Road. They moved to the Bull Hill property and had eight children, the sixth of whom was Jewel Bertrand Morton. He was a patient and friend of mine. I bought the farm in 1976 from the Morton estate, several years after Jewel had gone to live with family in Nedrow.

I undertook the restoration of the farmhouse and barn, keeping original woodwork, hardware and basic structure where possible. I was able to salvage the barn by cabling it together and replacing the rotted portions of the two tie beams and replacing the rafters, ceiling and floor joists on that side. There were old carriage and wagon parts in the barn, in an old chicken coop and in various piles on the property, which I sorted and salvaged for used at a later undetermined time.

While I had just several beef cattle and only a few horses, I kept the stanchion stalls facing north. It had a very convenient manure door that made the stall cleaning easy. Later, I converted the stanchions to box stalls and used old hardware salvaged from the Baker Barn and others. The barn was very close to the house so I decided to move it down the hill and attach it to another post and beam barn that I had obtained from a property in Eagle Village. I also added a cellar to the 1820 barn where there had just been a crawlspace. The original stone foundation still remains adjacent to the house and encloses an in-ground pool.

My family has always raised animals. We started in 1977 with polled Herefords and added goats sheep, pigs and various fowl, and a year or two later, horses and ponies. We cleared all the land, which had overgrown with thorn apple, choke cherry, and multiflora rose. We reseeded the hay lots and pastures, replaced fencing, repaired stonewalls, and improved the woodlot by selective harvesting. The property has never seen artificial fertilizer nor herbicides and we fully intend to keep the farm that way.

I became acquainted with Irish Draughts when during a trip to Ireland. I had been obsessed with horses since childhood and had at least one most of my adult life. After returning home I imported our first mare, Crosstown Calleigh, by Crosstown Dancer, and she is still part of our breeding stock today. I now raise these rare but increasingly popular Irish Draughts and Irish Sport Horses.