Rafter 7C Ranch

Rafter 7C Ranch Rafter 7C is a Christ-centered family owned and operated riding lesson operation.

Our primary focus is to develop quality horsemanship skills in riders and to connect those riders to a lifelong future of learning with horses.

This is Psalm 23 in real life! Let your soul soak up some Jesus today!
03/21/2025

This is Psalm 23 in real life! Let your soul soak up some Jesus today!

03/21/2025

Anyone need a smile today? Love following this little girl and her pony. Reminds me of some of our precious riders. Love our littles!

A day late, but we sure loved our young Shamrocks yesterday! ☘️
03/18/2025

A day late, but we sure loved our young Shamrocks yesterday! ☘️

The joy these kids bring through both hard work and hard play is a great motivation to all of us adults! It’s a beautifu...
03/17/2025

The joy these kids bring through both hard work and hard play is a great motivation to all of us adults! It’s a beautiful day! Enjoy the blessings God has given us!

So thankful for our riders who enjoy learning the care and management side of horses just as much as the riding side!
03/17/2025

So thankful for our riders who enjoy learning the care and management side of horses just as much as the riding side!

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐃𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐡 𝐨𝐟 𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐞 𝐌𝐚𝐧𝐚𝐠𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭

Once upon a time, in a land before TikTok tutorials and matchy-matchy saddle pads, horse people actually knew how to take care of horses. Shocking, I know. Kids like me didn’t just rock up to the yard, hop on, and swan off afterward like some equestrian diva. No, we earned our time in the saddle mucking out stables that smelled like something out of a horror movie, filling haynets that somehow managed to tangle themselves around our legs, and lugging water buckets that felt heavier than our actual bodies.

And Friday nights? That was Pony Club night in Ireland, an unmissable ritual. First, the riding lesson, where we pushed ourselves to perfect our position or attempted (and often failed) to keep our ponies from launching us into orbit over a cross-pole. Then, the real fun stable management. If you thought you were leaving without knowing how to spot colic, wrap a bandage properly, or pick out hooves without losing a finger, you were sorely mistaken.

But now? Stable management is disappearing faster than your horse’s dignity when it spots a plastic bag.

𝐅𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐌𝐮𝐜𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐎𝐮𝐭 𝐭𝐨 𝐌𝐢𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐎𝐮𝐭

These days, many young riders don’t spend hours at the yard learning the ins and outs of horse care. They arrive, their pony is miraculously tacked up and ready, they ride for an hour, and off they go probably to post a reel of their perfect canter transition. And look, I get it. Times have changed. Insurance policies have made it harder for kids to hang around stables, and busy modern life means people want things quick and easy.

But here’s the problem: a horse isn’t an Instagram prop. 𝙄𝙩’𝙨 𝙖 1,000-𝙥𝙤𝙪𝙣𝙙 𝙛𝙡𝙞𝙜𝙝𝙩 𝙖𝙣𝙞𝙢𝙖𝙡 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙙𝙚𝙥𝙚𝙣𝙙𝙨 𝙤𝙣 𝙞𝙩𝙨 𝙤𝙬𝙣𝙚𝙧 𝙩𝙤 𝙠𝙣𝙤𝙬 𝙢𝙤𝙧𝙚 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙣 𝙟𝙪𝙨𝙩 𝙝𝙤𝙬 𝙩𝙤 𝙨𝙞𝙩 𝙥𝙧𝙚𝙩𝙩𝙮 𝙞𝙣 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙨𝙖𝙙𝙙𝙡𝙚. And without that old-school, hands-on education, we’re seeing the consequences. Horses suffering from preventable colic, riders unable to recognize when their tack doesn’t fit, people feeding their cob the same as a Thoroughbred and wondering why it’s suddenly the size of a small elephant.

And the worst part? People are accepting standards of care that would have been unheard of years ago.

I hear owners justifying no turnout like it’s normal. “Oh, my yard doesn’t turn out in winter.” “My horse copes fine without it.” No, they don’t. Horses are designed to move. Keeping them in a box 24/7, walking them for 20 minutes on a horse walker, and thinking that’s a substitute for actual turnout? That’s not horsemanship, it’s convenience. And it’s a ticking time bomb for their physical and mental health.

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐁𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐝 𝐋𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐁𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐝

It’s not just kids, either. There is now an entire generation of adult horse owners who don’t actually know how to look after their horses properly. People who have spent years on riding school horses, never mucked out a stable, never bandaged a leg, never had to nurse a horse through an illness, suddenly finding themselves with their first horse and no idea what they’re doing. And instead of admitting they need help, many of them turn to social media (sometimes it’s ok, but not posts like is this colic?) for advice rather than a vet, a farrier, or an experienced horse person.

It’s terrifying. These are the same people who will argue in Facebook groups about whether their horse is “just lazy” instead of recognizing pain, who think a horse standing in a stable 24/7 is fine because ‘he doesn’t seem unhappy’, and who will spend more on a glittery saddle pad than on a proper equine dentist. Owning a horse should come with more than just a financial commitment, it should come with a commitment to education. But right now, there are too many owners who simply don’t know what they don’t know.

𝐁𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐁𝐚𝐜𝐤 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐁𝐚𝐬𝐢𝐜𝐬, 𝐀𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐁𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐬

So, what’s the solution? We need to bring back the grit. Pony Clubs, riding schools, livery yards everyone needs to make stable management a non-negotiable part of equestrian life again. Not a boring add-on. Not an optional extra. An essential, just like knowing which end of the horse kicks.

And for those of us who lived through the ‘earn your saddle time’ era? It’s on us to pass that knowledge down. Teach the young ones how to tell the difference between a horse that’s playing up and a horse and a horse that’s in pain. Show them that grooming is not just a way to make your horse shiny for pictures it’s how you check for cuts, lumps, or signs of discomfort. Explain why turnout isn’t a luxury, it’s a necessity.

𝐀 𝐋𝐢𝐭𝐭𝐥𝐞 𝐓𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡 𝐋𝐨𝐯𝐞

I miss those Friday nights at Pony Club. The smell of damp hay, the constant background noise of ponies trying to eat things they shouldn’t, the feeling of pride when you finally got your plaits neat enough that your instructor didn’t sigh in disappointment.

We need to bring that back, not just for nostalgia’s sake, but for the horses. Because if we don’t, we’re going to end up with a generation of riders who can execute a perfect flying change but don’t know what to do when their horse colics at 2 a.m. And that? That’s the kind of horror story no equestrian wants to live through.

Sunny and the farmer spec gate 😂

We all need a little Jesus! He’s popping up all over the barn at the ranch!
03/14/2025

We all need a little Jesus! He’s popping up all over the barn at the ranch!

03/13/2025

I am so incredibly thankful for this young lady who took time to have fun with her horse the other day! Katie Cruise is as amazing as they come and puts her heart into everything she does. I am especially thankful for her today as she offered to teach lessons for me while I recover from a lost voice. It is truly amazing when you can turn your students over to your daughter and trust that she will do an amazing job and make you proud.

It’s not often we get this man behind a camera, but we are so incredibly thankful for Robert Cruise and his heart for se...
03/08/2025

It’s not often we get this man behind a camera, but we are so incredibly thankful for Robert Cruise and his heart for serving and helping others. Without his constant encouragement, hard work, and desire to do everything needed to keep this ranch running, we would definitely have a hard time fulfilling the ministry God has blessed our family with. God did this!

This hits me today! Go for the dreams!
03/08/2025

This hits me today! Go for the dreams!

Don't talk yourself out of your dreams.

The good things take time.
03/07/2025

The good things take time.

The value of time... one thing that I found to be really important is to "take time to do what's right for the horse". It takes time to ride them consistently and time to train them for long term success. It also takes focus. It takes quiet time to think about how they learn and interpret training, and it takes time to let that soak in. How you spend your TIME MATTERS, and usually speaks volumes of a program. –af

Love our Tennessee Stock Horse Association show family!
03/05/2025

Love our Tennessee Stock Horse Association show family!

The Tennessee Stock Horse Association (TNSHA) was founded in 2012 and began by putting on clinics and shows in the Middle Tennessee area. Beginning in 2025 T...

03/05/2025

We have been having difficulty with our group text service lately. Following are a few updates until we get things straightened out.
🐴 Riding lessons are still planned for Wednesday morning. If we do need to cancel, we will text you directly.
🐴 Due to some scheduling conflicts, we will postpone the Bible Barn Day for this month to April.
🐴 Stay tuned for updates on group updates. In the meantime, feel free to message our FB page or text us for whatever we can help you with.

03/05/2025

With the high winds today, sand was making it difficult to ride and see at the same time. We took advantage of the opportunity to imagine that we were blind riders and had to listen to our teammates to tell us where to go. It was quite a challenge in feeling our horses, maintaining balance, listening through the wind, and being patient. We had a great time and learned a lot about what we take for granted when riding and how truly patient horses are for us.

Yesterday we were blessed to have youth from the Tennessee Stock Horse Association join us for our “Spur You On” youth c...
03/02/2025

Yesterday we were blessed to have youth from the Tennessee Stock Horse Association join us for our “Spur You On” youth clinic at the ranch. We worked cows in the arena and in the open field, learned how to sort cattle in the barn, and practiced on new and challenging trail obstacles.

Our focus was Hebrews 10:24 which challenged us to spur each other on to good works. In every area, the youth were challenged to be aware of how they were spurring their horses on, if they needed to adapt, if they needed to listen to outside help, and if they themselves needed to be spurred on.

We wrapped up with a Bible study session on the trail (some of the horses had never been outside of an arena before with these riders) and focused on how Jesus spurred his disciples on with the great commission in Matthew 28.

Our prayer is that during this show year, each of these youth will go forward and challenge each other, themselves, and those they come in contact with to be more like Jesus, to be willing to be spurred on to the good works God has planned for us. What a blessing it all was!

Special thanks to
🐴 Crossing Creeks Farm for delicious home-raised ground beef for our meals
🐴 Leslie Robertson for all of the cooking to feed our hungry bunch
🐴 Robert Cruise, Katie Cruise, Alana Cruise, and Jacob Pulaski for keeping the cattle organized
🐴 Katie White and Jordan Dillenbeck for sharing your students with us
🐴 Answered prayers for safety, growth, and an amazing weekend. GOD DID THIS!

Address

80867 US Highway 231
Blountsville, AL
35031

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