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Monday 7am - 9pm Tuesday 7am - 9pm Wednesday 7am - 9pm Thursday 7am - 9pm Friday 7am - 9pm Saturday 7am - 5pm Sunday 7am - 6pm

Hillary Carlson, LLC

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United States
Dublin, OH
Hillary Carlson, LLC

Full service equestrian lesson, training board sales & show stables. Full comprehensive summer day
(29)

08/10/2024

💯✅💯✅💯 IEA test done!

08/04/2024

Just a boy with his pony, what a beautiful connection!

Colton Carter Carlson & Ruby Vedura

07/28/2024

Please RSVP and join our IEA team!

07/26/2024

Thank you!

I also would like to sincerely thank Brittany Kiser & Ava for most generous birthday gifts! I’m really looking forward to wearing my new sun shirt & riding breeches & socks!

Natalie Monago for my very fancy designer riding sun shirt to protect me & my Starbucks drink & my ultimate favorite lemon 🍋 cake!

Thank you to Amy Gutierrez & her daughter’s for my birthday basket of custom gifts!

Shaakira Case, thank you for my exquisite Loro Piana shoes.

It really, makes me feel very special, loved and thought of how much you appreciate me.

07/17/2024

Lots of learning today at the horse show!

I am really excited, for new endeavors at our new facility. Emerald Ridge equestrian in plain city! My adult client Natalie & I are attending Brave horse show together.

I am looking forward to getting my adults and junior riders committed to Showing!

07/08/2024

We just started week three of a most successful group of enthusiastic future equestrian for our beginner skills coed camp today! I am happy to announce we have 12 campers this week.

05/26/2024

The making’s of my little man!
No, crisscross applesauce here in this family. All able bodies are contributing at the farm. My five-year-old is working hard. It is never too early to learn to contribute.

Note: the blades were not running, of course, and my brother was supervising!

05/07/2024

🍎IF I EVER TAUGHT OR WORKED WITH YOUR CHILD, OR TAUGHT OR WORKED WITH YOU...

For Teacher Appreciation Week, I would love for former students/parents/colleagues to REPLY to this post and tell me how your child is doing and what your child is doing (school, sports, family, etc..) or how you’re doing! Or feel free to share a funny story or memory from our time together! 😊❤️

(Steal this, teachers! I have seen very cool stuff posted!)🍎😊

05/01/2024

It is official
I have closed on my new fortress of solitude!
Exceptional things to come

04/30/2024

I couldn’t share this, but it came shared by a fellow trainer and friend:
Instead of questioning your trainer why your kid is not excelling as quickly as others in their riding, maybe look at how much your kid practices. If you’re only willing to commit to two lessons a month for example, that’s 2 hours per every 30 days on average. 2 hours out of 720 hours a month. Now let’s look at a year. 24 hours total. On average your kid then practices 1 day out of 365 days per year... let that sink in.

Our sport is much harder than most and takes a lot of practice and skill, but for some reason people do not look at it this way.

For example when I ran track, we practiced minimum 5 days a week for 2 hours a day. I put the sweat and time in to improve. Chorus - practice daily. Cheerleading - daily. Football - daily.

Now, I also understand our sport is expensive. However, I find it imperative that as a parent you look at these numbers... and before you come complaining “my kid isn’t improving fast enough,” truly look at how much she practices. I am good at what I do, but I can’t work miracles.

I constantly get parents comparing their kid to student “X.” However, student X is out at the barn working for extra ride time on anything I will give them and always ready to put in the work. As trainers we always have horses that need to be hacked. “But I want to jump,” I hear so often and the biggest thing is that these riders don’t realize jumping starts with flat work. Come work in exchange for ride time. Drop your stirrups and practice what we do in our lessons. Make yourself stronger and watch how much quicker you excel. All jumping is is flat work with sticks in the way.

I was a barn rat growing up. I worked my butt off just to get on any horse my trainer would let me. The bratty pony needs a schooling? Done. The wild TB needs a hack? Done. The true and seasoned lesson horse needs a light hack! Perfect! I can work on me.

We need to truly change these mindsets in our industry. Let’s be honest with your expectations.

24 hours - 1 day - out of 365 days. Let that sink in.

Now let’s just add once a week lessons. 4 hours a month - 48 hours a year - 2 days out of 365..

PFA

04/16/2024

To be a successful entrepreneur, you have to get use to dealing with a level of stress that would break most people!

03/14/2024

I need this shirt!

03/14/2024

Full Board Isn't Full Service

A friend asked me to write this a while ago..and I have been thinking on it for several months. So here is a go.

Full board Isn't full board. The average boarding farm with anywhere from 5 to 40 boarders is so much work. Just the daily grind of getting up, feeding, haying, checking water takes up a significant amount of time. Stalls, another massive chunk, then repeat pm feed.

Then you want the boarding farm to do blankets ( something I refuse to do. I worked for a QH trainer in the 90s and spent hrs every morning and night reblanketing all the horses under lights ...cured me ) , meds, you want night check. You want their weight and physical appearance monitored through their blankets.

Now all the extras : tackroom swept, aisle perfect, walls hosed down, no rodents, cobwebs , working washrack with drain that never clogs...

Then perfectly manacured fields , mowed, fertilized, weedwacking. Fences repairs etc....

Board or bored...when your horse is in the stall more for inclement weather , you need to get there to exercise it and prevent colic ( motion is lotion for guts and joints ! ). Full board doesnt cover checking every single inch of the horse ( though most of us do take a quick look, i have trained myself to look at all 4 legs both side every day ) for bumps, bruises, shoes with sprung heels , mysterious fungus that appears on its flank. Owners need to be present, take responsibility for their own horse, make coming out to groom that retired horse on a schedule....and always always be accessible for emergencies.

When you see something needs done, just do it instead of complaining about it. We have all seen the posts about the costs of boarding and basically, if you are paying less than $1000/ month, someone is subsidizing your board. So pick up a rake, a broom, be present. Run a hose, scrub the tub. Triple check your horse. Check on the horse whose owner is ill ( with their permission ) . Leave things better than they were.
Many barns have a person or 2 that randomly helps with some stalls....I guarantee you the barn owner appreciates that person. I used to have a students father who would clean many stalls while his daughter rode. I know I'll never forget him.

Holidays....most barns have 1 of 2 ways of thinking. 1. Don't come out at all. 2. If you do come out, plan to help with feeding, haying, watering turnout and stalls. I can speak from personal experience...I havent had a holiday off since pre 2001 except for 1 Christmas, an exceptional student did all the work as my gift. I'll never forget that act of kindness. Nurses get double time for major holidays ( and still get to take off a day for Christmas , heck even the local convenience store pays double or time and half on major holidays) , barn owners get nothing, most of the time not even a thank you... I recall a colleague who boarded horses ( and of course taught lessons, trained horses, sold horses and ran shows because boarding doesnt pay the bills ) saying one day she realized her life was like the movie Ground Hog Day....and that she has done the same thing every morning every night for decades. Her farm went up for sale and she now boards her own horses.

Education. Do you know what horses diseases are, understand deworming, know what ailments to watch out for. When should the vet be called ? Can you wrap legs properly, handle an abscess, recognize fungus, spot a colic ? If not, pick up a book, watch some videos. Horse ownership means you love horses and you want to know everything about them.

Anyway...full care isn't day care you drop your "kid " off too and never pick them up from again. Be present. Your horse will appreciate the attention and the barn owner will feel relief that you are watching out for your horse.

3/27/23 update. 212,000 views. 1400 shares. And I have gotten a few nasty comments. I cannot understand the nastiness . Bringing awareness is a good thing. If it doesnt apply to you , then move on. Every barn has boundaries. Apparently some people are mad that I wont do blankets...not sure why, as none of them board with me ! Boundaries are made out of clarity and self respect. Every barn , I hope , has rules and boundaries ! Best wishes to all . Horses are my first and longest love.

( This post was made to bring awareness. At least in my area, boarding barns are becoming fewer to non existent. If we want them to stay, we must change . I have seen mostly positivity come from this...i particularly loved the person who shared it and wrote " I go a bit the other way . I try to help in some way every day that I am at the barn "
I , of course, want all the horses in my care to have good, healthy lives too. I would like to think we all do. )

02/02/2024

First day out using the old Groundhog after its repair‘s!

01/11/2024

Everyone is tucked in for the night and has been inside since yesterday morning! 🥶💦🥶
Winter is going to be here for the long-haul

12/14/2023

What a breathtaking day we had today!
I am busy being productive and fitting in every last moment of daylight currently in the outdoor arena teaching.

12/11/2023

Cost of Cancellation

I was chatting with a friend recently and the question of how my week was going came up. He caught me on a particularly frustrating day, and I said as much. He asked why I was frustrated, and I told him that I had 4 cancellations that day, all last minute. I vented for a few minutes about non-payment, not being able to fill the gap and so on. He said he completely understood because he never understood why his wife (who is a massage therapist) would drive an hour for one appointment when the other two had cancelled. Why not reschedule, save the drive time, the trip cost, etc? Then he asked me if I’d ever looked into the cost of cancellation for my business. Honestly, I gave him a deer in the headlights look and said, no, I’d never thought about it.

So, I started thinking about it. I decided to figure out how many cancellations I had throughout this year since January. Of course, there are absolutely valid reasons why a lesson or training ride would get cancelled in the horse industry. And many last-minute reasons, such as missing a shoe, weather, the horse is lame, the truck won’t start, the trailer has a flat, I could go on and on. Regardless of reason, I tallied the raw number of lessons or training rides that ended up cancelled and how much that cost me.

Let me preface these numbers with a few things. I teach and train a lot. This is my work and how I make my living to support my family and facility. I worked a 40-hour week in corporate for 16 years, so I model my weekly schedule around a 40 lesson or training ride goal. I hustle, which is what you must do when self-employed to survive. While talking to my friend, he asked me to guess how many cancellations I had and after thinking a minute, I came up with an average of 2 per week. That’s 104 lessons in a year, which is a lot. What I ended up finding out is, to me, a staggering number. Through November, I had 216 cancellations in my regular weekly schedule not including clinics. That’s an average of 4.5 a week!

Now that I had a number, I did the math to find out the financial implications. The cost of cancellation for those 216 lessons was over $15,000 for the first 11 months of this year. Of course, this is the raw cost. Considering I was able to reschedule some and there are a few clients who pay for their slot when they cancel, I feel confident reducing the impact by about 20%. That’s still about $12,000, which is roughly $1100 per month, an amount that can make a huge impact.

People often complain about cancellation fees. I know I see more and more policies and fees for cancellations in less than 24-48 hours. Having looked into the cost of cancellation in my business, I now understand those policies a bit better. It’s not just the individual cancellation that creates the loss of income, it’s the aggregate of all the cancellations. Sure, life happens, things out of your control force you to cancel, but you booked a professional’s time in whatever industry and the likelihood of that time being converted to useful, income producing work is slim when the notice is short. Yes, I know, you didn’t get to have the service you booked, but honestly, that’s not the professional’s fault. Keep in mind that while we are providing a service, and in some cases one that we love doing, we are still doing this to make a viable living. Consider that when you cancel and, unless that professional has a cancellation policy which you should abide by, offer to pay for the time that you booked. It’s the only way we can keep the people we love doing business with (especially the smaller businesses) in business.

11/09/2023

Look, who’s ready to horse show this weekend!

IEA middle school student Alexis on almost 30year old international show jumper extraordinaire. Acordiano!

10/25/2023

Having a fun night with our amazing horses & ponies with candy & treats galore!!!

Happy Halloween!

10/18/2023

Enroll now for Thanksgiving equestrian camp!
A action packed fun filled day at the stables.
To be held Wednesday, November 22nd
8:30am-1pm.

10/17/2023

Stables Halloween party/wear your costume and trick-or-treat at each stall.
Treats will be provided. All Students are welcome
October 25th 4:30-6:30

06/30/2023

IEA student Brennan Rickard practicing hard this week at IEA team camp. Keep up the hard work your second show year is going to be great!

06/29/2023

IEA returning student Alexis Wilhelm crushing it today on our schoolmaster 💎 diamond 💎. She will be showing walk, trot canter and moving up to cross rails this third year. I am excited for the upcoming season!
we are working incredibly hard this summer putting in the hard work!

06/26/2023

Excellent, first day of IEA camp. We couldn’t have a more enthusiastic group of students some are continuing from our two previous years and several are new to the IEA team. 11 in total. A very special shout out to long time professional friend Kara Zarr she will be helping Macy and I three days this week with the team.

06/26/2023

Ava Kyser, IEA middle school team rider. Practicing on our schoolmaster 💎 diamond💎

06/26/2023

IEA student Ava Kyser practicing on our schoolmaster 💎Diamond💎 looking forward to a great season ahead. Ava, I am excited to continue to develop you into the rider that your becoming. Your dedication and perseverance is going to come to fruition this season!

06/25/2023

I see a lot of posts from trainers upset about students complaining about their lesson horses, refusing to ride certain lesson horses, or always wanting the same lesson horse every lesson. Here's how we handle it, and what we tell parents and students alike.

1. You don't get a perfect lesson horse. Ours are pretty special, but they all have SOMETHING that students have to deal with. One is weak on a right lead canter; one is heavy in the bridle; one is not always straight; one is best used to walk/trot. If you want a perfect horse, we encourage you to purchase one...for waaaay more than you want to pay.

2. You don't get to pick which horse you ride. I realize that everyone has favorites (heck, we have favorite students) but you take what you get, based on your day/time of lesson and what horses are available then. You have NO IDEA how hard we work on the lesson horse schedule, with 4 instructors tweaking, making deals, trading off, and compromising to get it done. That's why we only re-do our lesson horse schedule 3 times a year...fall semester, spring semester, and summer. Riding different horses is good for you.

3. You don't get to complain. We will let you know if the mistake you just made was your fault, or the horse's fault, or some combination of both. Then, you take that knowledge, fix the mistake, learn something, and next time your lesson horse might just be a teeny bit better when you ask him that question, because you helped him find the answer once.

4. Sometimes people fall off. We are pretty lucky (and conservative), so we rarely have falls...but we DO have them. Occasionally it's the horse's fault (inherently dangerous domestic animal activity and all that), but usually it's the rider's fault. We learn through failure as well as success. Our lesson horses are only allowed to jump 2', so your fall isn't going to be very dramatic (although your reaction might be)...but it's not the fall that's the problem, it's how you land. So, be prepared for occasional failure that's not your horses' fault.

5. Our lesson horses are the foundation of our teaching program and we will always put their welfare first. If, occasionally, your assigned horse is out of commission (for some soreness, or a rest, or recovery from a veterinary procedure undertaken for their comfort and well-being) you may find yourself taking an unmounted lesson. If you're smart, you'll be glad of the opportunity to learn something new and take advantage of the situation.

05/25/2023

Student⭐️ superstar ⭐️IEA
Alexis Wilhelm, Jumping 💎Diamond 💎

Working very hard on moving up to the cross rail IEA division this fall.

05/25/2023

I am a very proud coach. Ava Kyser, working very hard to move up in her jumping skills with me yesterday evening on our former show jumping super star ⭐️
Accordiano.

Address

3910 Summit View Road W
Dublin, OH
43016

Opening Hours

Monday	7am - 9pm
Tuesday	7am - 9pm
Wednesday	7am - 9pm
Thursday	7am - 9pm
Friday	7am - 9pm
Saturday	7am - 5pm
Sunday	7am - 6pm

Website

http://www.hillarycarlsonllc.com/

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Videos

We just started week three of a most successful group of enthusiastic future equestrian for our beginner skills coed camp today! I am happy to announce we have 12 campers this week.

The making’s of my little man! No, crisscross applesauce here in this family. All able bodies are contributing at the farm. My five-year-old is working hard. It is never too early to learn to contribute. Note: the blades were not running, of course, and my brother was supervising!

#Emerald Ridge equestrian! #hunterjumperstyle #welshponies #jumpers #equestrianlife #rideiea #equestrianlife

First day out using the old Groundhog after its repair‘s!

Look, who’s ready to horse show this weekend! IEA middle school student Alexis on almost 30year old international show jumper extraordinaire. Acordiano!

#horsehalloweenparty

IEA student Brennan Rickard practicing hard this week at IEA team camp. Keep up the hard work your second show year is going to be great!

IEA returning student Alexis Wilhelm crushing it today on our schoolmaster 💎 diamond 💎. She will be showing walk, trot canter and moving up to cross rails this third year. I am excited for the upcoming season! we are working incredibly hard this summer putting in the hard work!

Ava Kyser, IEA middle school team rider. Practicing on our schoolmaster 💎 diamond💎

Student⭐️ superstar ⭐️IEA Alexis Wilhelm, Jumping 💎Diamond 💎 Working very hard on moving up to the cross rail IEA division this fall. #goals

I am a very proud coach. Ava Kyser, working very hard to move up in her jumping skills with me yesterday evening on our former show jumping super star ⭐️ Accordiano.

Family farm work day! All hands on deck.

Colton Carter Carlson, wanted to share with you his winning moment from his first NEST leadline! #teamcarlson #winning #coltoncarter #equestrianlife #welshpony #hunterpony