Vanderranch

03/24/2025

All rates include our $350.00 GST Boarding Fee ✨
We have a VERY LIMITED SPOTS LEFT for 2025!

03/24/2025

Now Booking Clinics for 2025 ✨

03/24/2025

Please contact for additional information!
Questions or bookings!

⭐️ LIMITED Bookings: June - October 2025 ⭐️

03/24/2025

A busy weekend in “Barrel Racer Land” ✨

Victoria jump jocky’d “Lazy Corona” one of our 2025 Sale Horses the ranch is offering. And made some solid runs this weekend at Spring Thaw Barrels for Buckles on Friday, and Spring Thaw Showdown Barrels on Saturday in Ponoka. What a a cool horse!
Someone is going to absolutely adore this one, Open or handy Youth suitable! He’s 🤟🏻

Sunday was just as busy with unpacking from the weekend, and client bookings & sale viewings Sunday. That being said, TODAY: Monday March 24th, 2025 we are playing “Catch Up” so will be “CLOSED” today to catch up from the weekend away and start on this weeks Client Updates!

Lessons are FULLY BOOKED this week, we unfortunately have no more available until the first week of April! If you have PRE BOOKED with us via last week; you’re on the schedule for this week so not to worry! 🥰

We are away competing Wednesday and Monday this week. We have a BUSY weekend with March Clients set to start heading HOME and April clients starting to trickle in! If you’re planning to do so and haven’t touched base with us yet, SUNDAY is your day!

Clients expect updates throughout and towards the end of the week on horses!

HAPPY MONDAY! 🙌🏻

03/24/2025

Our amazing custom show shirts, slinkies, mane and tail bags just to name a FEW items all come from Threads By Grace! 🙌🏻✨

03/21/2025

WE ARE CLOSED this weekend as our 2025 season Opens up you have some great options this weekend if you’re looking to watch some HIGH ACTION events!

Spring Thaw Ponoka -
Barrels for Buckles
Spring Thaw Showdown Barrels
Spring Thaw Roping
CPRA West of the 5th RODEO Rimbey
Just to name a few!

We have some bookings and viewings late Sunday - beyond that we are booked solid this weekend and will BE AWAY. Enjoy your weekend everyone, and we’ll chat Monday!

03/18/2025

Hey!? That cowgirl looks familiar!?

✨2K Giveaway✨
Tag a friend in the comments and make sure you follow us !
Three ways to win!
Once we reach 2000 followers on Facebook and instagram we will draw for two $100 gift cards drawn from entries off each platform.
Head over to our TikTok k.s_wildrags for our 3rd giveaway and to enter for another $100 gift card

03/17/2025

This week at a glance 📲

Lessons:
Tuesday fully BOOKED
Wednesday fully BOOKED
Thursday fully BOOKED

Wednesday: Ponoka, Calnash’s Open Barrel Practice
TRAILER FULL
Friday: Ponoka, Barrels for Buckles
Saturday: Ponoka, Spring Thaw & Showdown Round
Friday/Satruday: CPRA Rimbey 2 Perfs 1 Slack T/O

We will be away this weekend, we will try to fit in a few clients as/if needed Sunday March 23rd (Afternoon) once we are home.

CLIENTS:
We are halfway through the month, if you have outstanding payments for Hay, Board, Hauling, Training, Consignment etc etc, please try and square up with us or shoot me a message to workout payments. Our Hay supplier is SO patient and shouldn’t have to be. Hay is ordered PER horse booked each month, and orders are picked up according to head count each week.

We are doing a:
• Energy Equine
• Coulee Equine
• Irvines
• Hashbrowns
Maybe Greenhawk run this week/weekend if anyone needs anything - shoot us your order & etransfer + GST for items 🙂

Happy Monday,
Happy St. Patrick’s Day ☘️

03/17/2025

We said goodbye to one of the sweetest clients of the new year so far in for halter breaking all the way from Edson area yesterday. This little lady is going to be one super cool horse someday! 🤟🏻✨

03/14/2025

How cool is our little mare Royal Smoke !?💨

03/14/2025

Years of experience aren’t all built the same.

A lot of horse people put far too much stock in the number of years that someone has been around horses, believing that quantity equates to quality.

“I’ve been around horses longer than you’ve been alive” — so commonly used to discount the perspectives of younger generations.

Years spent around horses only hold value when the person is teachable and open to growing and learning.

When they’re open to considering new perspectives and admitting to potentially making mistakes and owning that they may have gone wrong.

For the first ~10+ years I spent around horses, I wasn’t actively learning in the way I am now.

I was taught to dominate horses and be rough with them and was very resistant to the findings of behavioural science initially because of this, since studies challenged the ethics of what I was taught to believe.

This stubbornness stunted my growth for a long time because I wasn’t as receptive to new information, particularly when it challenged my current belief systems.

When I did become more open to new perspectives, the rate at which I was able to learn increased exponentially.

I’ve learned more in the last 5 years than I had in the two decades prior to that, simply because of how my perspective towards learning shifted.

Regardless of age, the best horse people you will find are the ones who are committed to a perpetual learning journey.

The ones, who no matter how old they are, or how long they’ve been around horses, recognize that they are forever a student of the horse.

As soon as someone maintains the perspective that because they’ve been around horses X amount of years, they automatically know everything and that the opinion of anyone with less years experience holds no value, they’ve exposed that they’re refusing learning.

That they aren’t open to new perspectives.

That they’ve made the choice to stunt their growth.

There are a lot of insightful commentaries that come out of people who are “green” around horses or even people who haven’t handled horses at all.

I’ve met non-horse people who are more perceptive towards horse behaviour than lifelong horse people because they’re not fighting years of bias and conditioning that has caused them to misread horse behaviour.

You can learn something from anyone.

The idea that there’s nothing of value to take from people who haven’t spent as many years around horses than you have is an egotistical perspective that only serves to damage our capacity to learn.

Ego has no place around horses and egocentric behaviour in horses is at the core of a lot of mistreatment towards horses.

I can only imagine how much further I would be in my learning journey now if I had been as open to learning new things the whole way along.

My 25+ years with horses would’ve held way more value if I hadn’t been closed off to information that challenged me and made me uncomfortable for so long.

Our years of experience are only as good as our willingness to learn and admit when we’re wrong.

- Shared from Milestone Equestrian

03/14/2025

Spring is … here!?

We now have 3 SPOTS OPEN for Barrel Horse Spring Training or Conditioning FOR April 2025 and are booking into May & June 2025!

How you ask!?
Well we’ve decided to fill some Consignment Horse Slots normally left open with Barrel Program Horses instead to start off the season!

This program was designed with your Performance Horse in mind. Individually tailored training, conditioning and nutritional programs built for your horse by us to ensure optimal health and safety whilst also hitting crucial deadlines for both horse and owner within the timeline parameters given.

This program accepts Barrel Horses at all stages of their career, from futurity or derby hopefuls to seasoned horses coming back into competition. Problem solving, well as behavioural correction, seasoning, foundational fundamentals and starting horses on the pattern. Just to name a few!

Our performance horse programs have proven to be successful year after year, with return clients graciously coming back season after season. We heavily discuss wants and needs with owners to try and ensure we are meeting if not exceeding your hopes and goals set for your horse(s). Including weekly updates. We also highly recommend coming out throughout your horses booked to time with us, for client sessions and coaching to stay on track with your horse thus ensuring we can then edit or add where or if needed during their stay what works best for you both as a team.

This program consists of performance horse handling, training, nutrition and fitness management. With incredible businesses and individuals at our disposal from Chiropractic to Body Work, Knowledgable Farriers and top Equine Rehabilitation and Veterinary Services.

With a multitude of references and refferals over the last 15 years, we take pride in knowing we’ve become a well known and respected member of the Canadian and Albertan Equine Community.

Please contact us with any questions you may have about our Barrel Horse Program or to book your horse(s) in for this program!

03/11/2025

Here’s a cute little “@$$” to make your Tuesday a little sweeter 💝

If you’ve met “Burro” here at the ranch you know he enjoys drifting around the property in and out of pens and fields or up to the ranch house (if he so fits under that particular fence) to visit clients and boarders alike. But, most days you’ll catch him with his tiny human caretakers.

03/11/2025

So many accidents and injuries in the horse world could be avoided if riders were handling horses from a more behaviour informed lens.

There is this narrative that’s being pushed that is self disabling, where people claim that dangerous situations cannot be avoided because horses are simply “unpredictable.”

Meanwhile, these same people reject the concept of trigger stacking and argue with anyone who points out the stressors that can lead up to explosive reactions in horses.

If we don’t want to think deeper about how we can avoid dangerous situations and reduce reactivity in horses, then what are we doing?

People justify use of harsh training methods like hitting horses for punishment, using aggressive bits and training gadgets under the guise of “safety.”

But, in the same vein, they mock anyone who brings up behaviour informed concepts like trigger stacking, species appropriate care and avoiding use of behavioural suppressants like punishment.

Harsh bits, training gadgets and hitting horses to “correct” unwanted behaviour are not proven to increase safety.

Punishment is actually linked to an increase in reactivity and aggression across numerous species, including horses.

Harsh bits and coercive training methods are linked to higher instances of stress.

Stress is linked to more explosive and unpredictable behaviour in horses.

Avoiding trigger stacking and being mindful of what triggers our horses is an informed approach that works to reduce stress threshold and thereby avoid pushing horses so over threshold that they react dangerously.

It is proven to work.

On the flip side, the majority of what our mainstream horse industry claims is for “safety” is based off of anecdotes that are easily disproven just by watching what’s going on.

If bits were single-handedly keeping people safer, we wouldn’t be seeing so many accidents at all riding levels.

If hitting horses as the primary form of correction was the most successful means of reducing dangerous behavior, that would be shown in studies.

It would also be shown in practice, but it’s not.

A lot of the trainers who most loudly promote physical punishment as a form of correction are also the very same trainers who are posting the most evidence of horses reacting dangerously in their program.

The horse industry has a way of gaslighting people into believing that methods that actually are resulting in a lack of safety are the ones that are protecting safety.

And in doing so, we create a self perpetuating cycle that will never stop until we address the factors that are causing safety issues.

Stressed horses are dangerous horses.

But, instead of having a big discussion about what is promoting stress in horses, the most, and how we can start to fix it and model competition in a more horse-friendly way, our industry continues to promote attitudes that keep us stuck.

If we address the stress that we see in the average horse, whether they are a pleasure horse or a competition, it is a means of harm reduction for the horse and also ensuring further safety for the human.

Everything that makes horses dangerous is related to their flight response.

When they are frightened, they act unpredictably and they are large animals so naturally, this will be dangerous.

When they are chronically anxious and stressed, it does not take very much to set them off because they are so triggered stacked.

And then this leads to a chain of events that can make for a horse who has a very explosive “personality,” or, at least what people interpret as a personality when really it is the inevitable result of unmet needs.

Simply just by providing species-appropriate care and learning how to read Horse behaviour from an unbiased, fact-based perspective, we can improve the safety of both horses and humans astronomically.

- shared from Milestone Equestrian

03/11/2025

This Snowman ⛄️ Tail Bag from our Barrel Racing Sponsorship Threads By Grace seemed appropriate for the current weather we’re experiencing today! If you’d like your own or another cool design use VICTORIA10 saves you 10% at checkout 💝